Affordable, long-term liveaboard?

Disagree all you want, and you do me a favor when you correct my errors. Both for my own application and those I unwittingly mislead, I wasn't proposing a 3 ft model would suit your needs, but that a 30 ft existing design could be scaled up or down a reasonable amount, tween 20 to 40ft.

my Albins are EXACTLY the hulls I want , mfg has EXCELLENT quality of construction reputation, and the fiberglass even after 40 years is BETTER than ANY new construction I have examined. They were still using lotsa resin and thick glass back then and temperature controlled cure. They didn't shove the green hulls out in the parking lot to bake in the sun. I spent 10 years looking for the right design before selecting the Albin, and two MORE years looking for an affordable Albin 25 afterwards. Then sheer luck, found TWO. Of course I was LOOKING to get lucky.
Building boats while on retired fixed income isn't as simple a you might think! At least not on MY fixed income.

All my suggestions are intended to help you. I do not invest ego in suggestions. If you don't like them? give me a half hour, I'll offer up some fresh ones.
I am very experienced at thinking out of the box, scavenging, repurposing. That's how you survive at sea. Use what is available to solve your problem. Cause nearest land is straight down, and ain't no home depots there.

Using an existing design SHOULD save you money. Using an existing HULL of a suitable design should save you more. Modifying an existing design costs money. Modifying an existing hull costs MORE money. Designing from scratch and hand building a one off custom yacht costs a TON MORE of money. And as you pointed out, no guarantee the end result is what you hoped for. Hence all my suggestions regarding PROVEN designs or existing boats of proven design. Good luck and best wishes for you and yours.

The pdf is applicable because, asymmetrical hulls were only considered suitable for sailing, but these gentlemen experimented and discovered some benefits in reduced power requirements for a given speed and other efficiencies under power.
I understood you were looking for an EASY driven design?
Might want to look at that pdf some more.
cheers

An afterthought. A little research into how handbuilt custom stretched limosines are constructed using two or three donor cars, might pay dividends in the what's possible concepts sense. These are passenger carrying high speed vehicles that need to comply with government safety testing and licensing. Fortunately for you, your boat won't need to. If they can do it sculpting steel bodies for high speed luxury works of art, a little fiberglassing doesn't seem such a big deal.

 

Flying Live Aboard?

Flying boat.

What are the numbers you need for such a flying boat? What would be the initial specification? If sailboat can truly become a WIG then this is quite fascinating.

I didn't understand your amas attachment clearly. Are you saying each aka attachs to main hull in two locations 3-4' apart vertically and attachs to ama two locations 18-24" apart vertically? If it is, are you preferring two pipes (mast) welded together in some truss-like structure to form a each aka? I was thinking more like a flat C-channel open in the bottom or an aerodynamic beambox. More to consider, truss wouldn't look good, but it probably is the minimal weight and more aerodynamic aka. The box beam and C-channel allows me to have pivoting (fore-aft) and retracting (beam reduction) akas. I think aluminum and SS both can be used without stress fatigue as long as you design them to be non-flexing. If they are flexing then either material will be susceptible to stress fatigue failure. Could you think of any malleable materials for hinges?

Transportability is quite good with this configuration.


An inboard still would be heavier than an OB imo. The OB will be under a rear cockpit, so it won't intrude into the cabin space. A diesel inboard with low RPM would be nice to use but for the twice the weight of OB ;( The current trimaran design doesn't have much below cabin space, 12" at most. I don't know of any front wheel drive CV shafts that are made for 300HP. However, a turbocharged 4 cylinder gasoline engine 300HP inboard connected to a long tail surface drive maybe an option worth exploring. It would be as light or lighter than the OB. Although it is a car engine, it is more for light generation and occasional high speed cruise.
The 2015 Ford 2.3L EcoBoost engine will have 305+ HP (227 kW; 309 PS) @5500 rpm, 300 lb·ft (407 N·m) @2500 rpm. Simply amazing

 

Asymmetrical Hull for Power Catamaran

Hmmm, there are several popular power catamaran designers utilizing asymmetrical hulls for their ply-epoxy catamaran plans for improved fuel efficiency and higher speed. I would have to read this paper when I have more time for any new findings. Thank you.

I do appreciate your input. You do bring vast experience I don't have. I do get challenged technically if someone makes erroneous claims. Ego has no placec here, just discussions, and right, wrong or agree to disagree. I am trying to learn from your Flettner rotor thread, interesting stuff but I gotta stay away from this forum, too time consuming

 

The advantage I have at the moment, is being retired, I'm laying low, keeping my body fit and healthy, living cheaply, salting away money from my limited income, for the BIG PUSH in September through the end November, intend to finish one of my Albins this year.
Now is the time appropriate for me, for thinking, planning. and discussion. This forum is very valuable to me, solving MY chewy problems, and keeps me from getting obsessive by considering problems of others. And it's an inexpensive diversion and healthier, mentally, than TV pap. Thanks for YOUR contributions and participation. Questions can be as valuable as answers. Didn't you know? Bet you do!

 

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1388

Way back, Noahwannabe mentioned saltwater batteries. I'm familiar with the magnesium iron type. But THIS sounds more promising!

 

This is long, settle down and be prepared to take notes.

Yes, you describe my preferred aka’s exactly, a kind of truss from tubing, preferably mast section, but not necessarily. The wide base on the main hull side is to reduce local load, and incidentally air drag. The twisting (rolling left/right) strain on the ama’s is large, and needs the wide based hinges to resolve it. Trying to slide the aka’s to reduce their length is asking for structural trouble, hence the swing arm moving the ama’s from ‘out’ forward, to ‘in’ aft. Sorry perhaps I'm a bit too used to designing airplanes.

http://www.multihulldesigns.com/designs_other/31swingarmtri.htm

The aka’s length is not quite long enough to do this satisfactorily, but i can work on that given time. Here is a much cruder example, with a poor structural layout.

http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=5811

The large diameter tube sections as pivots are to allow rubber, or nylon, doughnuts as buffer/bearings in these hinges to take some of the impact loads from hitting waves. I’m thinking truck suspension bushings for this, type unknown. The masts must also be ‘free’ to pivot fore and aft about 3deg, so again they will need bushings in their pivots. Please note; they are now staying in the same pivots whether they are masts, or wing spars. The new ‘king post’ is also bedded in the same bracket as the masts, so strains are concentrated. The forward aka also shares the same mounting point, so a substantial bulkhead will be placed at this station. It will be doubled, hollow, and perhaps 8” thick, to align with either side of the mast section. Metal, Aluminum or SS will be added to the outside of these bulkheads as trunions.

Yobarnical is correct, you are better off starting with a basic existing design, but we can modify it pretty heavily from there.
I’m thinking start with a Bartender, stretch it to 40’ (well 39’6”) at a WLB of 4’, hull flare to ~7’6” - 8’ wide, sides 5’ high, then the cabin tapered back to about 7’ wide at the cabin top. The ‘warped’ bottom, might work a bit better as a boat, but i think all things considered a dead flat bottom with no rocker might be best for the flying version. By 20kts, lift should be such that the boat will only have about 1,000lb on its ‘hull’, so transition should work OK.

I cheat a bit with the airplane too, take an existing airplane, a floatplane, actually a very successful series of airplanes, with performance roughly comparable to this vessel, and use that as the basis of design start. In this case, the Fairey 3 series, manufactured for a couple of decades, in service longer. They routinely flew massively overloaded carrying a torpedo, in ground effect, until they launched it, then climbed to fly home. Brave men.

Yours will be designed to fly low and slow at these weights, we just have to achieve them. Somehow i think batteries etc might have to get left behind for flight.
Rough specifications. Length 40’, main hull beam 8’, main hull height 7’6”, wingspan 70’, wing area 560sq/ft, Wimperiss area 640sq/ft, 11lb/sqft wing loading, AR 8.75, power 300hp, empty weight 3,800lb, max flying weight 6,000lb, service ceiling 40’, maximum speed 70+kt. This is rather too low wing loading, so a reduction in wing area may be needed. There will be some drag from the strut in flight.

If this is to fly, or even meet your ambitious speed requirements, perhaps the small turbocharged 4 cylinder would be best. Its duty cycle would not be high, unless you are actually flying, in which case it would be expected to provide full power and full torque for an hour or more at a time. Auto engines are NOT designed for this duty cycle, though some will handle it. As long as the propeller is in the water, i think the FAA will regard this as a ‘boat’ but i don't know. The Russian WIG’s were really ‘ram wing’ boats, at least by our classification. The early ones, the Caspian Sea Monster specifically, flew far too low, and sustained huge damage to its underside from wave impact. In this case, you need only fly a few feet above the water surface to reduce drag to air drag only. I assume a cruising height of about 15-20’ perhaps a little higher. If there are waves, or much swell, no flying!

The front wheel drive shaft is running quite slowly at car speed, much faster at engine speed (5,500rpm?) so torque is the issue, not power. At these speeds a front car drive should work fine as long as it is balanced for the speed. 5,500rpm might be quite satisfactory for a semi surface propeller (Thai type). You sacrifice a bit of efficiency for very light weight, no gearbox, and rely on the electric motors for reverse and maneuvering.

I would like to put the 300hp engine under the front bunk, but i think the weight would be too far forward. I will have to think about the propeller shaft position. It uses gravity to reach the water, and the small ‘wing’ or foil just forward of the propeller to ‘fly’ the propeller at the right height, just like Boeings flight refueling boom.

This vessel, flying version or not, is very light, and will shift away from any wave impact. Unlike Yobarnical’s usual charges which act like a half tide rock in weather. I just re-read Commodore Monroe’s comments on his sharpie Egret and Presto, and how they were able to lift their stern before a wave, unlike the ‘lead mine’ competitors common at the time. He described this action like a light weight boxer, able to move away from his opponents blows, unlike the heavier boxers (boats), that had to simply stand there and ‘take it’.

The section forward of the main bulkhead needs to be quite stiff in torsion, to resolve loads on the forward guys, and should be 1/4” plywood over 1.5” square cedar stringers on ~8” centers, 1.5” thick foam inside, with double plywood frames (1/4” ply, 3/4” cedar sandwich bulkheads with a large oval hole) every 32”. The chine and gunwale will be minimum 4” diameter radius, preferably 6" radius for stiffness and coating (see later comments). The bottom would be double, 2 layers of 1/4” then 1.5” cedar stringers on 6” centers, then another layer of 1/4” ply as the ‘floor. Aft of the main bulkhead, the hull would be as above, the cabin sides can be 1/4” ply, backed by 1.5” thick builders foam, and another layer of door skin ply on the inside. Some sections of the hull might need skinning inside with door skin.

The sections aft of the main bulkhead can have a 2” radius, tapering to 1” at the stern.
Interior will be all structural, with NO cupboard doors, all storage to be oval holes cut in plywood cupboards etc, and framed around with wood trim, as a sort of structural ‘flange’.

Windows must be framed around, as they cannot be made structural, though some could be aluminum framed hatches with advantage. Remember, a 70kt wind stream. Though a standard “Bartender" hull could be used, a dory style with a perfectly flat bottom, no rocker, could be used instead. The vessel could also be welded aluminum, though the aluminum would be very thin for the strength needed, and therefor prone to local impact damage. Close spaced stringers and foam backing would alleviate this, but i have little experience of marine grades.

The ‘dory’ cross section is an advantage here, as not being a rectangle, but a trapezoid, it is not prone to rhombus. The current ama's are shaped to provide side force when sailing, they are asymmetric to this end. Their exact crioss section is still a question, but i favor a narrow "V" with a flat bottom.

Covering; Please do not use Kevlar or any of its nylon cousins for covering. These fibers are so ‘slick’ no resin system will grip them unless their surface is ‘prepared’ to the point where the fibers strength is compromised. Equally, the fiber gets narrower as it reaches tension limits, pulling away from the resin, and allowing moisture to osmote between. The exposed cut ends are also hydroscopic, so they too will osmote water, and fail from heating and cooling.
Likewise, carbon fiber is not appropriate either, its modulus is so high it must break before the wood sees strain at all. Equally, unless the resin system is aerospace quality, $100/lb, the resin is far weaker than the carbon fiber.

I am not that keen on glass fiber either, but in this case it seems to be the best, and you should cover the whole vessel wrapping continuously around the whole hull/cabin, hence the large radius corners, gunwales and chines. This coating need only be the lightest cloth available, but must be cloth. No need for diagonal wrapping, or diagonal plywood, its local stiffness supported by the stringers would be adequate. I know this is rather light for a boat, but you cannot go around knocking it into solid sharp objects. Unless the object hit is sharp, or you get it crushed, beaching and some ‘ramp rash’ should be acceptable or avoidable.

Notice the changes in hull shape, especially round the stern. I am assuming an opening cabin stern window or hatch, and an aft platform for sunning and fishing etc. These are details that can be worked out during detail design.

I am surprised no one has called us out for idiocy, perhaps no one is reading it except we few. i suspect no one should build this, but it is fun imagining the possibilities. Please comment of the light construction, not typical fishing boat, or even yacht i know, but i hope this is a special case. A non flying version, probably with the ‘warped’ hull bottom, like a bartender, could be a very practical boat.

 

Could probably rig butterfly shrimp nets from those wings if anchored in a shrimp bearing tidal stream.

 

New Energy by Bragging Retiree

This sounds to me (working guy) like bragging I am already envious

I mentioned a solar thermal powered stierling generator but nothing as clever as this. Thanks

 

WIG Preliminaries

WOW Alan,

You are somethingelse.
Heck if I can have 70knots flying cruise missile for a getaway, then I can gladly give up 300HP diesel anchor I mean barely floating (not due to sinking but flying) boat. I can get an approval for additional funding from admiral for a Lithium battery pack too. 6000# takeoff weight and still almost flying? even if it is only technically. I love that canard sails If we are borrowing from a floatplane hull anyway then why not bring stepped hull feature too. I don't have huge need for reverse propulsion during cruise. I doubt I need to chase tuna too many times.

This is a completely separate project than my 39' liveaboard now. Based on my very limited aerodynamic understanding, this definitely has some merit. Yes, 300hp diesel is out and my EcoBoost is out too. I would say we go with real stout detuned turbo prop engine. How does it compare to marine diesel 150hp for propellor turning and electrical generation?
Are aeronautic grade honeycomb panels available for retail purchase? What would you estimate build time and build budget for something like this. Could I get a used machine gun mount and armored windshields? NVM
If this is the case, then might as well make this with a wing sail. Twin wingsails sailing in fairwind then at the hint of a storm float out of the way. Even if it is a soft wingsails.

I have worked in multiple industries, and in each industry, I have done my share of design recycling. The designs can be recycled but the products are hard to repurpose for fine tuned efficiency or performance. I am not discounting non-engineer advices, sometimes they have most experience in their real life situation. But, my liveaboard boat is MINE. I have my admiral's authorization!!!

As for the akas and main hull, we are in agreement. Amas may need some tweaking to come to some understanding. I have changed my views on amas from my original long thin, low buoyancy amas to deep V, high buoyancy above water line amas. Very similar to Bucaneer 24. Low drag during cruise, and minimized snap roll. But the both amas will be in contact with water surface for improved roll comfort. The deep V hull will initially submerge quickly to reduce abrupt roll acceleration, but have enough buoyancy to stop roll gradually and help buoyancy of the main hull. This is my current thinking. Why do you suggest your amas shape?

I think I've chased all normal people away about 10 pages ago. Sorry Alan, if you need more forumites' participations then you should open a new thread with your WIG design. I think this is quite good. I have a knack for feasible concepts.

 

Instead of stepped hull, or in addition to, why not retractable FOILS? Gets you up out of water, gets you to speed, THEN your wings can lift you a few feet higher to skim over the ice.

 

WIG Brainstorming

What is a wimperiss? Is that the area under ground effect (pressurized ground surface area)? Are the wings in reverse delta, dihedral? Would winglet (sail end plate) reduce sail area? Short wing is fine with me. Are canards for banking and stability? What is the control latency? Forward turbo prop fan engine for additional bow lift? And PTO type of longtail for underwater prop? Lifting J-foil under amas for lift and anti-pitch-poling? 1000# load at 20 knots on longtail? That is still a quite a bit for a thin long tail. How strong does longtail shaft have to be? Could additional foils help in transitional speed/height? Forward bulkhead torsional stiffness can be strengthend as stiffer/beefier sheerline and chine longitudinals and on framing with PVC foam (corecell HD). If forward engine placement hampers proper forward weight distribution then instead of longtail shaft, we can use "<" shaped flexible retractable arm link at bit of complexity.
Enough brainstorming after a big dinner

Edited: Dang! I didn't even see Yobarnacle's comment above. Haha.

 

wimperiss is called foreplay at my house. Closely resembles 4 hours of begging.
Or am I confusing whimpering?

 

If you think this is exotic, I'll have to get my electric VTOL sport bike out and reassemble it. Vertical and horizontal flight, sport bike performance, how could it miss. This too uses a rather obscure aerodynamic principle, developed in the later 40‘s and early 50‘s, (who knows when it was discovered), but abandoned as unworkable. Only issues so far, are noise, it's VERY loud, and it is powered plugged into an electrical outlet, so its range is limited to the length of the power cord.

The earliest float planes, from Avro and Fairey, did not have a step, but were short and supported by a float under the tail plane. The plane balanced on the rear of these floats whilst planing. Steps were introduced so that the airplane could balance on the step at V1, rotation speed, so the pilot could adjust the angle of attack of the wing so the plane would take of at all. Steps need a lot of air piped in to work properly, cause a lot of drag in flight, and are a serious structural weakness. i would rather avoid them if i can. This does for other reasons.

When designing commercial airplanes, one designs the wing for sufficient lift at 'top of climb', i.e. full load at maximum altitude, cruising speed. We check it for volume, it is the fuel tank after all, then we add high lift devices, flaps, slats, etc so it will lift off the ground.

This airplane is completely different, as a WIG, it will take off and cruise at the same altitude, so lift sufficient to cruise is also sufficient to lift the whole airplane out of the water. Equally, this design of 'soft' wing is unique in that it's camber, and AOA (angle of attack) can be adjusted independent of fuselage (hull) AOA. Thus the airplane should lift straight up, i.e. not require rotation, unlike a typical airplane.

The wings have a great deal of dihedral so the plane is inherently stable, it is very hard to roll either way. Normally this is a bad thing, it limits maneuverability, but in this case we do NOT want to dip a wingtip in the water.

All control is exercised by moving the forward two ‘wings’ canards, together for pitch, differentially for steering (mainly) and roll. we just have to provide enough power (not much) and resolution to maintain control.

I considered adding a ‘roach’ to the TE, but discovered on the flying hobby cat that fine control of this area was difficult. We also discovered that it had far too much wing area, One person aboard, it was like a butterfly, no control at all. finally with the hulls on, and three people we were doing better, but needed a fourth, and coordinating these peoples movement for control was near impossible. We needed far more purchase on the controls in that case. The benefit of a flying technology demonstrator.

A wing-sail, solid or flexible will not help this configuration, it is already developed. The use of a solid wing-sails will add serious complexity, and add weight, whilst detracting from performance. Due to their rigidity their Center of Lift cannot be moved about as much as this configuration can. The very reason we don't see these wings on planes other than gliders is the reason i am choosing it. The use of double sided soft sails, Wharram for instance, is that the lower surface might possibly ‘ripple’ at some angle of attack, causing a non linear lift/drag curve with AOA, and result in a difficult control situation.

Wing area is the actual surface area of the wings, root to tip. Wimperiss area is the total projected area of the wings, tip to tip, including the center section, and excluding area due to dihedral angle. it is used for some calculations.

Tip end plates, only work when the wing tip is already fairly broad in chord. In this case, structural advantages accrue from having a triangle, in this case, the steel wire trailing edge wire allowing sail shape and camber change from the clew.

Yobarnicle is correct, but not foils, but a ski, slalom or twin could be a very useful form of ‘unsticking’ the hull from the water surface tension. Convair’s “Sea Dart” was a very successful application of this principle, well worth repeating is necessary. http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Convair-SeaDart.html Sea Darts ‘ski’ was in slightly the wrong place fore and aft, but we learned from that.

The 1,000lb is the residual weight being supported by the hull, while 5000lb is being supported by the wings AT 20kt!!. As the boat goes faster, the hull will become completely wing borne, and the only force through the ‘long tail’ should be thrust. I agree, this ‘long tail’ shaft will take a bit of thought so it does not flex under thrust loads.

A gas turbine sounds good at first blush, but; the only small gas turbine extant, the Solar, was originally designed by Boeing for use on a USNavy Drone helicopter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrodyne_QH-50_DASH but was then sold on to Caterpillar for their ‘solar’ power generation division (i think). It has been used for helicopters, rated about 250-300hp, but at high rpm. By the time the gearbox is added, it costs all of youyr $250k, and might weigh about the same as a 4 cylinder turbocharged motor with no gearbox. There are bigger gas turbines, but they kind of start at 500hp, and jump to 1200hp. Cost is proportionate, as are gearboxes.

There are some 3 cylinder, and 4 cylinder turbo diesels that burn jet fuel (same basic fuel as diesel), developed for aircraft. One at least started life as Mercedes “Smart Car’ engine.

I would hope to get this in under your $250k as long as you do not use a gas turbine, and follow the wing design failed closely. Honeycomb is pretty useless in boats, except in interior, where foam is usually good enough.

Foils sound good, and indeed could be a complete alternate to the wings. I would prefer single adjustable foils like a modern Moth http://www.mach2boats.com Notice how the ‘feeler’ in front adjusts the foils angle of attack to keep the boat level and at a predetermined height. Far better than the electronic systems Boeing used. Unfortunately, making such a foil requires a lot of design, and especially machining skill.

In fact, there are several alternate schemes, like sidewall hovercraft, sometimes called a surface effect ship in America, an example being the SES-100. My cube-mate at Boeing for a while was a senior designer on this boat, and i learned a lot from him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_effect_ship

We could certainly revamp your boat/houseboat to be a SES, but you would loose your 8’ wide requirement.

Yobarnicle, i know nothing about shrimp fishing, but it might offset the cost of running this boat as a flying home?

 

You could only sell to COMMERCIAL shrimp catchers because they have the license to sell at market. They are not going to give you market price, But you can catch a good meal and lotsa bait.

 

Further WIG Displacement Boat Exploration

Sailor Alan, I am having hard time imagining VTOL bike that flys. Any rate, at my age bike isn't as tempting as it used to be. If it runs on AC, couldn't you add a small 1kw generator?
I appreciate aeronautic bits of information. It makes your story interesting for me. Keep adding more side notes of your past projects and any additional tidbits

The WIG displacement boat is pretty fascinating for several applications. Let's explore little bit for more brainstorming.

Stepped hull: I assumed stepped hull would be fine aerodynamically since all floatplanes I see had them. How much of indent (upturned laminar distance difference?) do you need for step hull to work? I thought minimal step wouldn't cause too much drag. And even though this is supposed to be a dory hull, it does have fine V entry. The V-entry can be extended to the step or very near the step for a clean lift off. The retractable lifting strake at the stern was mentioned before, but wouldn't foils be better during transition? And amas will have some kind of foils anyway for rudder and self-righting. No?

Canard Wings: I am assuming these will be controlled by some control lines (3/8" rope?) How quickly does input respond (latency) and how fine of adjustment can one make? I understand we are not suppose fly with this but even at 12' pitchpoling is a real danger.

Longtail Reinforcement: Rather than making a stiff shaft, two retractable shaft support would distribute load better. The propellor can have flatter fixed thrust angle and shaft incorporates a univ-joint to allow extension. Any thoughts?

Engine: I was thinking old rotary prop engine, but never mind, I don't want jet fuel or any aviation fuel in remote places. Any light weight engine with 200-300 hp will do, diesel or gasoline. What kind engine would you use for this application. A diesel genset size need can be reduced for weight saving.

Sail Masts: Originally, I wanted unstayed yawl, but we went to stepped. How is sail mast attached to the hull? Would it be stayed with cable control, or would it be unstayed actuated arms? Is it a biplane now or A-frame looking bi-plane?

Displacement: Is 6000# maximum displacement based on sail wing angle? If wing loading is too light, then can we increase AOA for more maximum load? Does it sacrifice maximum ceiling? I am guessing the maximum ceiling is more like a jump to avoid a tall wave rather than any sustained flight altitude. Heck! drop a water tank and battery banks if too overloaded. Burn the furnitures in the stove.

How realistic is this design in terms of budget and design time. I can see several design iterations/tests before being reasonably successful. If you can design it so very little hull is in the water and lookalike it is foiling rather than WIG flying, then I think it is very feasible. Yes, it would be more susceptible by waves. Any IP encumberment?