small square rigged vessels

[Stephen Ditmore]

Sounds like what I had in mind when mentioning the lifeboat possibility. Did I see something about a 40' lifeboat? Something like that'd be nice to get hold of. I wonder if there are one or two brokers who buy old ones from the cruise ship companies? Ellie Shallit is a major cruise ship broker, Israeli, but I think has a Florida office. You might check with General Propulsion, Inc. at 760-770-4333, or just call the cruise ship companies and see what you can learn. You might try ringing up the Great Lakes shipyards listed at www.marad.dot.gov/nmrec/links/usshipyardsr.html

An external lead keel, perhaps just a big cast lead shoe bolted to the underside of the boat, would help with stability, as would keeping the rig as light as possible. You seem to have a good grasp of the fact that this will be an issue, but if you understand that the center of gavity needs to be as low as possible I think the beam of a lifeboat will end up being about right.

Fair Winds,
Stephen

P.S. - www.karibu.nl/reddingssloepen.html <-- Lifeboats R Us ???

I got to sail on a friends double ended life boat way back in the early seventies. The boat was built by Burl Ives the singer and actor. It was a gaff rig boat of thirty feet and was quite able. It could have easlt been rigged as a squar with the solid stitka spruce last it carried and the old hoop type sail rig. She was a nice little ship. Maybe you can find some info on it doing a search for Burl Ives he built two of them from surplus life boats.

[gonzo]

I surveyed that boat years ago as part of an insurance claim. She is in terrible shape; rot everywhere. I saw her for sale at the boattrader later. The owner claims a "recent survey shows her in excellent condition". I could get chunks of punky wood off the planking with my fingers.