New Devlin Boat Build

Ben Gavin

New member
Looking to build a duck boat. I really like the devlin snow goose and honker. I already have a 40hp johnson so I'm leaning toward the snowgoose but I often hunt with 3 guys and a 90 pound lab. For those of you that have the snowgoose how many people can you comfortably hunt out of it? I'm currently running a lowe 1852 but i've been wanting to build a duckboat since i was a kid. Whichever boat I pick I'd like to increase the freeboard as I over hunt the Ohio River I'd say 20" is the minimum I'd feel comfortable with.
 
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I can't speak to the Snowgoose, but I made a Honker.. and modified it. My Honker had a 92" beam, 27" gunnels, 19'3". I had a 60 hp on it. I also have 17' Scaup with a 65" beam. I run a 50hp on that. I would never run less on either of those.
 
As a 20 year Snowgoose owner, I absolutely would not build one with the idea of hunting 3 guys and a dog. 3 guys and a dog a couple times a year, sure, but not to effectively hunt a transport all the time.

On the freeboard, consider that with the decked designs you can have less freeboard than an open boat - that is the beauty of a real duckboat. A 50 gallon splash of water over the bow or gunwale is shed by the deck, whereas in an open boat it ends up in the bilge. For the 1852 a comparison of seaworthiness would be the 12-14' Devlins (obviously not with a 3 man and dog load), a snowgoose would be much more seaworthy than the 1852 (again, limited by the weight in the boat and room).

You need to max the HP on the devlin designs.
 
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Phil do you have any pictures of the 17ft scaup? How big is the cockpit on that one? I?m thinking that or the honker might better fit my bill.
 
My Scaup has a 9 foot cockpit. There are my pics of both my Scaup and Honker build on here. The Honker was April-August of 2006 probably... and the Scaup was January or February of 2015 to April of 2015...IMG_20150502_103959845.jpgIMG_20150426_171234063.jpgIMG_20201011_092505633_HDR~2.jpg
 
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