My favourite Women friendly design features

[lazeyjack]

oh thats his son!!


http://www.boats.com/news-reviews/ar....html?lid=1247
i m trying to layout my new boat,

[Bergalia]

Originally Posted by Wilma Ham

...looks more like a nappy bucket.

There you go Wilma - typical woman - instantly thinking of babies...
But no it's the 'All purpose' bucket (a Scots invention of course - though modelled on the helmet worn by lopped off English heads). It serves as kedge-anchor, fishbait storage, and toilet, and after a brief swill with sea water can be used for cooking.....

Naturally Lazeyjack has again proved incorrect...It's my great grandson.....:

[alan white]

I'm with Bergalia... regarding simplicty (women either can sail or cannot, like men).
Four course meals are wonderful, as well as a walk afterwards, and some shopping.
Of all things, a galley ought to have a good hardwood bench with removable fiddles wide enough to cut food up, and better still, one opposite for working on the other tack. Sink in the middle of the boat so it drains centrally (meaning it DRAINS), foot pump for sink for both fresh and salt water (or Y valve), a ridiculously over-insulated top-opening ice box NOT located in a corner under something with a HINGED lid, proper drain to seperate sump (or out directly), a single burner stove to remind you you're not at the Hilton, and a way to make bread somehow. Oh yes, and a tiller extension that slips on to allow one person to both steer and make a pot of coffee without spilling or broaching----- and handles everywhere.

A.

[alan white]

By the way, speaking of toilets, years ago I had a small cruiser. I got a Wilcox Skipper head in perfect condition at a yard sale for ten bucks, and replaced the porta potty. The suggested ways of hooking it up, according to the status quo were so complicated and expensive that I came up with a legal solution of my own that was ridiculously simple.
I installed a 13 gallon holding tank with a deck cap. The toilet went directly to a 2-way valve attached to the thru-hull. The way the valve was constructed, it was impossible to pump the toilet directly into the sea. It HAD to go to the holding tank through the valve just above the thru-hull. Because the tank was vented, no anti-siphon valve was used. The tank could be emptied into the sea or pumped out through the deck fitting. The whole thing had one valve and two hoses. it worked flawlessly for years. Got stopped up once or twice gravity draining from two feet height. All that was required was to change the valve to head-to-tank and the stoppage was shot back into the tank.

A.

[lazeyjack]

so on this LITTLE boat that has a tiller, where do you eat, if the galley sink et al are on the centreline?, great idea but only works when a boat get some length abt her Agreed abt the hinged top, what other way is there) and grab rails, well ya can't have too many

[alan white]

The sink need not be centered on the centerline, but the drain should be close to the centerline, so in essence, one could easily have a twenty foot sailboat with a sink either under the bridgedeck to the left or right of the companionway, or further forward (if there are quarter berths).
The sink, by the way, should be larger than what I've seen customarily installed in small boats. It isn't as if elves are sailing the boat.
So in terms of where one eats, a small boat invariably does best with the sitting and sleeping platforms combined with a removable or better, dropping table. It isn't clever to have the head forward of the berths of course, and usually not possible in any case. If the bucket won't do due to sensibilities, a small boat should have a head to one side of the companionway, as tight as possible to still accomplish the task.
Incidentally, watermelon should be eaten directly over the sink, beans in the cockpit, and pizza slices at the bow, for obvious reasons.

A.

[Wilma Ham]

The aim of this thread is to give you guys a women's perspective of what makes a live aboard boat comfortable for us, normal woman who are not sporty and do like to have their comforts. If we like a boat we come along. I give you an example. Friends of ours who own Crusoe took us and friends out on a day sail. Two men who love sailing had reluctant wives because they get seasick, their experience is that boats aren't comfortable and they mistrust boats. However because I raved about Crusoe they got curious, they came along doped to the eyebrows with pills and guess what? They had such a good time because the toilets were good, they could sit comfortably in a sheltered space and the kids had fun.
They even want to come again.
You can see how those men are indebted to me, I got their wives along!

So I am keeping my eyes open on boats to see what I think is comfortable and record it. All this because I want to have a live aboard boat myself that I love to live on and so I can show other women that boats don't have to be as dreadful as they think!
For a long time I thought boats stank, only offered cramped seating so after an hour everthing hurts and toilets were a nightmare etc etc. Now I start to see that with a bit of thought you can make any boat no matter how big or how small women friendly.
John started with a 26 footer which had standing room and was comfortable, because he thought about it!

This photo is of the pilot house and you know what, on a smaller boat I rather have a pilot house like this than a saloon.
If you look at these photos, most of the trip we were either on deck, in the cockpit or the pilot house.
Who wants a saloon with spaces like these?

[Wilma Ham]

Alan, one thing you said I got. Wide benches and removable fiddles yes please, I think they are a winner. I have never understood those fixed ones on tables, benches etc. They were always the bain of my life. After visiting a boat with those horrors on tables and benches I got reminded about why I hated boats for a long time.

This photo is from Opus, a charter yacht and they left a bit of fiddle out but you can see the onions rolling during sailing can't you? I would prefer removable ones.

[lazeyjack]

i like the lady in the red in middle pic!! Not interested in fiddles!!

[Wilma Ham]

Stuart, stay on the topic or else.......

However there is a point to be made here, great women friendly boats, great women who come sailing. So sorry Stuart, no lose fiddles no women either.
Better get interested.

[alan white]

Hi Wilma,

There are things I like, not creature comforts, mind, but intelligent and efficient systems and structures.
I too had problems getting the wife to come along (when I had one... wife, that is), primarily because she was anxious aboard. I knew that a larger boat would be less unnerving to her, so I got a bigger, and then an even bigger boat. In the end, while more comfortable, she very rarely came along. Since she became anxious about my daughter going without a third party, I missed out on years of sailing with my kid, something that makes me very sad.
My daughter was a sailing natural, could park a cruising sailboat at the dock at age 8. Once we took a day trip on Appledore II, a sizable sailing vessel of maybe (guessing) 30 tons. My daughter, age 10, took the helm, looking through the spokes, while I chatted with the captain and the other guests lounged. We forgot all about her, so well did she stay on a wind course, that we had to laugh seeing her still there after 45 minutes or so.
To this day, however, the mother's fear clings to her, and she will not hanker for sailing like she did as a kid without mixed emotions.
I suppose I'm saying there's sailing and there's sailing. If you love it, it's because of the doing of it, the spareness without regrets, the unimportance of convenience beyond the essentials, the one-ness with the boat as the connecting link between sea and sky, truly as if an extension of ones being.
I eat about half as much aboard as I do at home. A simple book gives many times the pleasure it would on land. An oil lamp feels right too, and one becomes intimately aware of how much oil is aboard, how long it will last, how much food, ground tackle, rope, what fittings ought to be checked just one more time, and dozens of other things too numerous to list, all of which are real and present at all times.
Function is everything. I would say that sadly, most small cruisers are designed too much with non-sailors in mind. They are the ones at the boat shows along with the easy financing experts nearby. Fabric cushions, head compartment way too large with another tiny sink in addition to the tiny galley sink, CORIAN countertops, fragile high-spout faucets, four burner stoves (but no dorade vents and an undersized forward hatch), easy companionway access (reassuring that the water has to step way up too!), king-size beds under the cockpit (but no room to stow the extra anchors), large and deep cockpits for comfortable lounging, but so large that they take ten minutes to drain the three tons of water that could fill them.
I could go on, but my point is this: The wealthy and the dedicated (who live aboard and have no other home) can run pretty large boats and serve nice meals, use their laptops, top notch radar, and all the goodies, but in a boat under thirty feet length, on an extended voyage, the practical must override the wish list, as you will see when you get out there for a long sail.
Larger boats can be as comfortable as home, because they can be built both practical and palatial. If you can afford such a boat, then you could have your dream galley and also know you're safe as a bug in a rug.
But you'd be surprised at the size vessel that a knowledgable sailer would choose and say, "Knock yourself out with the galley design---- do whatever you like!"

Alan

[lazeyjack]

Originally Posted by Wilma Ham

Stuart, stay on the topic or else.......

However there is a point to be made here, great women friendly boats, great women who come sailing. So sorry Stuart, no lose fiddles no women either.
Better get interested.

sorry, fiddlesticks, too old to worry abt fiddles, but like your enthusiasm, once I had it, but after I invented the first fiddle which attached ANYWHERE across any surface by means of rubber suction cups inserted into the wood rail, I lost interest Often us lads get off topic, but seeing as it's your thread I promise not too,
However if you want to post pics of nice food and attractive woman, well!! and would you have got upset if I had commented on the food) Have a good

[lazeyjack]

Day!!

[Bergalia]

Originally Posted by lazeyjack

i like the lady in the red in middle pic!! Not interested in fiddles!!

I'm with you Stu...she can use my bucket any time....

[alan white]

Originally Posted by Wilma Ham

Alan, one thing you said I got. Wide benches and removable fiddles yes please, I think they are a winner. I have never understood those fixed ones on tables, benches etc. They were always the bain of my life. After visiting a boat with those horrors on tables and benches I got reminded about why I hated boats for a long time.

This photo is from Opus, a charter yacht and they left a bit of fiddle out but you can see the onions rolling during sailing can't you? I would prefer removable ones.

Regarding removable fiddles, they should be above the counter by three inches, strong enough to grab onto without fear of coming undone, therefore needing a clever arrangement, like stainless 1/4" rods extending out of their undersides 6" at regular intervals, so that only by raising them straight up 6" could they be removed, and a clear strip behind the counter to drop them into when not being used. I abhor fixed fiddles on tables because they are painful to rest arms on. At least they should be vertical on the inside, but maybe three inches wide and rounded on the outside, and only an inch high.
You lose table space, but it's actually safer and more secure to rest your arms on the table. I would suggest a 1/4" false table with short feet to fill in the area of the fiddled table and let the fiddles be permanent. Then the table could be flush when desired. The false top could drop down and stay right on the thicker table top by having holes with flush rotating caps over them drilled into the under-top to support the false top when its in port or calm conditions.
This, to me, would be a perfectly useful table.

A.