Affordable seaworthy cruiser

“I used to be all messed up on drugs, till I found The Lord. Now I’m all messed up on The Lord.” Cheech & Chong, Big Bambu album (1972)

 

That a good one .

 

First time I came across this thread. Please do not encourage this guy. Innocent people will die and the CG will not be needed to save them.

goodwilltoall - Just buy a boat. I'm sure you can get the funds together somehow.

 

I just want to say, as someone who went to school for biology, this thread is hilarious. The evolution that you were taught in Catholic school didn't make you a bad person, any wrong that you did you did on your own.

Until the 770's I hadn't seen anyone address the parallelograming that is certain to happen. I still don't feel that that issue has at all been adequately addressed. You can get away with no ribs, but only if you go to a composite hull. Right now you are lining up the stress forces that the hull is likely to face right on the weakest possible plane of the 2x4's. Now a traditionally built hull can get away with that, because it has ribs inside of the strip planking to take the tension, but on your hull the inside layer, the one that is going to get the most tension in the middle of the sides, is aligned to present its weakest face.

I am not a boat builder, but I've done a fair bit of carpentry, and I wouldn't trust a structure like that as a garden shed. You might be able to get away with it (for calm flat water, like a canal boat, which is really what you seem to have been designing until the latest V-hull iteration) if you used some ply on the inside and went with the sandwich approach, then the only glaring weaknesses would be the corners of the box.

Also, I'd like to know why you decided that you didn't need to build a scale model. Are you hesitant to pay the cost for cardboard and balsa? Do you not want to take the time? My father built a few dozen boats of many sizes(even wrote a book and building St. Pierre Dorries) , and he built models all the time. The Emerson that I'm named after (Tom Emerson of Emerson Boatworks) built models too.

Think of it like pascalls wager. If the boat is fine and you don't build a model, oh well. If the boat is fine and you do build a model, no difference. If the boat is carp and you build a model, that's instant salvation. If the boat is carp and you don't build a model, well you're in for one hell of a ride to the bottom of the abyss.

 

I wish some one had a site of all these type of projects.

Raw Faith was pretty well documented, I'm just waiting for McKay's next deceitful, delusional project to appear to the public.

The Absolut 80 debacle was pretty good also.

There was some guy and his family out West building a big "catamaran" on the beach, using strictly cheap carpentry materials and methods, whose plan was to load up all his family and head for Figi.

There must be numerous other b"Ark"ing mad other projects all over the world.

 

Never forget the force and danger of the sea
http://www.soundingsonline.com/news/dispatches/702-dec-8-2010/271832-seas-end-voyage-of-raw-faith
http://www.pressherald.com/news/tall-ships-crew-captain-rescued_2010-12-08.html

 

oh my...

i just stumbled across this thread... absolutely hilarious!
thank you goodwilly for such a great entertainment on a lousy day in the office...

you have a follower now ... of the thread that is!

 

i do not know of such site, but last summer i came across another selfdesigned built of the other sort:
http://www.bootsbau-nixx.de/html/bauphasen-log.html

it is in german but if you drill down into the "bauphasen-log" he posted a lot of images... exceptionally craftmanship to me.
under the "planung" link to the left you find info about his very own free!ship design...

i do not know if he did some mass- or any other calculations apart from the stress calcs for the keel construction...
he mentions that he had the technical director from the americas cup team germany have a look on his plans and approving them somewhat (no precise information available)...

his boat should be in the water right now but since there has not been an update to the site since february, i assume he is either happy sailing or completely embarrassed and ashamed hiding in a hole...

 

Thanks for the reply. I went through that site a little and it seems like the self build story of just taking way more time and money than was anticipated at the beginning. The design and methods looked OK, but I didn't delve too deeply into it. Too much attention to detail, trying to make a boat a work of art or a showcase of your abilities, over building and the misconception that any slight mistake in materials or construction will cause immediate catastrophe slows up the process tremendously. Then again, I think a lot of people like thinking of things, and building things, and that is equal or of more importance than actually boating. It's not the arrival, it's the journey sort of thing.

I was referring to the sort of projects that are usually BIG, built by inexperienced people with their own ideas of what will work and that disregard most advice to the contrary. They have a "Mission From God" like focus to them, but are not confined to religious folks. If they get past the planning stage into serious construction, they are often accompanied by family and/or financial meltdown, publicity, legal and zoning problems, sometimes the Coast Guard rescue at sea is the last you ever hear of them. They generally become a life consuming project, like a lot of legitimate projects do also, and the percentage that actually get launched is small, again like a lot of legitimate projects also.

 

Didn't read the whole thread yet, and perhaps already mentioned here, but below a quite amazing self design self build project of a kind of "Ark" :

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=126442&st=0

 

That's the one I referred to above, the 'catamaran on the beach'. I'm not allowed to see the photos on SA, but the link to the Woodenboats thread,
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?136729-Could-this-be-Raw-Faith-II

led me to this Youtube of the boat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJngIJ2j70Q&feature=youtu.be

That's what I'm talking about, where the person commits everything to a bad plan without thinking it all the way through, who knows just enough to be dangerous. I would like to see anything current on that boat.

 

There are quite a few recent pics on SA, apparently work is still ongoing (you just have to register to see them), and it is now also viewable on Google maps :
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=10 Lo...ond Dr, San Rafael, California 94901&t=h&z=17
(note : not present in the highest zoom levels)

Also another vid about it :
http://www.cbs19.tv/story/15461245/...&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6251597

Quite a pity to see that nobody managed to bring the guy to his senses, especially right next to a marina, (but he must be of the serious stubborn type also ...)

But I would bet it will never touch water (could become a restaurant or something maybe)

 

So, where are we, a 52' canoe or an AS 39?

Or, has it been built and I missed it?

 

I think that the OP started to build a strong back for a V-bottom, then came back some time later and said he was going back to a flat bottom because the V was too complicated, and hasn't said anything since.

 

just uncheck the 45° view...

this thing is awful...