Design Competition

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Stumble, Apr 21, 2019.

  1. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    Thanks Greg ... that at least puts a new and realistic perspective on the project. So these will be smaller, lighter boats than 'the norm', probably manned by a max of 2-3 persons .. correct ?
    Without a heavier boat and say a 15hp motor, the ability to handle and pull in large nets will be minimal ... so designers will need to know more precisely the type of fishing that is feasible and practical for a rowed dory in the area you envisage. Traditionally up the NE coast, such boats would often be jigging for cod ... but the dories would be launched from and recuperated by a parent schooner.
     
  2. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    As promised included should be the current SOR draft copy. Note that it is almost certain to change some as feedback is acquired from the local fishermen, and revised copies may not be made available until the official competition announcement. Not that we are trying to hold things tight to the chest, I am just not sure about time constraints.

    Feel free to email me, my email address is included in the PDF (PM here is unlikely to reach me in a timely manner) if you have any suggestions, questions, or concerns.
     

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  3. Ilan Voyager
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    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    I have read the SOR. Exactly the same of the free and good FAO plans. This competition is a very occidental american way of thinking. The boat with such a SOR can be made in simple classical wood, galvanized nails and a few hand tools under the shade of 2 coconuts. No need of imported and costly marine plywood, expensive marine glues and fancy marine paints for a small fishing boat. No need of imported marine hardware.
    Better to think about an easily built boat by local people who can learn the techniques so it's more important to provide tools and the help of a naval carpenter at the beginning. All the hardware and lot of tools can be made locally by a blacksmith. The woods can be found locally or almost. A planked boat is easily repaired and needs just oil, tar and common oil paint for maintenance. It does not give a **** of scratches and knocks. In brief better to create a local industry using mostly local materials.
    I have seen myself in Senegal 30 years ago that the true need was to give some tricks and tips like riveting with steel nails like on a 10th century drakkar and to provide a simple unit of hot dipping galvanization for the hardware, screws and nails. The rusting bad quality nails were the real problem...
     
  4. Waterwitch
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    Waterwitch Senior Member

  5. Waterwitch
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    Waterwitch Senior Member

  6. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    Nice pic, but I rather doubt a boat this heavy can be rolled up and down a beach by 2 persons, as requested by the latest SOR. I sense it's perhaps time for something a little more modern, assuming the locals are ready for it.
     
  7. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    Yes, it's frightening indeed. Perhaps they'd appreciate some plywood kits that come in from elsewhere and not take more local wood! Solid wood boats are certainly rugged, but they generally take more wood, require more maintenance to keep water out, and are heavier than a good plywood design.
    Plywood is engineered and puts the best wood on the surface and is not going to crack along the grain as the interior layers hold it together. Issues arise though when the thin surface is pierced or the end grain is exposed, so smart construction must look after that.
     
  8. Ilan Voyager
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    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    Haiti is sadly deforested because of the use of wood as fuel...Poverty generates poverty.
    Wood is far cheaper than plywood and easier to ship eventually. There is plenty of cheap wood good enough for boat building in the countries close to Haiti. With a good craftsmanship there is no need to cut a forest for making 20 feet open fishing boats. The weight is not truly a problem a 350 kg clinker planked 6 meters boat is rather easily put in water, there are several methods.
    That was traditional in all Northern Europe and in the world in a lot of places without safe harbors.

    Fishing sailing boats at Madagascar
    https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/pêc...he-traditionnel-de-bateau-dedans-95076197.jpg
    Zanzibar
    https://st3.depositphotos.com/22604...8036830-stock-photo-two-fishermen-sailing.jpg

    A Norwegian faering. I admire the minimalist approach resulting of 1500 years of boatbuilding in clinker. That was the boat of the very poor fishermen, not even painted, just oiled and tarred. Norway in the XIXth century was a land of deep misery and emigration.

    Par Andreas Vartdal — Photographie personnelle, CC BY-SA 2.5, File:Snedbetning,færing.jpg - Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1626284
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  9. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    Understand your point Ilan and that's a pretty clinker-boat for sure. But I doubt either would satisfy the new SOR for either capacity and capability to sail out 10-15 nmls and the SOR also asks for a 'plywood boat kit'. Of course, clinker can use plywood too, so there's one option, as with the way 'solid wood' is stored and mostly unseasoned these days, there's a good chance it would be 1/2 unusable by the time it was ready to assemble into a boat. Certainly be interesting to see what the competition brings out.
     
  10. Ilan Voyager
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    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    The faering is not a pretty boat for exposition, it was a useful boat for poor fishermen made by poor carpenters with the cheapest wood and horse shoe nails made by a poor blacksmith. The oldest ones were made in split planks. It's the result of 1500 years of experience and tinkering to get get a seaworthy boat in North Sea and the fjords for 2 fishermen.
    A project in the third world that does not uses local resources, does not uses local skills, does not learn new skills is promised to fail in a few years. Worst the use of expensive imported material that local people will be unable to purchase is a mortal sin. Making people dependent of abroad charity is a mistake.
    The real good purpose is to create a local industry of boats that the local users can afford and maintain.
    I have some experience of the fact as I have been involved in a few projects of fishing boats and water pumps in Senegal and Mali as naval carpenter, my first profession, and engineer.
    French say the hell is paved of good intentions. I have seen too many failed projects of well intentioned people bringing expensive materials. After the nice guys are gone back to Europe or the States, nobody can maintain the high tech German pump or the superb all composite wind turbine full of electronics. Within 2-5 years the pump or the wind turbine are broken and no local people has the capacity or the money to fix it. The ONG has disappeared or ran out of money, or it's no more interested. Gone with the wind...
    The successful ones were those with transfer of a technology that could be replicated by the local craftsmen, using as much as possible local materials or already available imported materials.

    So the idea is a fishing boat that can be entirely made locally by local carpenters, using simple tools, electrical and manual, cheap hardware and if possible local woods.
    Sawn wood is far cheaper to buy and import than a marine plywood which even in this "rich" forum, a lot of people find expensive. Marine plywood without very good paints does not survive unless using special plywoods like doucier.
    Wood is seasoned in a tropical climate in months and the first treatment is simple, effective and cheap; octaborate salts bought in 25 kg bags sold a foliar fertilizer.
    I have used it for my own house made in 2000 in Chiapas Pine wood (similar to ponderosa pine), not the nicest or best wood but dirt cheap. The longest beam 50 feet is nailed laminated.
    After 18 years the wood in the humid tropical climate of Cancun is in perfect shape and no termite or fungus has even attempted an intrusion. The wood is protected outdoors with cooking soybean oil bought 3 USD the gallon, doped with paraffin wax and colored red with iron oxide. The wood is left bare inside.
    The house has lived 4 hurricanes including Wilma in 2003 with 150 mph winds during 48 hours with no damage. Meantime four hotels in Cancun and two in Playa del Carmen had to be demolished after...

    A swedish eka tried at Plougerneau (French Brittany) in a strong wind...
    upload_2019-5-24_13-15-24.png

    Dirt cheap technology reproducible by a local craftman. No need of high cost imported epoxy resin, 3M 3000, marine plywood and SS316 screws un-affordable for a Haitian fisherman...And that works.


     
    Last edited: May 24, 2019
    Niclas Vestman and bajansailor like this.
  11. Ilan Voyager
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    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    A simple fishing boat (illustration taken from the FAO book about bottom gillnets). Visibly is an East African boat with lateen sail
    upload_2019-5-24_15-24-36.png


    Kenyan dhows having great fun.
     
  12. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    All interesting stuff Ilan and your experience on this is certainly valuable. I am also a fan of the lateen rig, although it's higher than I'd imagine is ideal for a fishing boat.. but at least it spills easily ;-)
    If you feel such designs are all that's needed to best satisfy the SOR, I hope you submit a design.
    Your points about well intentioned suppliers from the western world is well taken and I've seen the same issue with complex things that fail and cannot be fixed. But I still think there may be space for a new boat design that has an improved capacity to fish that does not have to be too complex to maintain. As good as the old boats have been, does not mean we should deliver the same thing for the next century.
    As far as kit cost, it may depend on who is paying for them. If the effort is sponsored by a country able to raise the funds, then it's the material from that country that will/should control the cost .. and then it could well be that plywood is not that much more than good quality solid timber ..., something that is becoming very expensive today in the western world.
    Just to be clear, I am not taking issue with anything said here ...,just giving another take on things as I see it.
    best to all
     
  13. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    Iian, just to be clear.

    1) The SOR neither requires nor prefers the use of plywood or imported materials. If you submit a design suitable for task designed to be built only with local materials and dependent on existing skills to be built we would love to see it.

    2) The plan always has been to sell these boats to the fishermen not give them away. Which is why the price is set so low. It is the number the finance guys think is reasonable for the local communities to be able to raise or borrow. The boats will be built in Haiti by Haitians and only the materials will be imported, and only those materials we can’t source cheaper locally.

    3) there is no local lumber industry that I am aware of.

    4) You mentioned Senegal. So for some prospective. The per capita income in Senegal is around $1,200usd. In Haiti it is $250usd.

    If you are so sure we are doing it wrong, then submit a design that will do it better. I don’t care if the boat is made from plywood, or cotton candy so long as it works. Clinker or stitch and glue is all the same to me. I need an inexpensive boat to build, we can produce by the hundreds period. Whatever design fits we will use.
     
  14. W17 designer
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    W17 designer Senior Member

    Be great to have a target date for new designs when you have one Greg
    And do you have a list of things to be supplied ?
    Like a lines plan, arrangement plan, weight estimate, list of materials etc etc
    Thanks
     

  15. Waterwitch
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    Waterwitch Senior Member

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