Anybody who sets out to recommend that people should use a particular hull with a mono-tube steam plant is probably asking for trouble.  Perhaps a safer approach is to pick up on some of the characteristics of the mono-tube steam plant and consider whether they point to a particular family of hulls.

  Briefly, it is safe to say that mono-tube steam plants tend to be light in weight and match well with a small engine running at fairly high speeds.  In addition, given that steam plants of the smaller type deliver small amounts of power, the hull needs to be driven very easily.  Such hulls, as the historical evidence suggests, tend to be pencil shaped rather than following the egg box shape of modern 'Gin Palaces'. The sort of boats that would match with that specification include canoes, skiffs, and replicas of classic recreational boat designs.

  In the sections below we hope to illustrate how this conundrum has been solved by various boat builders.  First, we begin with the Canoe concept and start with a design by John Emmett

 

   Building Snipe

 

  Remaining with the canoe concept we offer the following unfolding story of how a pretty canoe design could be evolved into a 'pocket steam launch' and the show the thinking involved.  This will expand over time...

 

  The Fairlight 406 Introduction

  The Propeller

  The Propeller Shaft sizing and Stern Tube

  Connecting the Propeller Shaft to the Engine

  The Issue of Thrust Blocks

 

Our next suggestion is the conversion of an existing boat which, in this case, was a rowing skiff built in 1910 and not quite in pristine condition when found.  However, that did not stop Barry Watson as is explained in his build story:

 

  SL Alba