Adding seats

Well I know I've been too busy when I can't get to something I enjoy like messing in boats. Tomorrow Spring starts!

Back to the drawing board (or computer). This time adding seats. I've got two options, build seats as part of watertight bulkheads or if that's too heavy-one with simple seats and canoe floating bags. I'll use freeship to do most of the estimate. I prefer the watertight bulkheads because it's safer because it adds flotation abeam which makes is inherently more stable than float bags or compartments at the end of the boat.  It also serves as storage for dry cloths after recovering the boat.

Most of the advise I see online from Woodenboat (http://www.woodenboatpeople.com) about seats say they need to be at least 7 inches off the floor and about 6 inches below the oarlocks. I've got 14 inch mid ship height, so I'm going to go with 8 inch seats (from baseline). The aft seat will be for my wife, not for rowing so I'll make it the same height so oars can lay flat for short periods. The bow seat shear hieght will be about 16 or 17 inches, so I'm going to make that one 9.5 inches from the baseline. Using the dialog box I chose not to show all the layers (e.g., bottom, sides etc) but leave the control lines so I could continue to see the hull as I placed the seats. Below is the perspective and plan view. Note, I haven't trimmed off the excess where it intercepts the hull. I'll do that next time.

In freeships the easiest way to make seat is add the points away from the boat, select all the points, create a layer/face and finally use transform>move to place it on the hull. I used edge>split to add a curve to the seats; it adds no functional improvement but aesthetically makes for a pretty boat.