A cape Horn vessel

chubby and green

Seems similar to the very many Nordic and North Sea types. But anyone fool excuse me, adventurous enough to sail below 50 south becomes very skilled at the weather, because even on the nice days it's ready to blow HARD. If you go through the Chilean canals the Guarda Costa requires you to stay in touch by radio daily, in Spanish. All the weather reports are in Spanish. In the 1849 California gold rush, many many improbable vessels came E to W around the horn and through the Magellan straits, from NY ferries to small fishing sloops like the FRANKLIN, a 40 foot Gloucester sloop boat that went on to carry cargo on SF bay for 30 years.
If you want to go offshore below 50 S, see Vito Dumas, Moitessier, Slocum, and Bob Griffith with AWAHNEE for design ideas, as they actually did it. A short double ender makes for a fat butt, excuse me, stern, and LEHG II was a beauty of solving the problem and Dumas boasted of how he finally found the groove of surfing the huge breaking seas off the horn. Moitessier and Griffith went with longer, canoe stern designs, and then took them there and thrashed the hell out of them. I think even the SPRAY (a known Horn boat) is superior to the average double ender and I speak from 26 years of sailing BERTIE, a modified SPRAY of my own design. It's routine to pass the double ended cruiser type when sailing unless they have really good sails and a huge roller furling headsail, then they go good, but it's not called a "roller snarler" for nothing.
I once watched a very large tightly rolled headsail unroll and thrash itself to small rags in less than 60 seconds. It was an education and on BERTIE the headsails are tightly lashed down on their fat strong bowsprit which has no turnbuckles above to hold the luff up and add windage when furled. I can't understand the idea of turnbuckles above the bowsprit, big pulpits etc as the windage is in the very worst possible place. See your average 1880 Chesapeake Pungy schooner loaded with manure or bricks for the right way to do it. This a 1985 photo of BERTIE with a single headsail, notice the forestay coming from its bee hole and tightened below the sprit. She now has a staysail and jib, see the SPRAY thread for more pics.
When I asked my wife about sailing to Cape Horn she said "No", so I left it at that.

 

In judging the wisdom of roller furling you have to compare the liabilities of the furler with the liabilities of having to go on the foredeck more often for longer periods of time. I prefer a trashed sail to a singlehander overboard , especially if I'm the singlehander in question. Sails can be fixed and replaced. Lost lives can't.
Furlers can be easily simplified far more than the expensive, overly complex ones many are being suckered into installing today.
I've never had a probelm with mine in 30 years of use . Rolling the entire jib sheet up when putting them away, drasticaly reduces the odds of anything comming loose , as well as the odds of them ending up around your prop. People who have problems with them coming looose are those who leave a little bit of sail out unrolled.

One thing that amazed me about Moitesier's voyages around the horn was how trouble and worry free they were, compared to those made in non steel boats , especially those made out of wood ( dead vegitation) None of the accounts I've read about voyages made in non steel boats was anywhere near as trouble and worry free .
Fishermen tell me that aluminium welds often break, steel ones rarely, if ever break. Its getting harder and harder to find effective antifouling which won't eat aluminium.

Anyone who has cruised the BC coast in summer ,has seen many of my designs. Often, many have shown up in the same anchorage at the same time, by chance.

If I let you bang on my steel boat with your wooden pickaxe, will you let me bang on your wooden boat with my steel pickaxe?
Why not?

 

steel

Yes, ever since Mister Wyckham-Martin (sp?) started the trend, roller headsails have had various degrees of success. On smaller vessels where it is very difficult and quite dangerous to go forward in a bad seaway, they make the most sense of all.
On BERTIE, with her gentle ways, this is less of an issue, even in intense conditions, so I prefer the low windage and absolute cheapness of my setup with its downhauls rigged back to the starboard shrouds. Either head sail can be released and hauled down hard to the bowsprit without going forward of the mast, then the downhaul is secured and you clip into the safety wire that goes to the end of the bowsprit and climb out on the windward side and furl the sail. My small wife usually does the whole thing under most conditions.
The sail I saw disappear so quickly was on one of those big center cockpit things with drinkholders, so I suspect it was a lazy man's way rather than necessity, as it would be on a very small craft, or a single hander. I don't like single handing, and my dear wife doesn't mind 4 on and 4 off, which we've done for 21 days at the longest. I tend to set a smallish heavy jib and just leave it up, being careful it doesn't flog, but my mast is commercial/duty strong and I don't worry (much) about things falling down. BERTIE is driven by her 1000 sq ft Swatow-type fully battened mainsail, which can be quickly reefed on any point of sail by one person in about 90 seconds, so headsails aren't as important as they are on a marconi rigged craft and its attendant smallish mainsail, unless the mast is very tall.
BERTIE would be just fine as a steel boat, but I don't like condensation or rust, having spent a good bit of time on CG boats and commercial fishing vessels, so I built her of Port Orford cedar and fir, real tugboat thick everywhere, and she's incredibly quiet and dry inside, no matter what rudeness is going on outside.
Everything I've hit so far I've broken, so I guess she's strong enough, and I finally learned the lesson that the slower you go, the less damage you do. I learned from a master how to build wooden tugs for fifty years of crushing commercial service, so BERTIE is a reflection of that, nothing wrong with steel of course, cheaper, easy to build, strongest and most used commercial material etc, and I'd prefer a steel boat if I was caught in the ice, a place I prefer to avoid.

 

A boat built for the high latitudes gets the same punishment as a commercial boat so should be built to commercial priorities not yachtieness.
The use of extrusions, over wire Wyckham used, changed the reliability factor exponentially for furlers. What was once true of furlers is no longer the case.
I once worked with an old shipyard owner who told me" A friend once asked me if I wanted to go into building steel tugs, but I didn't think steel tugs would ever catch on."
In decades of living on steel boats, I haven't had a condensation problem nor a rust problem. Get her well expoxied and spray foamed initially , and you won't have a problem.

 

A very bad idea.
Daniel

 

Oh dear... I do hope Rick isn't listening!

 

Foam spraying steel internally for insulation is the prefered method of most new and converted steel barges and liveaboard boats owners to eliminate condensation from forming on steel. Properly done there are no voids for condensation air or rust. Below the waterline a good epoxy paint system with the traditional cement filled bilge voids is used depending on the construction. If this isn't done on a liveaboard then the hull can eventually rust internally from constant condensation and a damp bilge where paint cannot be reached to renew it. Makes sense to me.

 

I should of course said the Dutch still do build steel dinghies but I see the commercial barges carrying fast RIBS these days! I love Holland and sail there often in my friends Skutsje, last year from the Oostende voor Anker meeting to the Veersmere and this year we stayed on the refurbished SS Rotterdam and visited the very interesting maritime museum. I was surprised to see that I also had some museum pieces at home! Many years ago we were agents for Pedro steel boats, nice finish but they used a bit of filler.

 

The argument also completely ignores that people building their own boats will use the material they are comfortable and competant with, a welder or metal worker will use steel and a carpenter will use wood etc. The original poster is building a steel boat and I guess he is not about to scrap it and build a wooden boat when despite what you feel about steel boats there are thousands of very good small steel boats being used in the world!

Perhaps a metallurgist also needs to be a woodlurgist and an all round boat builder for experience to make defined comparisons and pursuade steel boat builders that they have been using the wrong material for well over a hundred years that surprisingly seems to outlast wood.

 

Your post completely misses my objections to steel.

As far as the OP using steel. Its true he already has a hull and this hull very well might do the job. Were I going to build a high latitude one off very heavy displacement boat I would likely use steel even down to the mid 30' area. I am quite comfortable working with steel and fully understand its properties. 20 years ago I would not have considered anything but steel and zealously defended that position.

My objections to steel have nothing to do with working with it, protecting it and how long it will last. My objections have to do with weight in the wrong places once you leave the realm of very heavy displacement in small boats. I guess I would rather transfer the weight to stores and spares and away from the hull for the size of boat and the travel plans the OP has. I just like to eat better, have more fresh water, have more goodies all in the same size boat at the same weight as the steel.

I have boat building experience with all materials. I would never use traditional wood methods to build as I think unencapsulated wood for hulls is not my cup of tea. Maybe that will change in the future as well. I would not have considered wood at all a couple of years ago. I can't believe I would consider it now. There are regional differences as well. Here in the US wood is cheap.

My thoughts have changed over the years as I gained more experience with cruising, winds, tides, wet, cold and the like.

My next boat will likely be aluminum. It helps that I am sitting in a 120k sqr foot aluminum shop a half mile from a deep water launch on Lake Erie USA. I still have to fully explore that wood stuff I use to dispise though.

 

So tell us . What is your experience living aboard a metal boat in the colder lattitudes for several decades on end? Probably zero, or you'd have a greater appreciation for sprayfoam.
I sure do, after nearly 40 years living aboard , year round, mostly in cold climes.
I've seen many try every alternative to spratfoam over the last 40 years . All have been failures. Only spray foam has worked well.
You should continue it down to the floorboards , leaving only the bilge clear for drainage. You should put a lot of epoxy tar down befor sprayfoaming. It doesn't stop moisture, completely.
Daniel will automatically disagree with anything I say , regardless. If I said the sun rises in the east, expect him to argue the point. It's just one of his obsessions.

 

No Brent, don't kid yourself, you are not my obsession, by far.
I am just puzzle by your ingnorance and arroguance.
A lot of work remouving the sprayfoam after discovering bad rusting problems, due the the nature of the that system. On several occasion and at a very high cost. But you don't care since you will not beleive it.
Don't even try to make supposition on my experience, you will be foulish.
But contrary to you I never brag about any methode, I don't give opinion about things I have no idea, I don't say everybody is wrong but me, I don't ramble at length against my peers.
I automaticly disagree with you because you are a real *****, one of this very rare you find one in a life time. The one you just let finish the bottle.
Keep you stupid arroguance and ignorance for yourself, you put people in danger with your attitude.
I give up this thread. You are too pathetic.
Daniel

 

The foam sticks and seals like anti-condensation paint and no know problems over here even with removing it to repair collision damage so I don't understand where you get these problems from unless it wasn't done properly but even then it would have to be quite bad to cause rusting. It's either foamed by professional contractors or with special kits, you've probably been doing it with little spray cans. Is it me or do I detect a little hostility here?

 

You didn't mention what your objections were. If it's weight then it may be worth studying the Dutch builders as they seem to do quite well with all sizes of steel boats. I went out today on a small newish built steel barge with frames and foam insulation with less than a metre of draft aft, if it were a commercial vessel the carrying capacity would likely exceed 50 tonnes, how much food and water do you need? A bigger vessel rather than a lighter vessel would make more sense for carrying capacity.

My own barge weighs over 50 tonnes empty and has the stem out of the water with the prop barely covered so it has to carry ballast. If it were built in more expensive aluminium I'd need even more ballast! My wooden and ferro boats have lead ballast and a heavy iron keel! Unless I wanted a fast planning boat I can't see any benefit for aluminium. I understand there are also corrosion concerns when moored up in marinas and connected to shore power.

 

If done properly spray foam sounds like an ideal vapor barrier and insulation method for steel boats...but the "if done properly" is very important. I'm not convinced all BYO boat get the job done right. No one would argue that the foam has to be close cell (not sponge) structure. The problem is that higher density foams are not as readily available and more expensive than the lower density ones used in the construction industry. First BYO boat person's mistake: not paying attention to the foam density they purchase for there hull. The other issue is that to spray closed cell foam and make sure it is closed cell it HAS to be done as per instructions and that's not just open the bottle and press the trigger. The success of spray foam insulation system relies on a chemical reaction and unfortunately with quality control done after application, leaving a serious mess if something went wrong. Professional spray foam insulators have specific equipment which doesn't come with the kits; ie: heated guns, temperature controlled containers...In order for the sprayed foam to meet the given specifications the product has to be sprayed in controlled environment, at specific temperature! Not sure it's always done by back yard builders...explaining failures?
An other concern about polyurethane foams is regulations. If one ever wanted to charter with there boat or use it for any other commercial operation, foam could be a show stopper in some countries. Regulations a clearly against flammable insulation products for commercial vessels and I wouldn't be surprise to see the same push for pleasure vessels.
Anyhow, I'm not against spray foam insulation (if properly done) but don't think the stuff should be glamored by marine professionals without the appropriate warnings.
In my case I am a greater fan of Armacell. Two reasons: non flamable and uniform product quality controlled ahead of installation, not to say it is also a successful proven product.

Murielle