Converting ULDB into trawler

If I had won the super lottery, I'd make that boat my home.

For the price, I doubt I could do better with a custom job.

No, it's not perfect. But it's an excellent recycling job for a hull which would likely have been cut up for very expensive scrap (expensive to produce and perhaps expensive to get rid of).

If it were mine, I would add two main sails to her to give her an S/D of between 5 and 7, and turn her into a sail assisted motor yacht.

This would significantly increase her range while requiring very little actual effort on my part to operate.

I think we will see a lot of this sort of thing, as this century wears on.

Why build new hulls when so many older hulls can be salvaged and made almost as good?

 

Last big Depression in Silicon Valley/SF Bay Area/Delta there was rash of boats being abandoned in the many hide-out spots in the Delta. Owners would try to hide yachts from the Repo-Man, then neglect, nature and looters would take their toll, and suddenly the boat was no way worth the payments, so there was a glut of fairly high end, newer hulls up for grabs. I'd imagine getting legal title would be similar to cars at DMV. Send Reg Letter to address of last known legal owner and if no response in 6 weeks its yours.

Looks like another crushing Depression is just around the corner.

 

what does uldb mean?.

 

Ultra Light Displacement Boat.
Generally very light monohull sail boats primitively not intended for planing. That began with the light skerry cruisers in the 1930's, very thin, light for their size, and with a very high ratio ballast/total displacement often more than 50%.
The skerries were born from jauges who considered only the sail surface, as the 30m2 class. The boats has very low freeboards and cut very well the waves, thus being extremely humid and requiring excellent pumps. But that was great fun.
The Swiss guys committed several very nice ULDB for the regatta on the Leman lake, the summum was the very successful on the lake the Toucan which was used also on ocean racing with mitigated results.
Luhrs made also some very good, able to compete with multihulls during the end of the seventies but that was illusory when multis got better technology.
The fun fact is that the Toucan and the Luhrs boats do plane rather well if given enough power by an experimented team, although their waterplanes are pretty small. All these boats have some tendency to pound in short seas as the slim extremities lack volume to dampen the longitudinal movements. The pounding is worsened if there is no wind to keep pressure in the sails thus having a correct heel momentum, and/or if the polar inertia is too big for the involved volumes, ie simply too much weight on the extremities.
On racing sail boats the concept is outdated as the last generation of racing sail boats fully planing are far faster upwind and downwind, and also are able to make a circumnavigation by the austral seas. Nobody with all his mind would think to adventure in deep south seas with a 1980 ULDB...
By extension some pretty thin and light motorboats have been done for example by Nigel Irens, the origins are from working fishing boats like the Chesapeake drakers.
Finally the up of the up of the ULDB concept in motor boats is the motor trimaran when kept light and thin, and not transformed in a heavy floating condo. Well designed light motor tris are very efficient and also seaworthy.

 

Excellent. Thanks llan.

 

You're welcome

 

As I understand it a hull optimized for sailing lacks form stability and without the polar inertia provided by the mast it will often have an uncomfortable motion.
There are exceptions though.