12' O&P Pod Plans PDF

O&P Pod Specifications:

Length: 12ft
Beam: 56"
Weight: 110 lbs
Max Outboard: 2 hp
Maximum Load: 625 lbs

I have wanted to design a peapod hull for a long time, and have started and stopped working on the project several times during the past couple of years. Each time ended in frustration with the shape of the cutout models. Something was wrong with the way I was approaching the design with the tools and methods I used. I could come up with a hull by using the free internet design programs, but none of them gave me the flat panel printouts I needed to test the design. I don't design boats that need frames to be built on, and when you measure and loft one of my designs on level plywood, they fit when constructed. It wasn't until I started the multi-panel Laura designs, that I was better able to work though the relationships of the curved panels to each other and the complete hull.

I took parts of the various Laura designs and copied them onto a new drawing, and stretched and tweaked them around to get closer to a final concept of what I wanted. That took about eight models to get to a workable (looked like one anyway) double ended hull shape. Then I worked on it only in my spare moments while building the Laura Bay. With building the Laura Bay out of the way I had more time and a large supply of "Red Baron" pizza boxes to make the models from. Finding cardboard long enough can be a challenge when I'm doing a lot of model making. The 15.5ft Wendy Bay and 14ft Plyzar (both require matching up printout pages) were even more of a dilemma until I found some 6ply poster board at a local office supply store. The O&P Pod took twenty one more printouts and models after the first eight attempts, to arrive at this final design.

The O&P stands for the Owl and Pussy Cat from the nursery rhyme, and the first hull was painted pea green too. It's also a play on words from the standard term of "peapod" for a small double ended hull. It took awhile to get the sheerlines to fall in place, and to get the volume I needed in the stern quarter. Some of the traditional peapods had an equal distribution of volume between the bow and stern halves. I wanted to add more to the stern area for extra weight carrying capacity for either a passenger while rowing or when sitting in the aft section while sailing. At about model number 15, I made major changes to the volume of the hull and had to redo the fit and lengths of all the panel sections. Visual changes to the overall appearance of the bow and stern curvatures for the "right look", were worked on at this time too. From above, the O&P looks like a baby Pacific SeaCraft 37 or a Baba 30, but the stern is not as full below the rail.

This is the easiest rowing hull I have designed todate, and the tiny skeg I added at the stern adds a tremendious amout of tracking to the boat.

Check out my www.youtube.com/redbarnboats site, and my www.flickr.com/photos/onp-pod site for photos and videos on the construction of this boat design.

Full plans include 43 pages of detailed building instructions and 28 pages of full color drawings. Study plans include the full instructions plus the full set of drawings but without dimensions. Below are some sample pages from the study plans: click the images below for larger views

Model files for download:

O & P Pod - model for printing on 11" paper, click to download PDF

O & P Pod - model for printing on 14" click to download PDF

Thanks Again:
Warren Messer
Red Barn Boats