Why I'm Following Sven Yrvind

An offshore cruiser should either be able to get far enough off a lee shore to ride out bad weather, or get into shelter. The slower the boat and the milder the conditions in which windward progress stops, the less able it is to get far enough from shore, and therefore will be at risk even if it could ride out any storm at sea. Sven argues that small boats can easily be built strong enough not to be broken by the sea (because of the square-cube law), and he very much does have a point there. Building a boat that could survive being thrown onto rocks, and also keep the crew alive is an entirely different matter. Therefore I think a boat stops being a practical offshore cruiser if it is so slow, and stops going to windward in such mild conditions, that it can safely leave or approach a lee shore only with a reliable forecast of several days of benign conditions. That is what Sven needed for his last boat.

I think it was John Welsford who persuaded Sven to double the sail area of the boat Sven is building now, and the new boat should have more stability, so it may be more practical.

I recognised the design as the one I had seen in this video about a guy who crossed the Atlantic with one:


The design philosophy differs a lot from Sven's, with that bulb keel that is quite deep relative to beam and rig height.

 

The design has recently been updated to include a lifting ballasted daggerboard. It is how i would build mine, it would make transport and launching from a trailer easier, at the cost of some tracking stability, the plans also include drawings for aft dagger boards to help prevent broaches. Any boat that size is going to be at the whim of breaking waves, long keeled fatty or not.

The design philosophy of the original Setka (with centreboard) was cheap to build but able to cruise in Baltic Sea. It is a design that has slipped under the radar outside of Poland, until recently. Not many boats the size of a dinghy with a lid, are so able. For sure, not everyones cup of ea.

 

Almost any boat in the realm of mortal sailors is going to be at the whim of breaking waves.

 

Sure. I was referring mostly to how easily shorter and lighter boats are more easily knocked off course. Its surprising how much rudder input is often needed in what what might be usually considered a minor cross sea to bigger boats. Self steering on smaller boats need to be rugged as the corrections are usually bigger and with greater loads.

 

This is true on several levels. Besides the smaller forces required to push a little boat about, surface currents are highly susceptible to short term wind changes. Only a few more inches deeper and the water moves with the local currents instead of the surface winds. Small boats ride higher over wave peaks where they are at their steepest, so broaching can be more likely. This is where it becomes important to sail at a more lateral course to the incoming sea. Seamanship is much more critical and a smaller vessel's wake may look more like a serpent.

 

I have seen the "Setka" class activities. They strike me as a good honest effort to create a home build ocean race class under the 6.5M. I find their hype more than annoying but I would like to see them succeed by adding coastal point to point races to make a seasonal circuit. If it was a real box rule I would be likely to participate. There was a video of a guy who built a fine example and crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean -then what? It was pitiful to live aboard. The trades were against him for returning without tripling the distance going north. I think he ended up selling in the Caribbean (at a loss to material cost) and flying home.

When it comes to tiny home build cruising boats I follow Matt Layden's Paradox group. They are equal parts silly and brilliant. They have demonstrated resale value equal or greater than material cost. Their expeditions are noteworthy and desirable. They clear my hurdle for consideration as a coastal cruiser by being a reasonable place to sit out a day of nasty weather so they get along without pointing ability.

 

I think perhaps you take the Setka too seriously, and those that sail them. The Transatlantic "race" winner is everyone who makes it to the other side, no prizes. There has been at least one sailed back from the W.Indies to Poland, and from what i have read, people team up to share a container to ship them back to the EU. Not everyone can afford a year off work. I would say they are far more weatherly than a Paradox, given the voyages undertaken and more liveable. Horses for courses.

If you want "box rules", the Globe 580 will be up your street. From the same designer as the Setka, but publicised by Don McKintyre. Second hand boats are from 50k euros..........a far cry from his "under 10k" racing class.

 

I think I was conflating Setka and the 580s when I commented. They are better sailboats but are inferior in accommodation to a Paradox.

You keep turning back to cost and time as if they justify these designs when I explained a page earlier how skills, time, and money would be better spent on maintenance and restoring for oneself and others. "Can't afford" is not a justification for making mistakes or ignoring better paths.

FWIW crossing an ocean against prevailing winds is something that takes a valid sailboat design. Designing a coastal cruiser that fits in a shipping container also might have more value that these TOC designs.

 

At one point Mr. Sven Yrvind had planned to sail to Iceland.

But he never did.

Too uncomfortable and dangerous for him to do in his tiny tiny boats?

 

I have never said anywhere that restoring is not better than building new. Most of my own boats have been restorations. However, depending on how big and complicated the "restore" boat is, it "can" be cheaper to build a small boat and everything will be new. Some people take comfort in that.

"Cant afford" is the reason i sailed a 42 year old plywood boat i restored across the Atlantic, because a Sadler 26 or Westerly Centaur or any boat in that type, was beyond my budget. So, I have to disagree, "cant afford" means find another way in my book, I did not suggest it will be perfect.

 

3 boats sunk after apparent coordinated orca atta…:



Well I guess that the tiny tiny boats Yrvind builds would withstand an attack like this.Yrvind might be toshed harshly arund quite a bit but would probably come out of it unscathed if he buckles up.But then again the tiny tiny boat could simply be so small that it can be bitten into pieces and the content be eaten: Old man and canned sardines.

 

No doubt Yrvind will avoid that area like he did last time. The idea of being in the water and being tail-flipped and body slammed like a seal, does not bare thinking about.

 

Strong metal rudder?

 

When it comes to the proper size of a cruising sailboat, I think the boat should be slightly smaller than the wallet.

A bigger boat has costs that escalate well past the time the boat is aquired. Over time, just about everything must be replaced. And with a bigger boat, this everything costs more than with a smaller boat.

On one hand, one wants a bigger boat for more comfort, living space, and usually greater performance. On the other, one wants a smaller boat for lower costs and ease of handling.

From following a number of Youtube sailing channels, I have noticed a trend toward boats under 30 ft for single sailors. For couples, I have noticed a preference for boats in the mid 30's range.

What I still like about Sven is that he tests limits. He doesn't test the usual ones as to how much sail area and performance can be crammed onto a boat. There are plenty of people doing that. And a good number of their ideas have ended up in the cruising sailboat fleet. Very tall rigs, deep-draft, wing-like keels, on top of very light hull construction. Such boats are clearly quite seawoerthy. But they are also quite vulnerable to groundings and capsize damage. Their deep draft causes them to be anchored much further out from shore, and they need deep berths.

Sven is testing the limits in the other direction: small, simple, and low performance. His ideas are not likely to make it far into the cruising sailboat community. There are arguably much better really small cruising sailboats than his. Such boats share the vertues of small size, low up keep costs, and ease of handling but have much better sailing performance.

But even though this is true, it is interesting to see how small a sail area and how shallow a draft one can get away with and still have a workable vessel. Maybe he goes too far in these extremes. But even if he does, we get to learn from from his experiments. It is also possible that the lessons learned from his tiny sailboats can be scaled up to larger sizes and suffer far less handicapped performance from them than his boats do.

Personally, I have considered scaling up an old design concept of mine, which was inspired by the original Bris. I would scale it up from 20 ft to 30 ft, so it would be large enough to possibly live aboard full time. It would keep the balnced-lug mainsail and leg'o'mutton mizzen and the long, shallow bilge keels. Its 8ft beam would allow it to be trucked down the highway without permits. and its bilge keels along with a sturdy skeg would allow it to do without a cradle. The masts would be short enough that it would be possible to raise them without a crane and to do so even in the water.

The price for this will be relatively low windward performance and slow sailing in light winds. I would need to bring along an oversized anchor and ground tackle.

The advantage would be that it would be far less likely to get out of hand in a sudden squall. And the maintenance costs are likely to be considerably lowere than a more typical boat in the 4 to 5 mtric ton range.

 

I see nothing new in what he is doing. You can go back to the late 1800 and cruising canoes/yachts. New materials yes. Not much else. Modern rehash on old concepts.

There is more than a handfull of boats currently for sale for less than $1000 in Sweden that will sail rings around any of Svens boats. The cost of making them suitable for "offshore", is tiny compared to a full build.

Anyhoo, kind of entertaining to see him working away, I will be glad to have half his energy at his age.