Back to basics. A boat that is simply built with huge volume

This thread is dedicated to getting back to basic amateur built boats that are affordable to those who can't afford production boats and high dock and and maintenance fees. The design is of a sail boat that is easily built of composite materials and can be built in the 12 foot, 16 foot, 18 foot and 24 foot or large lengths. Common to all lengths is a hull that has a beam that is 50% of the length and a shoal drafty of 4". The boat is a San Francisco Pelican sailboat that carries a easily made lug mains'l and jib. The Pelican is a super stable and fast boat and was designed by Bill Short for use on the San francisco Bay where winds and tides are strong and seas develop a large chop. (http://community-2.webtv.net/Pelicansailboat/SFPelicansailboats./) We recently built two 24 footer for use by Andros Isalnders and couldn't believe the intenation size of the vessel, it's absolutely huge which makes it great for cargo carrying as well as modification to a long distance cruiser. The basic boat is built of plywood: however, we totally coated all wood with epoxy, then glassed over the entire hull and superstructure after hold and deck house were installed. In a day and age where high dock fees are charged by the foot, the high beam to length ratio provides the same internal volume as a 35 footer and considerable less cost. Our next project is building a 16 foot cabin Pelican for the Watertribe Everglades Challenge in March. This is a grueling 300 mile challenge that takes you offshore as well as through some tricky inland navigation on the west coast of Florida...no motors permitted. The Pelican points well and no motor is really needed.

 

Typo's

Sorry, but I cuaht them too late

 

If you keep the 50% beam, 16 feet is as long as you can go (16x8) and trailer without a permit. 24x12 would not be practical.

 

Praticality

The 24' x 12's weren't built for use in the US, but to replace a couple of small cargo carrying boats that were destroyed by a hurricane 2 years ago. Not everyone wants to trailer a boat and the design lends itself to making internal accommodations for long range cruising or living aboard such as some that we have in our local anchorage. With a flat bottom, the boat in an length is easily heeled on the beach for bottom cleaning and painting. The Pelican's design is practical in all aspects for a number of configurations and uses to include racing.

 

My mistake.

When you said "can't afford production boats and high dock and and maintenance fees." I assumed that the logical solution to dock fees and bottom paint/cleaning would be to trailer the boat.

Racing a 24x12 boat against a Melges 24 would not be too thrilling, racing would only be practical against other boats of similar dimensions ... or do you envision a one design fleet?

Do you have a picture of one of these scaled up to 24ft? Is 24 the LOA or LOD?

The 12 foot boat is the Pelican, 16 the Great Pelican, 18 the Super Pelican, what do you call the 24?

Long range cruising?

Are the plans in the public domain or is Muriel going to add them to the list?

 

Racing

I do have hard print pictures of the 24 footers, but no scanner. The 12 footers are a class raced in the San Francisco Bay area and there are at least 4 of them at the SF Maritime museum. The 24's were built here in Florida by volunteers and donated to 2 families on Andros, Bahamas, who lost their boats. The 24's are cargo configured with a small deck house and cabin aft. No motors are used. If I were to equip one with a motor it would have to be an outboard in an inboard well as the transome is too high. If you take a look at the 12 and 16 footers on the website in the beginning of the thread, the 24's are somewhat the same except decked over cockpit with hold cover and a small deck house. I can't envision racing the 24 either, but it could very easily and inexpensively be converted to a cruiser with a lot of space. I did sail both the 12 and the 24 and they are exceptionally stable. The idea behind an inexpensive boat extends to maintenance also. The 24's are easily beached by moving the boat on log or bamboo rollers placed under the bottom. A trailer would be handy for the 16 foot cruising model.

 

RHough, what size pelican is in the photo? Sam

Greenseas, A photo of the 24's as you describe them sure would be swell! Sam

 

That is a 16 foot Great Pelican. Note the "G" in the logo on the sail.

 

Design

I haven't offerred the design to Muriel yet as we're still refining the design on paper. We drew up full sized templates on door skin. The building method differs somewhat from the original Pelican due to size and weight. There's a 20 foot Super Pelican also pictured on page 2 of her web site, but I don't believe that there are plans for that one either. The 20 appears to be a stretched version of the 18 footer in that the freeboard doesn't correspond to a direct proportion overall enlargement of the original Pelican. The freeboard on the 24 footer is just a little over 4 feet to accommodate cargo carrying and dimensions are just about double of the 12 footer. We felt this was the best way to go to accomplish our purposes. The method we used was to scarf up the plywood panels for the bottom and sides first so as to be working with single panels rather than trying to butt scarf pieces. This enabled us to draw the lines on each single panel and cut them out. For the sides, it was just a matter of laying out one finished panel on top of the other panel and cutting the second panel out. While preparation takes more time, it made working with the panels on the strong back easier and proved to be faster overall. Once the 1/2 inch plywood panels were scarfed together, it takes quite a bit of manpower to lift them in to position.