Would anyone like to design a 39 foot/12 metre Stabicraft-style boat?

Discussion in 'Projects & Proposals' started by RSD, Dec 3, 2022.

  1. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

    I’m an Aussie who is now living in Egypt, out here where I live on the Red Sea coast there is a massive maritime history but a lack of resources to enable it to be found and properly surveyed by maritime archaeologists – the history that needs to be explored and surveyed/documented vs the lack of resources is kind of crazy but it is what it is – unfortunately Egypt is not a rich country and government spending has to be prioritised on the important things like the health and welfare of the population, and with tourism playing a large part of GDP things like COVID and now the Ukraine war aren’t helping the economic situation.

    To give you an idea of the maritime history of the area – about 2000 feet from my apartment is a 2000 year old Roman merchant ship that sank while outbound to India on the Maritime Silk Road, it is the oldest ship ever found anywhere in the Red Sea, and it has never been surveyed due to a lack of suitable resources. It set off from a nearby Roman port that operated from the 1st century BC to the 4th Century AD, and from some ancient writings and some data graphing and extrapolation it is believed that over the period that the operated around 48,000 voyages departed from that port to India. Just walking around the port site is amazing – it’s pretty much how the Romans left it in the 4th century – there are the walls of villas, warehouses and other buildings, you can see pestles and other grinding implements there, and there are thousands of broken amphoras. About 30 miles north of me is where 4000 years ago the expeditions to the Land of Punt launched from. 5 miles south of me is a harbour that has been operating continuously for 450 years – it was first established by the Ottomans in 1571. There has never been a proper diving or sonar survey done of the area to establish what wrecks there are in the area.

    I spent my working life as an engineer performing underwater inspections of structures, and now that I am living here I would like to do something to help overcome the lack of resources, starting with getting a suitable dive boat built to locate wrecks and be a suitable platform for archaeological divers to work from.

    The local boats are built mostly from wood and roll like crazy as the hull shape hasn’t changed much since Noah built the ark. After asking questions on here and doing some research and thinking about the operating areas I think that following are the best criteria to develop a design from –

    · Either a Stabicraft-style monohull or a catamaran with Stabicraft-style buoyancy chambers around it. Unfortunately Stabicraft only go up to about 27 feet in length.

    · Built from aluminium

    · Twin Yamaha XTO outboards – either the 375 or 425 hp models. Yamaha is well supported here and the XTO models have the electric steering built in. Suzuki is well supported here but they don’t come with electric steering or joystick control and dynamic positioning like Yamaha’s Helm master system, and experience in Egypt has taught me that when you are linking things together it is best to keep them all from the one vendor/manufacturer so unfortunately that rules out the Optimus system. Mercury outboards don’t seem to be well-supported here.

    · Has to be 12 metres/39 feet or less as that massively simplifies getting the vessel licenced under local laws – and if you have ever dealt with bureaucracy in Egypt you will understand! The best explanation of bureaucracy in Egypt is that they invented paper (papyrus) and then the British taught them how to use it to make life incredibly painful!

    · Internal beam of at least 3 metres/10 feet

    · Planning hull with a cruise speed of 24 knots

    · Small forward enclosed cabin that takes up the full internal beam that has a toilet in it, three individual seats across the cabin for captain and crew operating sonar equipment etc.

    · Gunwales that are flat top so that they can be walked on and used to walk down the sides of the cabin to the bow (holding onto rails that are attached to the cabin) – I want to avoid a walk-through cabin design as that takes away a potential location for leaks into the cabin

    · Will be day use only – so a galley isn’t really needed

    · Doesn’t need a walk-through transom

    · The winds here are generally parallel to the coast which is also the main direction of travel

    · Crewing will be 2-3 persons

    · Divers will be between 0-10 in number depending on whether it is sonar or diving that is being undertaken – allow 120 kg/264 lbs per diver including equipment

    · Fuel should be at least 1100 litres/500 gallons

    · Will need a freshwater tank, and a blackwater tank for the toilet

    That is about all I can think of, but I’m sure that everyone will have lots of questions. Obviously a lot of you know far more about hull design and making CAD files and cutting files etc than I do so any help would be greatly appreciated!
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2022
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  2. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
    Posts: 1,851
    Likes: 505, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 158

    Barry Senior Member

    Various notes above
    Starting this project from scratch to have someone design a "New" design will more than likely cost more than taking an existing plan and just shortening the cabin and making small changes to fit your need. Developing cut files
    are time consuming and expensive. There are many aluminum PROVEN designs available for a fraction of the cost. Proven as per thickness of sheet, stability calcs complete AND more importantly any bugs from the fitting of the cut sheets
     
  3. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

    Only to add you said you needed lift equipment. That is structural, generally.

    You do need a way to get divers off/on. The back of a cat with OBs is very restrictive unless you add a hydraulic platform..etc,

    just a few more details that come to mind; you are on a good track
     
  4. bajansailor
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 3,595
    Likes: 1,560, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 37
    Location: Barbados

    bajansailor Marine Surveyor

    Here are some copies of general arrangement drawings for aluminium power cats in the 9m - 12m range that were built (or proposed to build) by Alnmaritec in England.
    Sadly they went out of business earlier this year :(
    I have happy memories of dealing with them 12 years ago, when they built a 12 metre aluminium Oil Spill Response Vessel for the small oil terminal here in Barbados.
    I am posting these in the hope that you might be able to use them to give you some ideas for your boat?
    These drawings were all originally posted on their website, and I had saved them then for reference.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

    Many thanks Barry. It's a bit beyond my IT capabilities to extract the notes you made in my post and quote them here, but -
    • with your note that buoyancy chambers will add to the external beam, I'm fine with that as external beam doesn't matter for us at all, internal beam is the critical space.
    • with the hatch discussion, in western countries I would agree with you, unfortunately getting high quality things here in Egypt can be so difficult that it is better to avoid designing them into the design in the first place as then when a high quality one can't be found a low quality one ends up replacing it.
    • re the doors and transom etc - the vessel will have a lowering/raising diver lift on each side, but given the beam that a catamaran allows it should be possible to do something through the transom as well - good idea
    I've been struggling to find sets of plans etc for catamarans that people want to sell the plans only - apart from Specmar it seems that everyone wants to sell you the plans with their flatpack/Ikea aluminium already cut - unfortunately that just isn't going to work in Egypt due to massive customs duty, but if you know of any other vendors that sell plans please let me know as that would be really helpful.
     
  6. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

    The plan will include a diver lift on each side of the vessel - some boats run them on the stern, some on the sides - usually run by an electric winch mounted on top of the winch frame
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  7. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

    Many thanks for those Bajan - I will take a good look at them!
     
  8. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

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  9. DogCavalry
    Joined: Sep 2019
    Posts: 3,076
    Likes: 1,570, Points: 113
    Location: Vancouver bc

    DogCavalry Senior Member

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  10. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

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  11. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

  12. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
    Posts: 64
    Likes: 13, Points: 8
    Location: Red Sea, Egypt

    RSD Junior Member

    The other option might be a scaled up version of one of these -
     
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  13. TANSL
    Joined: Sep 2011
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    Location: Spain

    TANSL Senior Member

    You need a hull with a slightly larger beam than normal but without being a catamaran whose double hull and wet deck makes the construction quite expensive. It is convenient to define your SOR in great detail (which is quite well defined), set priorities in the requirements and check which hull configuration best meets it. You should not decide on one or the other videos but on a detailed analysis of the SOR. On the other hand, increasing the length of an existing 9 m project by 2 or 3 meters may be impractical, it may present stability and weight distribution problems, and it may be less cheap than expected, since the conceptual project will have to be recalculated.
     
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  14. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

    I wondered how Poleson got the pilothouse so far forward.

    17E923DD-6ABA-4D91-BA48-94F412862752.jpeg
     

  15. DogCavalry
    Joined: Sep 2019
    Posts: 3,076
    Likes: 1,570, Points: 113
    Location: Vancouver bc

    DogCavalry Senior Member

    @BlueBell emailed him a few years back. $14000 for plans. He hadn't completed these, so the extra cost might be moderate. But as I said, even this boat meets your. Statement of Requirements
     
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