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Basic Description of Harmonica


Length 13 feet, 5   feet wide, drawing less than a foot. Weighing less than 400lbs empty, designed by Jim Michalak.    

"Harmonica is a tiny shanty boat that sleeps two in its cabin. There is a porch up front suitable for lounging and a small room in the stern for the kitchen and the water closet. I think it is arranged so that two people could wait out an all day soaker without feeling too pressed. For protected waters only".

Builder John wrote, "...The entire family (two adults and two children) has spent the night on Steel Will. I put 1x2's between the slats in the two forward bunks and created a single bunk that is five feet wide. We have found that the thick cushions sold to cover lawn furniture very adequate mattresses for boats."

Harmonica soaks up four sheets of 3/8" plywood and six sheets of 1/4" plywood and uses simple glue and nail jigless construction.

Reference for all the above: https://www.duckworks.com/product-p/jm-harmonica.htm

"Shanty boats are flat-bottomed houseboats.  They are usually built on a shoestring, they almost always reflect the personality of the builder, and they are not designed for seaworthiness so much as comfort while afloat.  There's one big problem--a big shanty boat was outside the budget.  I had to be able to purchase the materials from my own personal weekly operating fund, that is, walking-around money.  I had one advantage; on almost every wood and materials purchase made for the house, for furniture, for shelving, I had "accidentally" purchased too much wood, paint, fasteners, and glue.  This meant I had a terrific stock of material, and when it came time to compare my stock to the bill of materials, I found that I could build a shanty boat for about $200. Seemed like a pretty good price, but one must assume that (1) I wasn't counting the cost of my back stock, and (2) I was underestimating things dramatically.
Still, shanty boats are supposed to be cheap, and I wanted to uphold tradition.  I got a set of plans from Jim Michalak for a boat that I never built, but was captivated by the plans for "Fusebox", a small box of a boat designed for electric power.  Jim considered his design, and realized it (1) needed to be a little bigger, and (2) recharging batteries ain't all it's cracked up to be, and the redesign became, ultimately, the "Harmonica".  It's radical-cheap.

The boat is a big box, really, with an open slot-top, a swept-up transom bow, topped by a "porch" of a deck.  It looked easy, cheap, able to be built with lumberyard materials, and if not handsome, at least it looked jaunty.  I suspect that what really sold me on the design was the plans drawing of a man on the bow, with a foot up, drink in hand, hat forward over his eyes.

Reference for above: :http://www.ace.net.au/schooner/occam.htm

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