Sailboat bulkhead layout & deck design

[iamhepp]

Greetings,

I am a novice at sailboat construction, but found a beautiful fiberglass hull on Ebay and couldn't resist the challenge of building my own. It's a 45’ LOA, 36’ LWL, 5’-3” draft, 14’ beam and 9’-6” depth of hull amidships.

Forward is a clipper bow (12' above baseline), aft is a raked, wineglass transom. The sheer steps up approximately one foot aft at about the 2/3 length in Grand Banks schooner style. The keel is full length and projects evenly about a foot below the body of the hull. The aft underwater body is shaped for a propeller, shaft and rudder.

The hull is believed to have been built in the early 1970s, but there is no documentation and no plans that goes with it. On the plus side it has remained since its construction in a warehouse, protected from the elements. It is really a shell sans bulkheads, frames or stringers, but with exquisite lines. The construction appears to be ½” Airex core, skinned inside and out with ¼” fiberglass.

I want it to be a center cockpit schooner and was hoping that you could steer me to some place where can I get some kind of professional help for bulkheads placement, where to step the masts and the like.

I know that I am in up to my ears and have more time than I do money, but I feel that I can make this a wonderful boat and am willing to do what it takes to do it the right way. Any help you can be will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

[MikeJohns]

Mike

It is a hard road trying to take over someones long abandoned project. Probably worth posting some pictures inside and out to see if anyone recognises the hull. If they do and there are plans then you are off and running.

If not then you need to take sufficient lines off to assess displacement latteral plane and coefficients.

You also need to know the thickness and layup of the existing FRP which will be by small core samples.
Armed with this information someone can work up some basic construction plans, if it's going to be you you need to start reading a few books.

Probably the cheapest and best road is to buy a complete yacht that needs major renovation, these dreams based on long forgotten hulls have a habit of becoming nightmares. Also be aware that some hulls are abandoned because the designer/builder realises they have made a gross error in the design.

Post some pics
cheers

[alan white]

My suggestion is that you study lines drawings of some similar schooners and attempt to find a close match. The copy thy the sailplan.
Traditional schooner hulls are fairly easy to balance compared to shorter-keeled and shorter rigged boats like modern sloops.
Get back away from the boat a ways and snap a tele-photo, enlarge, and cut out underbody, and balance that on a pencil, and find center of resistence the easy way.
The sailplan should lead by somewhere around 5-7% (others might have a better estimate of lead-- I'm just guessing).
If the lead matches with comparable designs, you must be pretty close.

Alan

[Seafarer24]

Nice going! I was looking at that boat myself but couldn't figure out a cost-effective way to get it to FL and store it.

Pick up a book called The Art, Science, and Magic of Cruising Sailboat Design (or something to that effect). Also pick up one of the many books on Composite boat building. Gudgeon Brothers have a good one.

[CTMD]

Mike,

seek out some local expert advise, either a Naval Architect or a Shipwright with sailing boat / composite experiance. The first steps for either of these guys will be to take some core samples to determine the current laminate as this will be needed to determine the amount of internal structure you require and to draw up an underwater profile to allow you to develop a suitable sail plan.

Many people find it hard to spend money on this sort of service, however, given the time and money you'll be investing on this project it is a small investment to make sure you're happy with the end result.

[iamhepp]

Thank you all for your replies... your input has most appreciated.

I most likely will hire a navel architect to create some plans for me, but I like the idea that someone may recognized the hull style and point me to some pre-existing plans, so here are some of the photos.

Thanks again for all of your valuable input.

Mike

[Brent Swain]

But for the excessive freeboard it looks a bit like a modified Hereschoff Mobjack.
Look up that design in Hereschoffs books. You may find some valuable comparisons.
Brent