cockpit or pilothouse

[PAR]

It's quite easy to make large cockpits comfortable and provide room for an aft cabin. The twin wheel cockpit shown is again setup for offshore racing. It offers deep bracing areas for the winch grinders and duel helms to better see the windward side of the boat. Those wheels take up huge amounts of valuable cockpit space and aren't necessary on all but the most dedicated racer.

That cockpit is raised over the aft cabin and is blended well into the pilot house, so it doesn't look like the extra windage it is. It seems silly to have such details and racing setups on a pilothouse encumbered vessel. A classic example of racing trends trickling down to production craft, in spite of the unnecessary expense and performance contradictions they offer.

In answer to Easi54's hope for a better cockpit arrangement. You can raise your cockpits to provide more headroom below, but several things will need addressing. The winches, other deck hardware and sail handling gear will need to be moved and these mounts will require considerable strength, especially the winches, organizers, clutches and cleats. The new cockpit will need to be as strong as the old one, being able to hold and drain when filled with water. Will you have clearance under the boom? Will stays and shrouds foul the crew, winch handles or other hardware during use in the raised position? Will provisions need to be made for lengthening engine control cables, levers or steering hardware and tiller? Will you have fair leads from your lines lead aft, turning and headsail sheet blocks to the newly located winches? They look to be (the current cockpits) sitting atop a deckhouse, will adding additional height here be a look you can live with? How about the additional windage this will bring along, which can cause her to march around a mooring or anchor in shifty winds.

These and other issues can all be handled, but I just want to express the complication of your request. I haven't mentioned the additional weight this necessarily heavy structure will bring to the yacht. Extra weight in the ends of the boat is just what you'd like to avoid.

You seem to have a pretty flat roof crown which the current arrangement sits in. Maybe you can put more crown in the roof and gain some headroom below, while maintaining similar positions for all the hardware.

As has been said, you really need to get some sea time in this boat, before you make any major revisions to the deck layout. After which contact a good boat carpenter who is familiar with sailboat construction and discuss some changes to the deck.

[Brad Kelneck]

Hi

I agree with Par that your cockpit arrangement looks fine - and that a small cockpit has huge advantages when there are boarding seas. As to the pilothouse, I'm not sure that it adversely effects sailing ability as I suspect your boat is a flush deck design. If so, the the house need not be very high in order to allow adequate visibility offshore in bad conditions: witness the Corbin 39. If properly designed in a flush deck configuration, the view for the helmsman on deck is no different than over the coach house on any non-flush deck.

I would, however, recommend installing another steering station and set of engine contols in the aft cockpit - in real world sailing, you will want to helm from the cockpit 90% of the time both for the better visibility and the ease of boat/dockline operation.

Brad Kelneck

[EASI54]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions Par. It has definitely changed my way of thinking about increasing berth size. (She ( my wife) will have to get over it!) Now, the cockpit will stay and since it already has auxilary power control and a emergency tiller, I'm thinking a secondary wheel helm is in order. This vessel is a alu custom sloop and I have the capabities of fabrication up to an intermediate level. This boat is my life's hope for fullfilment. What I need from experienced sailors like yourself is how to procede from here. I need resources and basic planning for a good installment: parts and design ideas would help alot.

Jean