Decided to opt for the longtail for now and save the surface drive for when the big boats' outboard quits on me. I ordered the swomplite 10, and have to meet with the boat builder this thursday. He wants to either do an 11 or 11.5 foot as opposed to the 12 mostly for paperwork reasons, which is fine by me. My question was what you guys would suggest as a width on this bottom? If we built a 12 I was gonna ask for a 36" bottom. Just wondering if that should be shaved down to 34" or 32" on an 11' hull. Boat should be pretty light. This boats main purpose is gonna be to dig its way out of sheet water mud flats mostly... Not much water will ever be under this boat. The boat in the pic has a 48 inch bottom... Too much for a lt. We are gonna shave the bottom but keep the beam fairly wide still, maybe 44 or so. These pics are a previous build of his but my boat will have a narrower cockpit with higher sides.[img][/img]
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I think I would go with the 36" for more planing surface area and more stability if you're going to hunt from it. It'll also draft less.

Who/where is the boat being built? What type and thickness of aluminum?

The boat builder is out of Atlantic city New Jersey, if you search john Kuhn you might be able to find a few of his boats but most are designed like Roy schellinger sneak boats or barneget sneaks. He definitely knows his stuff. We were probably gonna go .125 on the bottom and transom and half that for the rest of the boat