Project SeaCamel

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Kamelisko, Apr 16, 2017.

  1. Kamelisko
    Joined: Aug 2016
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    Hi

    Just wanted to share some of my thoughts about "the perfect" liveabroad sailboat. I've been toying with the idea of building one some day. As an arhitect, it also interests me to go a little deeper in to design solutions of boats.

    I´ll attach a few preliminary images of the design. Don't judge them immediately, they're quite square for now just to keep the editing more simple. I must admit: it's not easy to get into measurements in the boatworld! They're so different from buildings...

    I'm definetly not boat engineer so I will eventually need help with all the technical aspects; hull shape, keel, ballast, rigging, weight distribution etc. I suppose there could be a change to make this design as Creative Commons-thing? My goal is to design this to be built as easy as possible and make as many things as possible with CNC router. Material would be cold molded wood epoxy. So if there are others interested of this kind of thing, we definetly should co-operate!

    But here is some of the principles and thoughts about it. Take a look and consider commenting! Influences are mainly from: Moody 54DS, Garcia Exploration, Amel.

    Hull:
    • 45 to 50 feet. (LWL) big enough to liveabroad in comfort but handleable single handed.
    • Modernish but more comfort than performance shape
    • Beam ~4 to 4,5 meters
    • Semi-long keel, maybe bilge keels to allow shallow water sailing (Scandinavian archipelago is challenge…)
    • Single rudder with strong skeg
    • Modern - even ultra modern look all around detailing.

    Deck:
    • Deck saloon: 360 view from inside if possible
    • Large, nice living area with great views
    • Only couple of steps from cockpit to saloon
    • Single, well sheltered steering wheel (Amel-like)
    • shelteder cockpit with full standing height.
    • Fixed bimini structure (Moody DS-like)
    • Clean, clutter-free look.
    • High footrail and fixed RST-rails
    • Dighy-garage behind
    • Large flat areas for installing solar panels

    
Rig:
    • Kat Ketch rigging
    • Two rotating free standing wingmasts
    • Roller booms
    • Full battened sails
    • Light wind gennaker or maybe additional staysail (or little overrgged for decent performance in light winds)

    Interior:
    • Large deck saloon with galley and living/working area.
    • Single composting toilet, separate spacious shower
    • 2 to 3 small cabins, working/music space at bow.
    • 5-6 berths + saloon
    • Alot of storage
    • Engine and other ”dirty” things fully separate from interior to keep smells and heat away. (Amel-like engine compartment under the cockpit)
    • Well insulated from cold and condensation in Nordic environment (as well as heat in tropics)

    

Techical principles:
    • Easy to maintenance; simple solutions, easy access to everything.
    • Solar collector for hot water (if needed…)
    • Solar panels for electric
    • 360° Electric saildrive propulsion and alot of batteries
    • Diesel Generator for charging and motorsailing if neccessary
    • Bow thruster
    • Fixed, clutter-free windvane installation

    EDIT:
    See images attached
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Apr 17, 2017
  2. Skyak
    Joined: Jul 2012
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    Skyak Senior Member

    That is quite a list of stuff. Enough stuff that I am confident that that boat has never been designed, let alone built. Enough that it is questionable whether it will fit and work as intended in the boat described. Enough that is would almost certainly be cheaper building a bigger boat than doing the custom work to fit it so tight.

    Inevitably this thread will degrade into naysayers questioning how serious you are about any of these features, and how likely you are to put any of the resources it would take. As described, it would almost certainly cost seven figures for the custom design and build, and sell used for low six figures after sailing a few years. Drop a few of the more unusual features and you could buy a fine used cruiser for the cold waters -sail half a decade, sell, and buy a great tropical cruiser -all for half the price of the design and build you describe above.

    Just for starters
    -cat ketches are fairly rare -fewer to none with raised saloons. They bring high cost starting with the design, and big difficulty accommodating the bulkhead structure to a design that already doesn't fit. The ketch rig also casts shadows all over the deck so there is no good place for solar panels -destroying your cost/usable watt hr. Making them wing masts is fairly pointless because of the low performance of the sail plan, to say nothing of the huge displacement you are describing. A conventional rig would easily fit under 64ft bridges, offer better performance, and lop years and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the project.

    Solar and electric propulsion, are not a good match for arctic cruising. They would make far more sense on a cat in the tropics. Again, when you consider how much more boat you would need just to haul batteries around and tile with panels, it's like you are the service accessory on a boat built for the power system.

    There are more difficulties and conflicts but I would like to get your reaction to the two above and throw in one more kicker. If you are serious about these two features in particular and the big bucks it will take, you should be talking to top notch NAs now. The kind who's name will bring respect and resale value, because if you don't use top notch, every dollar of equipment you stuff in your oddity will SUBTRACT from it's value. Instead of being seen as a luxury car it will be seen as a pickup pulling out of a junkyard stacked high. This may seem harsh, but don't be surprised to find that all the good advice you will get here sounds negative. If you are serious, there are top notch NAs lurking and interested in a challenging commission.
     
  3. Kamelisko
    Joined: Aug 2016
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    Hi

    Thanks for the reply

    You found the essential point for even considering this kind of project:
    Cat Ketch combined to Deck Saloon is the key. There really is no such boat available. If I wanted conventional rig, there are options. "Traditional" go-under-the-deck-thing is out of the question. If you want to cruise oceans and visit places of extreme beauty why would you live in cave...?

    I'm really interested for the Cat Ketch rig because of the simplicity and ease - and also the lack of maintenance needed for keeping it going. (no stays and all those little thingies that keep them up.) I'm not sure what do you mean about the performance side. I have been taught that the performance of Cat Ketch is quite comparable or even better than conventional rig - especially downwind and especially with the ability to turn booms forward.

    But yes, those masts are no doubt the expensive part - maybe 20-30K€ each I've been told. Hull could be possible done with 30-40K€ I would imagine. And then all the other stuff. There is example in Finland of project that ~40ft boat is completed with 70K€ and 5 years of work.

    Another thing is that if this is going to be existent some day, it will be strictly DIY-project. If I could afford it to be made, the forum to ask something about it would be quite different... ;)

    Beyond that Cat Ketch-rig, I think there would be nothing "special" about this. Just a little rare combination of familiar things. And the technical side is thought to be as simple as possible. In ten years battery technology may be quite something else than today.

    But if someone professional wants to put their time in this kind of project, It would be my pleasure to co-operate as designer as boat design interests me greatly. This could be made even commercial project or as Creative Commons available for everyone to tweak with. (imagine you could download CNC-files for boat and just make the parts yourself...)
     
  4. Skyak
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    Skyak Senior Member

    Well, obviously we have dramatically different opinions about what the rig and boat will cost, and how suitable it is for DIY. The best person I know for you to talk to would be Eric Sponberg. He has the most experience and is as positive about the benefits as reality will allow. If he had not retired, he would be the obvious NA to hire, even if you could only budget consultation.

    Start here: http://www.ericwsponberg.com/free-standing-mast-designs/

    The last I heard, Eric was out sailing with his wife (a cold-mold sloop with freestanding mast FWIW) but being retired, he might welcome some tech talk and point you in the right direction. He gave an amazing amount of great free advice when he was working. The questions I would suggest (beyond the how and cost) would be what are the regulatory requirements of the EC for this DIY blue water cruiser, and what kind of resale would this boat command as a DIY vs by a high reputation NA. I still favor a cutter rig, and the free standing, solar, roller boom, and pilot house each throw another load of dirt on the ketch grave in my mind.

    FWIW, the closest I ever got to a free standing kat ketch was a 42ft pro built custom on Ebay. I was attracted by the price. It went for $23k and honestly, if I had bought it I could not find more than $10k worth of stuff to needing replacement. It was a scary low price for no greater fault than lack of pedigree.
     
  5. Kamelisko
    Joined: Aug 2016
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    Yeah, I have read carefully many of Eric's posts. Actually I contacted him couple of years ago with this, but as you said, he was going to retire.

    But back to the subject. Purpose of this thread I imagined is to find good design solutions for boat of this kind. Is your opinion that the Kat Ketch mast arragement is bad with the Deck Saloon structure? If so, it there particular reason for that?

    I found it problematic to gain good visibility from cockpit as well as from inside. I have to tweak those heights still a little. I think it's better to look over the Deck Saloon rather than through it. Especially in dark the cockpit should be as dark and sheltered from light coming from inside as possible. If you compare for example Moody 45/54DS that lightness could be problem for night vision...
     
  6. Skyak
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    Skyak Senior Member

    BTW, non of the photo links in your first post worked. Use the file attachment tools from BD.net.
     
  7. Kamelisko
    Joined: Aug 2016
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    Fixed them...
     
  8. Skyak
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    Skyak Senior Member

    The ketch rig just doesn't demonstrate value to me aerodynamically. The mizzen is too far back to have beneficial interaction with the main (like jibs do). Without rigging you need heavy bulkheads to carry forces to the hull, and a heavier hull to carry the torque to the keel. The Pilot house just makes the hull that much more difficult -> making a torque member from a half circle vs a full tube with limited windows breaking structure. Then there is the traveler, which will carry substantial force because you can't vang a roller boom and must be located at the end of the boom. One of the benefits of free standing rigs is the roach you can carry without stay interference. But that roach exerts strong leverage lifting the boom. I like roller booms but you need to be at the end of the boom and on the halyard -I suspect that is a problem that will force you out of the cockpit to precarious places in bad weather -twice. Ketch rigs were a big benefit to balance back in the days of full keels with a rudder hung from the end. With modern keel rudder setups there is no significant efficiency gain for that balance. Two smaller sails are no longer easier to handle than one -they are harder.

    My strong preference would be a cutter with a big masthead geny that I would pole out down wind cruising. Go to the bottom of the page on the link I sent. The last pic is a beautiful big pilothouse cruiser. Scale that down to fit what you want and spend 10% of the savings from eliminating the mizzen on top notch sail handling gear -> that is what I think you should do.
     
  9. Kamelisko
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    I think we're not talking same kind of roller boom here. (Is furling boom the right term...?) I mean kind of boom with roller inside the boom with vang and everything. That's just because mast roller is not really option with free standing (and therefore bending) mast. Also you can have battens on sail with furling boom and have more sail area at top that way as you mentioned. One benefit for rotating mast is that the boom can be fixed at the mast so that the sail track is always on right position (which i've heard is one issue in using furling booms). Of course you have to adjust vang just right when rolling the sail in. But that's not crucial point right now... :)

    Considering traditional headsail, wouldn't that make the structure of the free standing mast to be alot harder when there comes huge forces from the headsail? With mainsail only forces are much lower at the mast end as it balances with the whole length of the mast. Or then you need those extra stays when using the headsail which makes the thing too complicated. If not, of course one mast only would be quite a lot less work...

    I'm not really sure if traditional marconi rig is more powerful if compared to cat ketch with proper design. If you think of sailing on big seas, you nearly always have reef on anyway. Benefits are obvious when sailing downwind with wing-wing-combination and mainsails pointed front; no fear of accidental jibe and self rightening if wave hits hard from back. And also less drag, more lift.

    Of course the hard part is to design the hull, keel and the sails in way that the combination is balanced and behaves well and safe. That's really the thing where I need the help if this is ever going to that point :)

    What I'm really not sure is how you should arrange the traveller for the both sails. If you think how far they will go at front, you have to have quite long main sheet rope available. By looking at images of Freedom-boats I think they don't have travelers at all. Maybe the solution could be two fixed points for main sheet with which you can adjust the boom.
     
  10. rob denney
    Joined: Feb 2005
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    rob denney Senior Member

    Agree about the ketch, but I have used unstayed schooner rigs and agree they do not work like a jib and main, but they do work well on all points of sail except twa ~150 when the foresail is blanketed. Any small difference upwind would be much more than offset by the ease of use of such a rig.

    Unstayed masts are not expensive compared to stayed ones. Nor are they heavier, once all the extra stuff a stayed rig requires is taken into account. They are easily built by the home builder or can be purchased. The gains come from not having to worry about, check and maintain your rig. Put your unstayed mast up and forget about it until it needs repainting or the bearings start to rattle. This and the safety gains more than make up for any cost difference.

    I disagree. The only extra bulkhead required in the drawings would be one at the foremast, which could be a ring frame. The hull will be lighter than a stayed rig as the stay and shroud loads are eliminated.

    It is not a difficult engineering job. Unidirectional reinforcing on the roof to spread the load would add virtually nothing to the all up weight.

    Agree about roller reefing and travellers. I would use a wishbone boom which is self vanging. Unstayed mast boats do not reef anywhere near as often as stayed rigs. Often it is sufficient simply to ease the sails until they are doing just the right amount of work and wait for the squall to pass. With no stays to stop the mainsail, this can be done on all points of sail. It also means passage times are higher as you can use the area required, rather than reef for the night, 'just in case'.

    Disagree. It is a little harder to hoist a fully battened main, but much easier to trim it and reduce it than it is a headsail.

    Disagree again. The joys of rolling the pole in while running downwind, getting back on course after an accidental gybe, taming a masthead genoa when the furler breaks, lowering it and hoisting a smaller headsail in a squall and just sheeting the monster in when the wind is up is not what easy cruising should be about.

    What I think you should do, or at least the boat that answers more of your requirements than the boats mentioned, is a C60 harryproa. Faster, roomier, more comfortable, shallower draft and safer. Probably cheaper as well. http://harryproa.com/?p=1747#more-1747
     
  11. Kamelisko
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    That boat design is definetly interesting and it has many features (not least the simplicity of the build).

    But. I'm really not into multihulls... There is still another risky feature - capsizing. I know it's theoretical but it's there. Another thing is the beam which is good and bad. It brings livable area more, but makes the boat wide for handling in harbor. Although I have never sailed in catamaran, I still have feeling that (especially here in shallow waters) it can be quite alot more unconfortable.

    But. I have to think about that. It would be ready-to-go plan with some customization available. I really like the philosophy behind there and ease-to-build point of view.
     
  12. rob denney
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    rob denney Senior Member


    Thanks. It is unusual for people to actually read about proas and assess them on their merits.

    Upwind, proa motion is different to catamarans as the bows meet the waves at the same time. There is none of the uncomfortable corkscrewing motion of a cat. It is more like a mono, without the heeling. The rest of the time, the boat sails level, and at anchor, never rolls.

    There are 2 causes of capsize, wind and waves. It would be impossible to capsize the C60 under normal conditions. However, there have been abnormal sudden huge gusts which could do so, although the unstayed rigs which automatically bend in a gust and the ability to totally depower by releasing the lightly loaded sheets make it less likely than for a cat. The size of wave required to flip an 18m x 9m wide raft drawing 300mm would be even rarer. In these conditions, you would be laying comfortably to a sea anchor. In a worst case scenario, it is not difficult to make the C60 livable upside down.

    The flip side is that the C60 is unsinkable, and the mono is not. There is a much higher likelihood of hitting something that holes the boat than there is of a wind or wave capsize.

    Both of these events pale into insignificance compared to the number of boats lost because the skipper was tired and made mistakes. Unstayed rigs on the mono would remove a lot of the stress of sailing it, but the C60 would be less again.

    The width is indeed a 2 edged sword. Marina costs go up and more space is required. However, it is much more manoeuvrable (turns in it's own length, has much less inertia) and, when you get somewhere warm, there is a huge outdoor living area with seating for more than 20 people.

    Compared to a ~50' cruiser (Oyster 54, displacement 21 tonnes, draft 2.1m, rm 16,000 kgm), the C 60 has displacement 6 tonnes (weight 4, plus 2 tonnes payload), draft 1.5m (the rudders can be lifted and it will still steer at 300mm draft, rm 18,000 kgm. That weight difference shows in performance, materials cost, engine size, ground tackle, rig, rigging, deck gear, the amount of hull requiring painting and scrubbing and the effort required to sail the boat.

    Kick up rudders and no keel or daggerboard make sailing in shallow areas much less traumatic.
     
  13. Kamelisko
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    Kamelisko Trying to design and build my own boat

    Thanks! Yeah, I'm really open to ideas and i like new solutions. Maybe I should contact this finnish fellow who built one some years ago, the "Ono". Of course the rigging is quite different there but I think it cloud be nice experience to get on one.

    I think there definetly is room for new ideas on the monohull side also. Especially with the contruction technical side. It's too expensive still to make these things.

    That weight thing is - in my opinion - two bladed sword also. More mass makes it obviously more gentle in movements on rough seas which I think is crucial thing for long distance cruising also.

    BTW is there electric propulsion solutions in those things? A lightweight boat with lots of surface for solar panels combined with high speeds (making it possible to use hydrogenerator etc.) would be easier to do with pure electric system. Of course small diesel generator should be there for emergencies but it could be easily fitted somewhere in winward hull. e-motors could be easily positioned in fixed locations somewhere.
     
  14. HJS
    Joined: Nov 2008
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    HJS Member

    Schooner rig

    Your project seems to me to be very interesting. What matters to me is your open attitude to new opportunities. I attach a pdf to a completely different boat. What I want to show with it is just new and old possibilities that can be used even on your project. This is mainly the rig that I consider suitable for your boat.

    Välkommen ombord
    JS
     

    Attached Files:


  15. rob denney
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    rob denney Senior Member

    Well worth a call. Otherwise book a holiday in Australia and I will take you for a sail in Bucket List.

    Agreed, but it is harder to make a simple mono than a simple proa. Bigger panels, compound curves, restricted hull shapes, big lumps of lead hanging off the bottom, etc.

    Maybe. The motion still happens, just slower. I think size is as important as weight.

    Agreed. There is an 18m in Melbourne with 2 home made electric motors, solar panels and diesel gen set. One of the 15m replaced 2 x 20 hp outboards with Torqeedo 4's, another had an electric motor for manoeuvring. The 20m about to be launched in Portugal is solar electric (not sure if it has a gen set, bt probably) and the very fast 20m cruiser in Norway will be electric with panels and regen. [/QUOTE]
     
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