Tunnel hull plans

Hi I am looking to build a Tunnel hull, as my first scratch build. As I don't have much experience of scratch builds, will be a big learning curve. Does anyone know where I can get some detailed plans, ideally as a free download, I can scale up as have A1 printer on site. Any help much appreciated

Goggle tunnel hulls brings up a lot of results including plans.... 

I tend to work from full sized drawings and scale down ( since there are a lot of free boat plans  out there) 

But here's one I had saved as a possible future project....

Quick note tho, tunnel hulls tend to use outboards, to which I can only say good luck there are a few out there but non that good unless you are prepared to buy from offshore electrics and import. Also no variation in sizes for such units so picking the outboard first and scaling the boat to suit will be the only option to make it look and act right.


If you do get stuck and still want a tunnel hull u can buy from places like hobby king fibreglass f1 tunnel hills and outboard sets for around £100-200 either hull only or the whole thing.

If you do build post photos!

Roadrunner wrote:

If you do build post photos!

Yes please and a build blog would be fantastic

Hi thanks for the info. I hadn't though about the outboard, might have to have a think on that one. Was really trying to get some experience of scratch build on simple balsa and ply, any suggestions would be welcome

Air boats are easy to scratch build, there are also many kits that might help you get started although not scratch built but you do have to do a lot of the ritual sanding trimming etc, end result generally better then a first attempt scratch build with little to no experience.

With that in mind check out puffinmodels.co.uk or Cornwall model boats, and look under the aeronaut range, having built pretty much all of them over my boating career I can safely say for a novice it will give you a project worth finishing, and the end result will be something that you can be proud of, price range from as little as £60 up to about £150, two of my aeronautical projects are on the forum along with other members kits....

As a side note here I will always suggest aeronaut kits to beginners, I'm not sponsored  to do so, but it is my firm opinion that these will lead you in the right direction, to which I'm sure many other members here can also validate.

Some links for reference so you can see what your getting into....

My builds ....

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t876-aero-naut-classic

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t1044-aero-naut-jenny

Other members builds .....

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t1444-aeronaut-classic

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t765-aero-naut-victoria


Again post photos!

Hi Roadrunner, thanks for that. I am currently finish a Aeronaut Queen, have done quite a few kits, hence why I was thinking of the scratchbuild and something a bit different

As a suggestion since your familiar with kits it may be worth exploring the multitude of free plans offered with model boat mag, you can get the plans free with the mag on occasions but they have relesed so many over the years that it's possible to just ask here if your after a set of particular plans. 

If no luck then try traplet publications to which all plans can be purchased.

http://gb.trapletshop.com/marine-plans-parts

They do a lot of plans for the scratch builder and some bulkhead kits which just makes your life that little easier if your not great with frames or don't own the luxury tools such as an electric fret saw, then the rest is up to you!

Thanks road runner, been a great help, will let you know what I go with and start build log

Hi Koi,

I scratch built an airboat from an idea in my head it had too much hull bottom surface area and wasn't as fast as I expected take a look.

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t433-build-of-2-airboats

With a bit of thought and playing with design it could easily be turned into a tunnel hull.