Buccaneer 24 Trimaran

[bruceb]

Samnz, (and any others), What sail selection/sizes are you using? I noticed on one of the videos you had two jibs up, and what wind conditions do they work best in? Bruce

[oldsailor7]

Happy New Year Guys, and good sailing in '09.

Cheers. Paddy.

[oldsailor7]

I got a couple more pics of "Toy", and a bit of info about its mods.
I will be in contact with it's owner and hopefully get more details.

Scott Brown, Commodore of the TMCC says:-"Rick Steeves is the owner of TOY. I'm afraid there's not much BUCC 24 left as he's heavily modified her over the years. She's a really simple, fast boat now, all foam. I recall Rick once explained to me that he cut the bottom off at the waterline and rebuilt it to omit the chines and get a better shape. Several years later he cut the bottom off again but this time he chucked everything ABOVE the waterline and rebuilt her out of foam sheets".





I suspect the KC12 is not the original number.

[bruceb]

Great pics, OS7, thanks for the research. That is a great looking boat, even if it is now only slightly a Buccaneer. It looks like he has "mast" section cross bars, and maybe longer floats as well. It looks like the board exits in front of the mast, I wonder if he moved the mast back as well? I like simple, even if getting there takes more work. I hope Rick joins our forum. Bruce

[zigzag]

Great to see the interest and discussion in Buccaneers. I am getting samples of paulownia plywood WBP glue made for building a buc 24 or 28 stretched. Anyone interested in this strong somewhat rotproof lightweight plywood as I need a largeer order for the factory. One supplier has offered 3mm, 5mm, 9mm 12mm?

[zigzag]

Re: Toy, modified Buc.and elimination of chines. Not a new concept but has anyone tried hi density/ compressive strength, styrodur blue or pink insulation foam epoxy glass sheathed of course to round off chines? The Plywood could be thinner perhaps 3mm?

[oldsailor7]

Originally Posted by zigzag

Re: Toy, modified Buc.and elimination of chines. Not a new concept but has anyone tried hi density/ compressive strength, styrodur blue or pink insulation foam epoxy glass sheathed of course to round off chines? The Plywood could be thinner perhaps 3mm?

Yes.
I did that to my Buccaneer 28 the first winter I had it out of the water.
Found it made no notable difference.
The particular way Crowther arranged the chined bottom is as near as you can get to a rounded hull anyway.
Not worth the extra cost and effort.

[oldsailor7]

SAMNZ.

Did you get the alternate spade rudder sheet ???

[Samnz]

Yes I did thanks very much for that! Its very interesting!

Iv just got back from my new years cruise to Great Barrier Island

[oldsailor7]

Originally Posted by Samnz

Yes I did thanks very much for that! Its very interesting!

Iv just got back from my new years cruise to Great Barrier Island

How did it go Sam. How did you find the sleeping arrangements???

[Samnz]

Originally Posted by oldsailor7

How did it go Sam. How did you find the sleeping arrangements???

The Sleeping arrangments are awesome, in fact our refined setup gives us the biggest bunk out of the fleet of friends boats of a 8.5m Cat and 7 Keelboats. The toilet/storage is under the superking bed and the galley is in the cockpit under a boom tent, the diningroom/loungebar is on beanbags on the tramps! However you wouldnt want to entertain to many guests as the boat gets pretty low in the water!

[bruceb]

Samnez, That is inspiring, these are all purpose boats The matching bean bag is a nice touch. Bruce

[oldsailor7]

Sam.
Love that pic of The "Leaping Green Frog" at anchor. It epitomises the relaxing joys of "Gunkholing" type cruising. That shot could just have easily been taken on Pittwater or the Hawksbury over here.
I printed it out scaled up 150% and stood it on my computer desk for inspiration.

Just as a matter of curiosity, how did you choose the name "Capricorn".

[oldsailor7]

STOP PRESS.
Just got this from Ric Steeves.

Hi Pat

Long time, we talked about a Buck 33 way back, eventually built a Harris 38 out of Airex. Anyway went cruising for a while, came back because two teen age kids are expensive, took over Noah’s from David and Neila Coe, and sold the Harris. I am not much for forums, but if you want to put this up please do.

Unfortunately I had allowed myself to become addicted to Multihulls so bought a Buck 24 Main hull, rig and cross arms, no floats, sight unseen. I should have looked. The centerboard box and bottom were pretty well shot so cut it off at the waterline and built a new one with some left over cedar from a previous job. Took out the chine’s, plumbed the bow a bit and flattened the bottom abaft. The Buck 24’s and 33’s I have sailed on have had weather helm so I moved the mast back a bit, the dagger board exits in front.

I built the first float out of cedar strip, but decided it was too heavy so used it as a plug for foam, epoxy, 10 oz glass with Uni S Glass and carbon reinforcing underneath the cross arm mounts. They came out at 105 lbs ea. They are higher displacement than the originals, about 1’ shorter than the main and mount about 1’ forward.

The cross arms were heavy aluminum tubes that had corroded badly so I traded some epoxy with a friend in the rigging business for some broken mast sections, got rid of about 200 lbs of stainless bar dolphin strikers and replaced it with about 25 lbs. of 6mm wire and turnbuckles. All the chain plates are shackles or D rings taped in with Uni S glass or Kevlar.

The original rig was the 30’ cruising version, sail number 12. Sailed with this for a couple of years, OK in a breeze, but needed more HP for light air we get around here. Luckily for me a friend got his C Cat wrecked but the nice light 39’ 3 point rig survived. Kept the running back stays from the original rig. Bought a used suit of sails off a Dragonfly, the main was about 5’ short but a definite improvement.

By this time the main hull and bulkheads were getting scary as cracks and plain old rot was catching up to the original cheap plywood. Anyway cut the top off at the waterline and kept the 2 main bulkheads for mould stations, bent some battens around until the shape looked right, then stapled 9mm Corecell to the battens. Glassed with 12oz DB and epoxy, pulled the mould and installed foam bulkheads under the cross arms. Made the deck, cuddy, cockpit and floors out of 18mm Corecell and the same 12 oz DB. No head (keeps the wife off), interior or other amenities, strictly a day sailor, although I have slept in the nets. Total weight of the boat with rig is 850 lbs. As a concession to the original Buccaneer 24 I have kept a piece of plywood about 8” x 12” embedded in the transom and the running backstays.

After all this I decided to blow the bundle on a decent (Dacron) main, jib and screecher as well as a carbon board.

This made a noticeable improvement in performance. The boat sails very well in light winds because of low weight and large sail area, also goes like stink in a breeze flying the main hull. Limiting factor is the rudder coming out. Next project may be rudders in the floats. Have a hard time beating a F25 C and an F 25 R in moderate wind, think I need to break down on a really good set of sails.

This has evolved over about 15 years, usually from whatever materials happen to be available at the time. Definitely not an off shore boat but all things considered it has been a lot of fun for very little money.

Ric Steeves

www.noahsmarine.com

[Phildave]

Trying to organize materials to build the B24. Anyone have thoughts or heard of using Hobie mast and sails?