what do we get?

[taniwha]

It must have long distance capacities (ocean crosssing), very seaworthy, as much space as possible, low fuel consumption,single engine, cheap to build, between 40 en 48 feet and a sturdy look. Speed is not a condition. What boat do we get?

[Crag Cay]

Sail or Power ?

If power, try http://dieselducks.com

[Willallison]

Crag Cay asked the 1st obvious question.
I'll ask the 2nd.
How much do you want to spend?

[taniwha]

sorry I was assuming that while posting it under the powerboats it was obvious that we where talking power. Now about the money: i am selling our sailing yacht for which I hope to get a 100 000 euro. This should be sufficent to pay a hull with windows, through hulls and tanks and then we'll see. And yes of course I know the dieselducks. I have nothing against them, on the contrary i pretty like them, but they must be more than that. (such as passagemaker Lite form Tad Roberts). I am just surprised that worldwide they are very few powerboats capable of circumnavigating without spending big bucks.

[Eric Sponberg]

The factor that controlls circumnavigating is carrying enough fuel on the longer passages. The vast majority of motoryachts cannot carry enough fuel to cross the Atlantic, particularly at the speeds they are designed to travel. And that is because not that many people want to go all the way around the world--the circumnavigator market is really small. Anyway, that leaves you with displacement boats.

I designed the Moloka'i Strait series of motoryachts to cross the Atlantic with designs starting at 58' and costing a little over US$1 million. The MS 65 is nearly US$2 million, and the MS 75, which will be at the Ft. Lauderdale boat show, is about $4 million. All of these designs have ranges of 3,000 to 4,000 miles.

It is pretty hard to get a boat to go 3,000 miles, a normal transoceanic distance, in smaller lengths than that, but it can be done. You should try to get hold of Robert Beebe's book "Voyaging Under Power", written in 1975 and republished in 1984 (Seven Seas Press) in which he discusses in detail the design parameters for small transoceanic passagemakers between about 30' and 60' (10 M to 18 M). Many of the design guidelines still hold true, only the cost of fuel is different.

An alternative you might want to consider, since you have sailboat experience and as a way to mitigate the ever rising fuel cost, is a motorsailer. Motorsailers make reliable on-time passages with the minimum amount of fuel. There is a current thread here on the forum on motorsailers.

I hope that helps.

Eric

[taniwha]

yes I did read Beebe's book as well as the diesel ducks from George Buheler.
I am just surprised that the market is so restricted to heavy displacements such as Nordhavn, Selenetrawlers etc or light displacements such as the diesel duck Idlewild or Tad Roberts' designs. The idea of circumnavigating on power boats is just to safe the costs on rigging, sails etc so a motorsailor is not really an option as you are only dubbling the costs. Why is there not more demand for these boats? Is it maybe the offer is so restricted? After having followed Idlewild circumnavigation I am convinced that it is a cheaper way to go than sailing, altough it sounds strange but it's cheaper to pay for your fuel than to go with "free energy".

[Crag Cay]

Steve Dashew seems to agree with you about costs. He claims his cruising under power with his new boat is cheaper than his previous sailing boat of similar size (Beowolf).

http://www.setsail.com/dashew/do_paradigm.html

There certainly has been a resurgence of interest in slim, light, long distance power vessels recently and Nigel Irens presented a paper at HISWA two years ago about this.

http://www.hiswasymposium.com/symposium_papers.asp

There is a whole spectrum of designs out there from Gerge Buheler's Idlewild to Vospers VSV's plus the power tri's can also be included in this catagory, as they are really only slim mono hulls with training wheels.

But the design trade offs within this spectrum are probably as complex as with any other sorts of boats. They do not offer everyone everything, and as a result, most people are still choosing to buy more conventional power boats.

But what are your priorities in a design? For instance what range do you need ? How many berths? What speed range had you in mind ? etc. Let us have a few more details and we might be able to match up a design.

[catmando2]

A low powered multihull may be a partial solution,we're doing one with a 2000+ nm range @10 kn.pictures in gallery

Dave

[timgoz]

Bruce Robert's PCF40 is a sturdy (steel) motorsailor that leans heavily to the power side.

Take care.

TGoz

[FAST FRED]

Consider reading the thread on container boats. http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11797

With the Container Box Maru carring 7000 other boxes , transport across an ocean can be quicker and far cheaper than DIY for 2000-4000 miles.
The vessel can be optomized for costal cruising , higher cruise speeds , more deck and glass area.

Of course she has to be robust enough to get caught out at times , but the scantlings and COST will reflect a brown water boat , rather than a blue water boat , which is usually 300% more , heavier and slower with more draft.

If cruising is your "thing" why not cruise and leave the "Victory At Sea" passages to the really big buckets that don't even notice a 50K headwind?



FAST FRED