50ft Fishing Trawler, for all astronaut training, leisure cruising, U-Boat chasing needs! Stock!

[Goddess Bhavani]

50 ft Coastal Trawler.

Built in KSP v1.02, stock parts.

Craft file available on KerbalX

I once read NASA Astronauts make extensive use of aquatic environments to simulate spacewalks, so I decided my little green spacemen and women need to take heed from the masters of space exploration, by building a fishing trawler out of spare airplane parts (aluminum is light and strong, yes?) and exposed girders from when Jeb decided it was a good idea to try and land a helicopter the size of an office building on top of the VAB.

Having also read Kerbin's water is some sort of gelatinous mass, I also decided not one but two full sized jet engines from an antique bomber was a suitable means of propulsion. Who needs fuel efficiency when fuel is nearly free?

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With all the napkin science worked out, I started building the boat, laying out the keel and structural framing to get a rough idea of how the vessel will turn out. As hull plating was applied, redundant structure was removed and I soon inverted the ship to fully plate over the bottom side, its shape dictated by the airfoil parts available in stock KSP.

Once done, I flipped the ship the right way up and used the exact same airfoils to create the main deck, offset slightly down so the boat had a reasonable gunwale height.

The superstructure consists of living quarters at the bottom, a flying bridge, and an air conditioned high tech conning tower comprised of a humble Mk. 1 lander can.

Putting the ship to sea was easy - just make a gigantic rover with a basic chassis and jettison it once in the water. If the rover frame gets stuck on the ship just go to space center and delete the debris. The trawler has a top speed of 16 knots (8 meters per second) which is quite decent for a coastal vessel.

Endurance and range depends on payload - the craft shown in video has a minimal fuel load for a short 20 minute builder's trial, while the configuration supplied in the KerbalX link above has two aircraft fuel tanks and should be good for about 2-3 hours of sailing.

[DMSP]

Lol that is awesome!

Just like your truck, for times when I don't want to recover things (It makes me feel like I am cheating...)!

This will rock!

Downloading ASAP

[mike9606]

Does this work with better buoyancy or would it need some tweaking to keep it from sinking down into the water?

[Goddess Bhavani]

Does this work with better buoyancy or would it need some tweaking to keep it from sinking down into the water?

Definitely will need tweaking. I've had entire seaplanes sink into the water in BB. Firespitter parts with variable buoyancy would be most welcome, but I wanted to keep it as a stock craft.

[Roflcopterkklol]

Hey man just wanted to let you know you can get boats going a lot faster by using air intakes as floats

Could double your trawlers speed in the water

Example

[Goddess Bhavani]

Oh my, the SS Jebediah reported some trouble with an expended decoupler going off along with attracting the Kraken and a distress signal is being transmitted! Someone call International Rescue!

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[Goddess Bhavani]

This trawler was great fun to show around!

Recently, esinohio made a render of the boat hunting a Kraken while flying the Jolly Roger.

I made a few changes to the boat, and put it up on SketchFab. You can zoom the camera into the ship to visit the interior spaces! How cool is that!