Help modeling boat hull in sheetmetal

I too would work with a solid model if all you want is the boat hull and not try fabricating it.

Boundary Blend will make the bottom and some strategic sweeps will make the ribs. Build the side and back wall, then close it up with another boundary blend. If you are lucky, you can then shell the hull. Finish with some additional sweeps and rounds.

If you have good orthographic images of boat, you can use these as underlays for guides.

Joshua, sweeps here are a little particular. You have a twist in the side and this means you need a variable section sweep (VSS). That is the last button in the dialog. You also cannot sweep a projected feature. You have to make the line that changes angle through the sweep (not locked to vertical or fixed angle). This means you need not only the origin, but you need a "chain"... a guide curve. Another problem with sweep is the ends can be cut short since they do not extend by default. I extended some to get an intersect for next level geometry.

Having said all that, a boundary blend gets rid of some of this frustration and begins a few others.

In general, I would suggest creating all the "edges" of the boat, somewhat wireframe if you will, to use as reference geometry.

I made master sections; only 3 in my case but more is better; I created edges from swept surfaces with intersects; I created points at strategic corners; and I created sketch planes thought points to get more edges.

Now this takes a lot of the creativity out of the process. But this is not a fiberglass boat so you need some level of workability for the raw panels.

I would say you still need to work out the remaining edges. Boundary blends will manage most of the remainder. Doing the flatten quilts can get tricky but it should get you what you want eventually. It just requires patience.