The Ideal Cruiser - a long range passagemaker

[safewalrus]

Packeteer, see my comments on watchkeeping earlier (unless they are Big Kids!), but the choice is, as always yours! This is just my view (after keeping a few!) As for the mast raising there ain't to many reasons to lower your mast in mid ocean, with or with out the extra crew. More use in canals or rivers, with your normal crew! unless you employ people to raise/lower your mast at different locations! After all if you've got a 60 footer you most probably are well heeled (rich)

[D'ARTOIS]

There are some strong advantages of the deck stepped mast:

1st - no more leakage through the mast;

2nd - It can be made hauled down as per remark of Fast Fred - this is a thin to consider because it may save you a lot of money on the journey when you are able to go upriver and find oyurself a nice berth or anchorage. certainly this counts for some parts of Europe, especially The Netherlands and France's westcoast where you find cheaper berting if you look for a shelter upstream the rivers. Then cerainly you'll find obstacles in way of bridges that cannot open.
France has a lot of them.
How nice it would be to cross the Canal du Midi - if your draft allows that.

About the boat's sizes:

As Packteer says that he feels less comfortable in with 4 adults in a 47 'I believe him.

I was with two on my 100'schooner and it felt alread crowded. However I don't think that people making a long voyage will hold together if here are 4 in a boat.
When I was a bit younger I sailed as a bo'sun on an admirals cupper with a crew of 15 and two girls, daughter from the owner. Therefore I know a bit about crampiness.
I think that for the average husband/wife configuration anything between 44 and 50'will suffice.

Most circumnavigations take 3 to 4 years to complete, the boat is really a substitute for a house - this you will sense immediately when you see the boat of a circimnavigator that looks entirely different than the yacht of the president of the yachting club.....

Consider the followin: bow to stern -

1. anchor locker
2. watertight bulkhead
3. sailstorage
4. workshop ( obligatory ) toolstorage, spareparts etc.

hence:

The cabin lay-out: kitchen - sette - dinette/table

sleepingposts/seaberths

bathroom/toiletcabin

owners stateroom that becomes in use when in harbour

on deck: halfopen dockhouse, e.g. the doghouse is important if the weather becomes bad. The watch can find some shelter under the dighouse that keeps him/her out the wind and spray.

[masrapido]

d'artois, nice (old?) design. But why don't we use the wealth of talent here and go for something more futuristic along the way as well? I would suggest a post as an inspiration towards what I had in mind for a monohull; I hoped for a multi, like speeding, but monos are nice too. Just look at this one:
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/sh...php/photo/1693

Also, since 99% of the world works on metric, let us follow majority and speak the same measurements.

With all due respect to all, I think that anything over 13 m is going to be to expensive for most of us. 13 m is a nice upper limit but if there is interest, the boat can be scaled up for cashed ups in this forum.

We need volunteers for two things here: design and structural adaptation of design. Any takers? Dmitri, are you there somewhere?

[Bergalia]

Oh D'artois, D'artois- you've left no room for the livestock: chickens for fresh eggs; cows for fresh milk, sheep for fresh meat (and romantic interludes any Kiwi who cares to join...) Where do we keep the breadfruit plants, and lemons to ward off scurvy. We're going around the world old son - not for a day trip along the canals....

[D'ARTOIS]

Sorry Masrapido, this is an unreal creature in every way. A beautiful artists impression, but no more than that. This looks like a nightmare to build, with all the round work and it has no function.

Regarding the remarks of "being to costly" (anything over 13 meters (43') I do not agree.
I have met the postman, the ferrycaptain, the dentist, the liftmechanic, the croupier, the partsmanager, all in the ship they wanted and they were mostly well over 13 meters.
They have given up anything, their house included, to get to their goal.

I must admit that it is in Holland not too difficult to find financing for a boat in way of a bankloan. You can even get a mortgage on a privat yacht here, so in this respect our social structure does not have (yet) the insecurity of what's happening with the folks in general that can be jobless as per tomorrow, if the company feels fit to it.
Matter of factly, man and wife are working in such a situation and they live on the boat hey build, even if it will take 5 years to finish a boat.
many of the people I met have financed their boat that way.

in any case we may conclude that something between the 43 and 46 ' will feed he bill for most of us.

[D'ARTOIS]

As it seems that some forum members are not that familiar with he Dtch designers, I would like to introduce Mr Dick Zaal, Naval Architect to you.

Here is one of his designs: ( www.dickzaalyachtdesign.nl )

This is what we call in Holland a "Colin Archer" type of yacht, that one believes is certainly one the most seaworthy types of yachts.

The boat is 14.99 mtr x 4.50 mtr x 1.90 mtr

[Bergalia]

OK D'artois - forget the sheep and chickens. Now you're talking. A double ender, in my opinion, by far the safest vessel for all seas. Trust me - I've had big waves sneak up behind me in the Arctic Circle. But with regards to your thumbnail - I'd prefer a bilge keeler - security when beaching and bottom cleaning - unless your envisioned crew of four can manage a careen. A bilge keeler for those unpredictable highs and lows of tidal waters around the West of Scotland/Ireland and the Indonesian islands...Otherwise, let's get out the 4B pencils and graph paper and start work

[Wynand N]

Brien, since you asked for it, here is an interior sketch of my boat designed for extended cruising.

As all the drawings are OA size on mylar film, it is a bit difficult for me to reduce it to A4 size to fit my scanner - no facilties in my home town for that. Nevertheless, here is a scaled hand drawn sketch of "Touch Wood" interior plan, sans keels, rudder mast and other detail. The mast is deck stepped and the compression strut sits exactly on the aft corner of saloon table and have no affect on the interior.
From the companionway right through to the foreward cabin bulkhead, she is open plan to create an illusion of bigger interior. Coming down the companionway one is confined to walkways that is open, yet compact with plenty of holding places when underway. Engine accessibility excellent as all the panels around it can be removed and plenty of space around it to move around when servicing it.

I'm a hefty person of 120kg and designed the interior to fit me - all bunks, settees are well in excess of 2 meters in length and headroom 1.95+ meters under the cabintop.

She is a raduis chine steel hulled and deck, twin bulb keeler with rudder on full skeg.
The aft arch of the doghouse purpose, except for aesthetics, is to mount the mainsheet traveller.

LOA = 11.000meter (36ft 1')
Beam = 3.720 meter (12ft 4")
Draft = 1.550 meter (5ft)
Displ = 8700 kg (19500lbs)

[D'ARTOIS]

Congratulations Wynand!

You have really squeezed everythin possible out of the 12.20 LOA; I raelly hope that in the next futiure our ways will cross and we will meet!

Rest assured hat if you ever come to Holland or to France, a welcome will await you.

For me, such things as profiles are clear to me and suffices to get an idea of what you are going to build.

Brien

[Wynand N]

Brien, I made a blunder with the ships data. I entered the data of the original 40 footer I designed. The above sketch is of my ship after I scaled it a bit down from 40ft. She is in fact only 36ft LOA (11 meter) and Hester and I do not need more than this.

The reason I scaled "Touch Wood" down was purely economical and money is tight. Just the savings on potential mooring fees and maintenace, will pay a long way on building her. (already underway).
This brings me back to an earlier remark. With a long waterline and in this case a plumbish bow and more vertical transon instead of reverse transoms now in fashion, beam carried well aft, one can pack a lot of boat in a hull

Danke vir die goeie woorde en wense. I might come and visit Holland soon and take up your offer.

[sharpii2]

When I was finishing up in "The Landing School", my final project was a 35.5ft sailing auxiliary intended for ocean crossing. It was styled after a Block Island cowhorn. Those were deep 'V' bottomed double enders with a lot of flare in their sides and long keels that sloped downward aft. The waterline was so short, 27ft, that I used to joke that it was a 27 footer cramed into 35ft. As it turned out, my design ended up closer to a Mediterranian caique than a Block Island cowhorn.

In it it had: two quarter berths, an enclosed head w/shower, a galley, a dinnette for four. a 7ft workbench, shelves for two hundred books, a pantry for 200 cans, and a 7hp deisel to w/a feathering 3 blade to push it along at 3- 5kts when the wind didn't blow. For a trans it had a belt hooked directly to the prop shaft. Above the deck, it had a two headsail gaff rig of very low aspect ratio and a bowsprit that extended to England. The 0.75ft dia mast was to be stepped on deck.

The hull was single chine steel drawn up to ABS workboat standards. Its plates were designed so that they would have to be bent along just one plane with absolutely no twist. This was as much to make the interior easier to fit as it was to make the hull easy to weld up. The keel was to be a box section with a half round in front and a 4 to 1 taper in back.

My personal opinion is that an ocean voyaging yacht should more resemble a work boat than floating finery. And if it breaks, the skipper himself should be expected to fix it. As boats get larger, they tend to get more complicated. And they also end up with huge sail plans. If that's your thing, cool. I, myself, am more lazy than ambitious. I would rather give up some creature comforts than have to either fix them myself or figure out how to pay someone else to do it for me.

I have never been voyaging myself, but I have read books by those who have. And the most consistant theme seems to be keep it as small and simple as possible. One author even told a story about a guy who had a simple, small boat who was followed by older couples in their larger boats from port to port.
They needed him to fix everything that wore out or broke during their previous voyage. This guy had no trouble replenishing his cruising kitty
and I guess it worked out well for all involved. But he was a skilled craftsman. I am not.

I guess size can be a real confusing issue. Is a boat with really long overhangs really as large as its plumb bow/sterned sister of the sam length and beam? Do we go by displacement? Do we go by sail area? (short ended boats seem to need less sail area per dislacement than their plum sisters) Or do we go by internal volume, above as well as below the waterline? I, myself, would go by internal volume in cubic feet/100 (cubic meters/3). The old way shipping tonnage was figured.

[Packeteer]

ok, can we all agree on a design size?
how about 15 m in length and 4m beam?

individuals can stretch/shrink as desired

whats everybody think?

[D'ARTOIS]

According to me, we can go to the next issue and that is the rig: we have already discussed this issue in different threads, but now it must be combined on a design that is easy to sail or two people - that means in fact that you must sail it alone because if one keeps watch, the other is sleeping or doing other jobs.
So, which rig would suit the circumnavigator best? Is it the ketch rig, where you can play with a variety of sails, is it a bermuda or sloop rig/masthead rig that gives you maximum performance, will it be the cutter rig, that gives you manageable fore-triangles, will it be a Schooner rig that gives you easy sailhandling and second best performance, or will it something else?

please don't hesitate to ventilate your ideas

[Packeteer]

something unconventional please

cat rig or soft wing sail
Ilan Gonen's wing sail was featured in April Yachting World, details also available under US patent 6863008

both very simple to manage, tho initial cost may be an issue

[FAST FRED]

"My personal opinion is that an ocean voyaging yacht should more resemble a work boat than floating finery. And if it breaks, the skipper himself should be expected to fix it."

Truer words were never written.

The standards of machenery and instalations on working craft (expected to go 24/7/360) is so far from the flimsy junk used on play boats they can barely be compared.

EG , On our custom 33ft M/S we chose a stern bearing / stuffing box for the 1 3/8 shaft from the commercial folks catalog.

The stern bearing consists of 19 pieces of packing instead of a bronze or cutlass bearing.

When the packing finally wore out , making 18 new rings from a pound roll of packing was EZ to do aboard.
A bent coat hanger was able to pull all BUT ONE , of the packing rings , each replacement was pushed home with a chunk of PVC pipe cut in half to keep them square to each other as they were slid down the shaft.

About 45 min TOTAL time and the repair was ready for another 6 years of service , little cost , no e$pensive haul out , an example of OTS comercial gear vs.yacht junk.

The KISS principal is very true on ocean cruising boats , unless you have very very deep pockets.

FAST FRED