Affordable, long-term liveaboard?

By minimalist, you mean roughing it, I presume.
That is not my intent either. I look at the hours devoted to an activity, and apportion space accordingly.
My wife devotes most of her waking hours to personal hygiene and beauty treatments. It works! I benefit. I enjoy looking at her. Early in our marriage I accused her of being vain. Her response, "Soy mujer!". Translates:"I'm a woman!".
I designed space to accommodate her 'hobby'.
We both like to cook and love to eat. We spend more time eating than in the preparation. Cooking tasks require less than an hour per day. Does not include the unattended heating time, done by robot appliances.
So, Guest Star galley equipment makes it's cameo appearance, then leaves the stage.

My original aft cabin had two quarter berths tucked under cockpit seats and 4 ft sitting headroom. The quarter berths remain but I enlarged the space and added a matrimonial size bed, and two permanently reclined lazy chairs for reading and TV watching. Now there is 6'1" headroom in BOTH fore and aft cabins.
Minimalist? or organized priorities?

 

Yobarnical; You are welcome. i pinched the idea from some French Ocean racers who used “Camping Gaz” burners. Mine is an old ‘Coleman’ and a kettle from Goodwill.

I occasionally make one as gifts when i am invited as crew on boats.

My last several trips the most used device has been the Microwave from an inverter, batteries and solar panels (racing remember). When its really rough we tend to use the above kettle for soup, or hot cocoa (milo is popular too).

Noah; I understand and agree with the Diesel part, just not the Diesel-electric. This sounds like a heavy, complex, expensive and high maintenance method of reducing propeller RPM, for dubious gain? Please explain?

Noah, more impressive is the -38 version, at 30hp, and ocean crossing. When launched into these forums, there was serious skepticism, but one example crossed the atlantic?on 200+ gal, and others have done similar long trips. The secret, in these and some other boats, is long, skinny, and light weight.

Sorry, i was still thinking of extreme economy, and self contained operations.

Everyone in the PNW, especially those associated with boats, knows about, and admires the Bartender. A fantastic boat.

Most of the examples i know are rather heavy, being built from lumber yard materials, and covered heavily with fiberglass. Most are powered by large V8’s, usually marine conversions of some sort. As such they derive some of their seaworthiness from this weight, and suffer poor fuel consumption as a result. The ones operated by the coast guard were especially bad, but very effective.

Assuming you want better economy, you could still make one from lumber yard material, just don't sheath it at all, or only one layer. Georges own boat not only had the ‘strakes’ to reduce squatting, but had small fins on them too, for directional stability. But he did have a ‘jet’ unit, and launched it straight off the beach at times.

The strakes, to reduce squatting at power, might be eliminated if you were to install a lighter engine, really far back, and with the typical Thai very steep propeller shaft! The thrust of this would tend to lift the stern, and you certainly do not need the power typically installed. Like many of these ‘deadrise’ sort of boats, weight really effects them. The heavier ones ride well, but need quite a lot of power. The lighter ones, need less power, but will slam if pushed hard enough into chop. I personally would go with an extremely light one, and simply limit speed in a chop. Regardless, head to waves, or stern to waves, they are very seaworthy.

I think you might need the 29’ version, it has standing headroom inside, but they recommend a 250hp diesel? We had a 27’ lapstrake Chris-craft for a while, single 200hp V8, and it was fast and smooth, but not economical.

I have two colleagues (one a cousin) with roughly similar length boats. One, a heavy deep”V”, 27’ long, needs 2 X 250HP OB’s, and uses about $1,000 gas over a weekend.

The other has a 27’ CDory (flat bottom, power dory style) with 2 X 90hp stern drives, goes faster, further, and uses about 1/4 the fuel. Yes he has to slow down ‘earlier’ but both will jar your teeth out at any speed in a chop.

 

Atkin Seabright

Listening again to the Atkin Seabright Skiff, that does not sound like any diesel i have ever heard.

 

Economical and Sustainable Gunkholing Cruisers

Yobarnacle, these are my choice of coastal gunkhole boat for me depending on whose coming and where we are going.

Ikarus Eco 7.5 by Bernd Kohler


Shellboat Catamaran


Glen-L Vandal? up to 37knots


Woods' Skoota 28 power catamaran. Cruise 11 knots and 7 mpg with twin 20 hp OB. Max 25 knots with twin 60 hp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IIvM01seyLA

 

Better Explanation of Live Aboard Offshore Cruiser Concept

This diesel-electric hybrid is still a work-in-progress. For a small 24' catamaran motorsailor, I think this will work. Get a 16-22 hp diesel connected to a keel drive with a surface piercing propeller. A diesel engine will also have 3-4 12VDC clutched alternators attached by a belt to charge batteries (3-4 x 12VDC batteries for 36-48VDC, lead acid/LiPO). The batteries are connected to twin 5kw DC motors for harbor maneuvers. A diesel engine is used for upwind/no wind motoring. The electric motors assisted sailing in light air. Combine diesel and electric motor for short emergency WOT use. 30 knot speed may be possible. The low light PV panels for generation even in shade for house use. Possible wind generator and a current generator to augment PV panels for house use. Propane gas for BBQ grilling. A microwave works great for everything else most of the time. Rain water collection roof/tarp and a small desalinator. A small thermal solar collector for showers. A small single burner stove, or possibly an integrated camping BBQ grill/stove combo instead. A small fridge. For a 36-38 footer catamaran/trimaran, I still need to work out the near 30 knot speed capability, but I need to decide on a hull type first.

I am sure even a 5hp diesel motorsailer can cross Pacific using my hybrid motorsailer setup without waiting to recharge from PV panels. Primary motive is sail assisted by electricity, hopefully charged by PV panels but likely from a diesel generator. 120+ miles per day cruise should be feasible from sailing with some electric motor assists. I need to calculate how much power I need to optimize my top speed to run away from a storm or nuisance locals.(opportunistic pirates?)
I may need to reduce my top speed for 36-38' version. Maybe I can get some salvaged cheap Thorium from Fukushima to power my cruiser to get 35 knots

My hull will be dory or Seabright dory hull with 10:1 L/B ratio below DWL, but has double ended sharp dory or sharp dory and bartender stern above DWL for better rough water survivability. Another benefit of this hull should be overload situation. Due to its dory hull shape, it will be fast when lightly loaded for short trips but still handles excess loads safely for ocean crossing. If I go trimaran route, then the main hull will have bartender shape above DWL. The maximum diesel engine weight shall be determined and it will probably compromise maximum HP installed. I don't see it being too much larger than 100 HP. It may be easier to increase electric motor power to increase speed for short term.

The hulls would be made out of Okume/Cedar strip and the furnishing may be Nidacore/high density styrofoam (purple XPS) core for lighter weight. The hulls and stepping decks will be sheathed and all structurally stressed areas will be reinforced with the proper fiberglass or kevlar fabrics. The bow area around water level will be sheathed for protection from floating logs. Lumberyard material will be used only if it meets structural requirements since this will be ocean-going boat. Naval architect review will be required.
I am thinking extreme economy and reasonable small carbon footprint, but using high-end material is false economy and false sustainability. You can buy many years worth of fuel with carbon fiber masts and racing quality sail rigs. And expensive gears have very high embodied carbon footprint (The end product which may seem very environmentally sustainable but the product may have caused much environmental damage to produced and transported to end user). So, cheap products are more likely to be more environmental. But I digress...

Another reason for dory/Seabright hull with strakes is possibly to help lift hull to reduce wet surface for maximum semi-displacement speed. The strakes may be retracting type for maximum lift surface but retract for heavy sea conditions. The strakes may end up looking more like foils. I think flared dory hull shape or bartender hull shape above DWL combined with proper weight distribution (engine, battery, fuel) will be sufficient to provide stability and Righting Moment. Lighter ends and heavier mids. The strakes will help with speed/fuel improvement.

I own a small tuna boat with twin 150 hp OBs and we go through 150 gallons tank in a day I am trying to minimize my last biggest carbon sin with a better next boat. We shall see I did get tempted by C-Dory marketing claims before I got my current fishing boat, but fortunately I came to same conclusion you have stated above however it does cost much more fuel to operate. :[

What kind of boat did you build? 36 footer? How did that go?

 

Pilgrim 40

Just to offer a little diversion,...here is one vessel I could liveaboard for a long time.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s3/redesigning-pilgrim-40-trawler-canal-boat-11212.html

...and building it
Why Steel Hull

Cabin & Deck Superstructures of Polycore Construction

Interior

more Interior

Simple Cooking

More Construction Discussions

 

My wife and I looked at what I believe to be that exact same boat in Fla. a few years back. As I recall the helm was very cramped almost like an old fashioned telephone booth. And the stateroom below the helm was a dark cavern. Still and all we almost made an offer on it.

 

Dory/Cat;

OK, i think i understand, we are discussing two boats, one coastal, one ocean crossing. I think they are compatible, but we shall see.

Thanks for the explanation about Diesel /electric, excellent and succinct.

For reference only, here is a “Dory’ catamaran. Way back you asked about putting two Thai hulls side by side, and making a catamaran, here it (sot of) is.

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/?page_id=2

To my way of thinking, the 10:1 L/B ratio is all wrong. Its rather too narrow for comfort at sea, and not efficient enough. My suggestion is to make it 20:1, (at least between 10:1 and 20:1) and allow the hull to be a bit deep. Flare the topsides generously, and we can discuss the bow later. Add a pair of floats each side, rear quarter is typical, for stability. In typical power trimaran fashion, this does not have super wide beam, and for sea/ocean work, perhaps the floats should not be demountable.

The Seabright’ hull as drawn, was, i think, for “river’ rescue, and as such fairly shoal draft, hence the ‘tunnel drive’. I do not think you need this feature, wave motion will 'starve' the suction side of the propeller. The ‘box’ keel is an excellent approach, and an ideal place to stow batteries, the diesel, and other heavy items. For a monohull this will help with sailing stability.

I would like to suggest a “Box Keel” on the center hull of a power type trimaran for ocean crossing. Smaller trimarans have more accommodation and load carrying ability (arguable), and often far more deck for PV collectors, than an equivalent catamaran (though it depends on how you measure ‘equivalency’. )It would have sail assist, either an “A” frame mast with twin ‘jibs’ or better in my mind, a parasail.

I can imagine a long, narrow, trimaran, doing near 30kt for ‘bursts’ to escape weather, or malcontents, yet be very economical at 10-12kts for ocean crossing. The central hull would have a double ended deep ‘box keel’ shape under the waterline, and a much wider, transom stern, above the waterline. So as the stern squatted under power, the wider section would become the new aft surface. In this case you need only one central power/propeller, and could use electric water jets on the floats for maneuver/power. I found an example (~25kW) on the WWW, but can’t find it again. Could this shape be compatible with steep waves from behind?

Note; in my mind, a 40’ by 2’ flat bottom hull, flared to approximately 3’ at the DWL, and then ‘kinked’ outward to about 8’ wide for the main hull. The floats would be 15’ long, and 1’ wide at their decks. Accommodation a bit like the Kurt Hughes -38 shown earleir.

This is an interesting example, but i want you to observe the ‘box keel’ on the crude sketch concept. Clearly the builders/designers smoothed out the lines, so who know what the underwater shape is, but the concept is sound.

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/g...on/12021-collapsable-home-built-trimaran.html

Way to go Brian, a nice boat. The hollow core, sandwich, topside structure and furniture is very common on ‘super yachts’ building here in the NW, probably elsewhere as well. Very skilled cabinet makers make the most amazing items, including complex ‘carvings’ and ‘murals’ from veneer over honeycomb or foam.

A serious contender for sail assist must be Brian's cartoon under his name, a high tech square rig.

Somtime read 'Voyaging under Power' by Robert Bebe.

 

No! No! No! You guys are messing up my dream!

Brian, NO! NO! NO! You are being too logical! Steel hull for high latitude cruising and for flotsams. Wooden trim with light hollow core panels for framing. Love the cane cabinet doors. I have the microwave/convection oven combo unit! I am sure you have been going through some of my own invention ideas folder. How did you post them on web before I archived them in my disk drive.

Question Brian, we are very susceptible to motion sickness, especially my wife. So we only look at catamarans for cruisers. How stable is 40' monohull cruiser with outrigger fin stabilizer? Would it be comparable to a wide catamaran of similar size? How good is powered gyro stabilizer? What I have seen, I wasn't that impressed when compared to catamarans.

Yes, I have looked at Slider before. Wonderful for it's purpose, but I like multifunctionality. For sailing cruiser enthusiasts Slider works. But I like to get out of storm with motor or extend my fishing trip until last minute then get out quickly.

L/B ratio more than 12:1 you begin to lose space and useful load volume. Too much work and displacement goes into structural integrity. If it were 60+ feet long, then it may be feasible at much higher cost of the hull construction. 20:1 ratio hull would be practical as a racer, but as a small live aboard cruiser, the added construction cost can pay for a bigger engine and fuel, imo. More comfort for us would come from roll stability not pitch stability from longer hull. So catamaran is better than trimaran.

I don't see much difference between a seabright hull and a box keel other than the box keel can also work as a better LAR keel for sailing and the seabright hull has a tunnel. The tunnel seems to be difficult to design and it can be starved, but if designed properly, it can perform much better than a box keel in motoring and in rough seas (?). Trimaran is a mixed bag for me in my purpose. It can provide more useful interior space if the hull is wide but the roll stability is not as good as a catamaran.

I though parasail has difficulty to stop or retrieve sails quickly. Last I've read, they were developing some algorithm to implement practical control issues. Then the cost of system goes up quite a bit for a small vessel. Twin roller furled jibs sound good enough

Agree on the trimaran with bigger engine and wide stern above waterline. I am not sold on jet propulsion. Its' efficiency, weight and not having a reverse thrust bothers me. Retractable DC motor mounted on inside after section of floats "Thai Longtail-like" style with out swivel makes more sense IMO. Steering can be done by controlling DC motors forward and reverse only.

Quite similar to hull forms I have sketched in my dream. Except for retracting akas are susceptible to wave in rough seas. If amas can be tucked under hull next to box keel would have been better. the rear deck roof shouldn't extend out too much, it interferes with my Marlin fishing pole casting. Picky, picky, picky

Thank you.

CONCLUSION: I should just build my multifunctional trailerable boat in 24-35' range for coastal fishing/cruising, but buy the best boat for each specific cruising water then sell them after the cruise. I need to have couple of cruising boats at a time then. One to cruise and another in dock with a "For Sale" sign, *Sigh* (logs off the forum and gets back to work)

 

Best cure for motion sickness. Ginger. Chinese have used it for 'mal de mer' for eons.

Mix up some ginger tea and sip it until you burp. that's enough. It's a topical anesthetic. Your lower body will feel like it disappeared. It's the ONLY remedy that works AFTER you are seasick. Ginger snaps cookies work less well than the tea.
chewing raw ginger works best but very bitter and 'hot'.

 

Please do not dispare, we can solve this conundrum for you.

Ginger does work, so does cool fresh air whilst looking at the horizon.

Parasails can be both self launching, and self stowing, in a hollow mast. Add a flair, or trumpet mouth to the top, and handle it like a spinnaker shooter. To be honest, an old circular parachute would also work, up to a reach anyway. Wing on wing jibs also work, and can beat to windward too, but need a full height mast. This mast will occasionally have vertical downward thrust of the instantaneous displacement of the boat, so the cross beam needs to be very robust, or you need an “A” frame mast (recommended).

Catamarans are quite stable, but VERY sensitive to weight. Until you get to a size where one can stand, or perhaps crouch/sit on the bridge deck, and have decent wave clearance, they have quite small living volume. If you make them wide enough to be stable, you get a real issue with waves striking the bridge deck. The lower the flair on the hulls, especially the bows, the greater this is an issue.

Trimarans are also stable, and better load carriers, whist in the smaller sizes, have bigger and more usable interior volume. There beam can be the same as a catamaran, but the bridges, or beams, are only half the length, so wave impact is far less of an issue.

Bow flair and overhang were originally intended to decrease instances of boats burying their bows in the back of a wave. They increase the rate of change of displacement over rate of change of vertical movement, or rate of change of time. Later, overhang became a method of increasing WL length over rating WL under heel. My choice for a bow would be something like Piver's center hulls, ie lots of overhang, and lots of flair. To be honest, several of my boats have had no rake, but still quite a bit of flair, so the bow proper was a cone shape. These seemed extremely satisfactory, increasing WL length to the max, which was the object. I liked these, but you may not.

I am thinking of you starting with a Thai long boat. Typical medium ones are about 40' long, and about 5', perhaps 6' wide. Flair makes the WL beam rather less.

These boats have about 2' depth of side. Many of them have a canvas roof, often on sprung metal rods, and roll up clear plastic side screens. These are only used in weather, and make the boat wander a bit in direction. These actual boats are very 'soft' in torsion, and warp/twist terribly traveling over waves, very noticeable and dramatic. If you are going to make something like this, you need several bulkheads or similar to retain torsional rigidity.

Were we to add a 4.5’ high depth of side, and about 2’ flush side cabin, in order to get standing headroom, this hull will become rather top heavy. It will need more stability especially in weather, hence needing the outriggers, or floats. A ‘shelf’ about 3’ above the WL will go out to 8’ beam, for accommodation, and trailering.
Static stability in a trimaran depends on the floats configuration and position. The French built a lot with only one float touching the water at a time, but this makes for a lot of ‘flopping’ around. My own had very deep “V” shaped floats, and typically sailed with one completely out of the water. It looked cool, but was not successful for stability, or maneuvering.

Clearly this configuration will need stabilizing floats. http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=5933

You could even use a sort of 'long tail' drive or propeller, and raise it from the water when sailing.

http://appliedfluidtech.com/high-speed-trimaran-design

My own trimaran was seriously Piver like, but with large ply sided, solid wood compression/tension caps as beams, integrated into the cabin (a bit like “Brown’s”). It was far too heavy, with slightly too thick skins everywhere (too conservative), and not enough stringers. Built for someone else, it was sold on quite quickly, and later enjoyed as a low performance floating cottage in and around the bay of islands. It was replaced by a very high sided catamaran, also 36', and designed by another, though i did the concept sketches with the owner. i still have a copy of the trimaran drawings, and the catamaran sketches. The catamaran i rendered into CAD recently, and may be able to post them if there is interest. I’m not too good at posting pictures though.

I've probably leaned too far the other way as my recent boats have been strong, light and fast, but apparently excessively vulnerable to impact from docks, trailers, and other boats. i have been accused of designing an aircraft, then putting it in water, and putting sails on it. Probably true.

 

Another design aspect not mentioned. Hold a piece of paper in your hands and try to pull it apart. Quite strong. Now push it together. Crumples easily.
A hull is a box girder. Most of the longitudinal strength is in the sides. Water pressure supports the bottom. But the deck is perforated by large openings and non-continuous planes because of houses and hatches. That is weak. If you can make the deck as continuous as possible and keep it in tension, the entire resulting box girder hull will be stiffer and stronger. A deck in compression is like that crumpled piece of paper.
When I sailed lake ore freighters length to beam ratio 10:1 or greater, we intentionally hogged the vessel when fully loaded. so the deck would be in tension.

Reverse shear isn't the saltiest prettiest profile, but it's the strongest.

 

I understand what you are saying, particularly about the stateroom. Here is one of the more creative modifications with light-shaded woods.
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=183374&postcount=179

I think the use of some of those modern 'light-pipes' would supply a lot of sunlight down there.

The helm station is 'tight' compared to some trawlers, but remember we are trying to 'cram' a lot of living space into a relatively short vessel, ...without raising her height to any great degree.

 

the Greening of Maribel

You might find this video interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UctpeB9GNZQ

 

Yobarnical, i wonder how many ore freighters were lost because no one applied your structural trick. I know the liberty ships suffered a similar issue, blamed publicly on poor metallurgy, but the subject of structural analysis taught at many schools.

Here is a video from a similar source, showing a boat rather similar to one i had envisioned for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6gn4g7QJdY

A boat is indeed a box beam, as is the wing of an airplane. On boats I always try to take the upper flange loads through stringers stabilized by the deck in one plane, and the side in the other. Occasionally helped by another stringer in the deck, just inside the gunwale.

Your deck is a bit like the lower wing skin of a wing, the side usually in tension. The row of holes, for gas tank inspection, down the middle of the lower wing skin, including their support stringers, is simply ignored when calculating the strength of this panel. The same with a deck, assume it does not contribute materially to deck strength longitudinally, merely stability to these stringers.

Note, in many cases the design load limit of a wing lower surface is heavy landing, compression, full fuel. In fact this is often the source for the fuel dumping requirement, though landing speed is also a factor.

In long skinny boats, local effective skin thickness, against buckling, is very important. In my earlier work i used thickish skins, just like most boat designers. This turned out ‘heavy’. Later, i discovered the role of stringers, and eventually double skin sandwich. i guess i was practicing for my eventual career in commercial aircraft design. I have often used quite thin plywood skins each side of a blue builders foam, and wood stringer core. In fact, rather than the multiple layers of plywood for Noah’s boat, i was going to suggest two skins of plywood either side of a lumber yard 2” X 2” stock stringer and intercostal matrix. Double skin, foam core, with or without wood 'stringers' makes excellent, stable, bulkheads as well.

Yobarnical, Private note; i too regard AIS as essential for all boats. Does your AIS on the tug include the barge(s)? or do other traffic discover this when they can ‘see’ you?