Danube

An idea in my mind for 3 years : building up a wooden raft, rafting down the Danube from source to delta.
Well this morning I woke up willing to make this idea concrete. Each year at first buds, first rays of sun, East and Balkans are calling me deep inside, and I find myself each time following the meandering river, dreaming : what if i followed it to the end?
But it just sounds senseless alone. I'm a lonesome walker, biker, dreamer, but I want to be a social sailer! Yep.
So this it is. Do you want to find a shelter by the river, wood, planks, tools, build hell of a wonderful raft with mates, and sail it to Black Sea? Raise your hand, give me a poke!

Hugo

Comments

Sma's picture

how about instructables?

how about instructables? needs exploring better but they have LOTS of different guides..

http://www.instructables.com/pages/search/search.jsp?cx=partner-pub-1783...

makes me really wanna build something now ..hmm

p.s. does kitten need a new bed? http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Cat-Bed-from-a-Computer-Monitor/

amylin's picture

p.s. just saw your post on CS

p.s. just saw your post on CS the sailing sailor's project group.

last time i was there, bulgaria still wasn't schengen. don't know if it's scheduled to change any time soon.

Hugo's picture

Thanks for the links Amylin,

Thanks for the links Amylin, very inspiring!
I have the chance to be in touch with a lawyer AND licenced sailor, who is up to now my most interested contact. So I'll probably have good help to solve those legal issues.
I try to centralize the discussion on the Cs Sailing Sailor's group for the moment. But I need to open a discussion platform asap to make link between different answers and ideas. Btw, if someone knows the simpliest way to do that, suggestions are welcome. My web skills are close to zero! Something like a basic discussion group..

robino's picture

well in terms of looking for

well in terms of looking for a platform to collect data, you could start with putting your info here: http://sharewiki.org/en/Build_a_Raft

But I am sure there are more appropriate website/ wiki's for that. Let's digg further.

For starters, there is http://makezine.com/ where you possibly can find what you are looking for. And http://www.appropedia.org/ that could fit your needs.

And by searching I just found these ones (keywords used: wiki+building+raft)
http://akff.wikia.com/wiki/Build_Your_Own_Kayak
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Log-Raft

And so I found a wiki that does exactly what you are looking for:
http://www.boatdesign.net/wiki/Main_Page

But is not really open
"The Boat Design Wiki is currently in the beta testing phase. The idea of this "wiki" is to provide a collaborative knowledgebase relating to all things boat design and boat building."

Though, they have a forum that might be worth checking out. Enjoy & keep us posted.

Hugo's picture

Great! I'll dive into that

Great! I'll dive into that tonight :)
I found the people I hopped to find : 3 french guys that sailed the river from Budapest to Black Sea, 2001. In one month, the successfully contacted all the countries they had to cross' consulates. And were delivered official permissions to sail and even to cross borders with their home-made raft, which the serbian government even accepted to register with a number, givin' it a legal existence. So yes, technically and concretely do-able.

GoogleGroup is also created :https://groups.google.com/group/the-danube-project
Now this is happening there.

amylin's picture

Right. I've read some of the

Right. I've read some of the stuff on the CS sailing sailor's group, but my internet time is very limited, and CS groups can be harder to follow, so yeah, I hope you can get the discussion centralized soon.

Glad to hear you've found the lawyer & sailor! That's great.

I might even come and help at some point, depending on where I am in the globe.

My plan was to sail across the Atlantic for now, but every day it's looking further and further away. We've just spent 2 weeks helping repair (for free) a boat that might sail off without us in the end, because there is a couple willing to pay an appauling amount of money to sail with them.

So, it very well might be back to the start, and I'm not willing to hang around in Las Palmas for much longer.

amylin's picture

technically, do-able. 2

technically, do-able.

2 boat-raft art projects:
http://www.swimmingcities.org/about/
http://laughingsquid.com/swimming-cities-of-switchback-sea-travel-down-t...

(both under initial direction from swoon, but created with the help of hundreds of hands)

the black sea coast near turkey is ROUGH and known for dangerous waves/weather, even for full-scale sailboats. but you don't have to go that far.

another potential problem is that many of the countries you'd cross technically have very very distinctive (non-schengen) borders. this means specifically:

Slovakia --> Hungary --> Croatia --> Serbia --> Bulgaria --> Moldova --> Ukraine --> Romania

Sma's picture

then we can all hitch your

then we can all hitch your raft! make sure u build a big one so it can take hitchhikers:)

robino's picture

That's one crazy idea and I

That's one crazy idea and I wonder who is crazy enough to join you ;) Maybe hitchgathering 2011 takes place at the Black sea and you come by raft! haha.