The Brick

Phil Bolger is held in high regards here it seems and going through some of his creations, that Brick keeps bugging me. The PDRacers and those blont bows, from 4x8 to the 24' Super Brick and his hosueboat all have this barge bow (I know there is another name, starts with a "G" I think) but these sail!

As I recall, a John Boat is a little rough until you put the hammer down and get the bow up.

How do these really sail? And there was a mention of taking such a design to the Bahamas in fair weather....is that for real? Off Shore?

 

With all the due professional respect towards mr Bolger, I find it an ugly boat. Possibly the ugliest I've ever seen. You can as well take a pallet box, seal it and put a sail on it - it will look as attractive as the Brick does.

 

LOL, I didn't say I was inspired by it's beauty.... Just how does something like that sail? And motor, since he had designed HBs like that?

More like astonished than admiring them...

 

It's the best sailing concrete mixing tub available Slavi. You needn't be so harsh . . . It rows fairly well as concrete mixing tubs go, but they can be over powered with an outboard, if you elect to make her a motor boat. I mean 2 out of three ain't all that bad considering her lowly, land based construction site origins.

 

An example of a design where asthetics were not near the top of the priorities when the tradeoffs were made. I like it for it's combination of simplicity, low cost, simple construction and functionality.

Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

The beholder in question is standing on the right.

 

I have not sailed a Brick but I have sailed its bigger brother Micro. Micro worked exceptionally well in some pretty dusty weather that had the Lasers heading for the clubhouse. In fairness to the Lasers and such, Micro has a ballasted keel. The PDR, a take off on the Brick, is wildly popular and actually sails decently. It is particularly good in light air.

You could take Super Brick to the Bahamas on a good day. Say Fort Lauderdale to Bimini or Cat Cay. It has been done with 16 foot outboard runabouts and other small boats. Woe be unto you if it was tried on a bad day. At this time of year the deal is off. A northeaster can pile up the gulf stream into a hellish stretch of water that no sane sailor would want to endure, even with a more able boat.

 

Really? The Super Brick I thought just has a small cabin and is less than 24', I have not studied them. They seem to be popular in the endurance races in Florida and Texas.

Well, I raced VW bugs in the 60/70s (and others) so I kinda see where they are fun. Simple. And if you have any concrete work to do, it's adaptable.

What got me thinking about these is that there are a couple of houseboats with this hull and I just couldn't understand why you would want to push water as they would not plane with their small outboards. :?:

 

- Garvey

 

God awful . . .

 

LOL, A God Awful Garvey. Lots of uses for it though, air boats, mud boats, jons, landing crafts and whatevers...

I can see powering a box, but sailing one seems amazing, just goes against the grain of what a sailboat looks like to me.

I guess it could be used on pontoons, and could be faired out as well. I've seen houseboats like that.

 

No dispute, the Brick is seen as ugly by many people. But, water doesn't care about ugly.

That said, the Brick has a deeply curved bottom with the entry/exit points of the water flow being relatively smooth. (bow and stern transom's being located above the waterline). This means the Brick behaves acceptably as a boat.

A compromise with the Brick is that the sides have no curvature. This results in a small amount of turbulence, which causes some drag.

I can speak with authority of the Bolger design Tortoise, (identical to the Brick, scaled down about 33%). Having owned two, and sailed them a lot!

The issue of drag from the sides is negligible when compared to the displacement hull speed limitation that is inherent in all small displacement boats. It is easy to get the hull sailing up to the hull speed, and then no more. This would be similar with any pretty boat of the same length.

The biggest advantage of the Tortoise is that it is very economic, low weight and compact for having such a large capacity. Truly astonishing.

Personally, I wouldn't choose a Brick because it is a bigger boat than Tortoise, and all things considered, I believe smaller is better. That said, I would expect that the Brick would be a fun and capable sailboat, as long as you don't care about ugly, and as long as you don't want to go faster than the short hull length will allow.

 

I also own a Micro, and agree it works exceptionally well. The Micro has curved sides where the Brick has straight sides, this is a big difference between the two.

The thing about the 20 foot long Super Brick not immediately obvious is that it has a tremendous amount of reserve buoyancy from the high and water tight cabin. This means that in horrible weather that it would be tossed around like a cork. Very uncomfortable, but not going to kill you. (Assuming it was built with good fastenings at all the joints.) I am pretty sure that a Super Brick has never been built, it requires too much investment and courage to dare build something so ugly.

 

This guy has built it: http://www.hallman.org/bolger/Superbrick/

 

It take a lots of courage to put windows like those on a sailboat: http://shantyboatliving.com/2011/bolger-superbrick-sailing-shantyboat/