Designing a boat at age 12

For the past few months my friends Avery, Hana, Aaron, Jamie and I have been designing a small sailing ship. We're all 12 and plan to sail to the galapagoes(sorry. no clue how to spell it. ) islands to study zoology and the theory of evolution when we're out of collage. It sounds kind of crazy for a bunch of 12 year olds, but we've been reserching this for all most a year. Last week, Avery and I went to the Darwin exibit at the Museum Of Natral History and desided to base the ship on the Beagul, the ship Darwin used to explore. We've already got the basic plan for the ship which is going to be called The Starling. :?: Why the Starling? God only knows. We went throught a to of plant and animal names and we thought it was a cool name. One of our other destonations is the Amazon Rainforest. Thousands of speices there are being distroyed there every day and we don't even know some of the exist. I wrote an artical, yesturday, for school about it.

Liz Scales 1/10/06
601 M.O.G
Rainforest Deforestation
And how it effects the environment

One of Earth’s most beautiful treasures, the Rainforest, is at this very moment being cut down and destroyed just as we begin to appreciate its true value. 14% of the earth’s land surface used to be covered in rainforests; now they cover a mere 6%. Most experts say that the last of the remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Every second, one and one half acres of rainforest are lost. Rainforest land is valued only by the quality of its timber by short-sighted governments, multi-national logging companies, and land owners. About half of the world’s animals, plants, and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century because of rainforest destruction. Every day, we lose about 137 plant, animal, and insect species because of deforestation in the rainforest. That amounts up to 50,000 species a year, most of which we have never even bothered to discover their existence. Many cures to life-threatening diseases disappear along with the rainforest species. After rainforest land is cleared, it is used as farm land and/or ranching operations by big international companies. Along with rainforest plants and animals the Indian tribes of people who live there are also disappearing. The Amazon rainforest has been described as the “Lungs of our planet” because of the essential recycling of carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20% of the earth’s oxygen supply is produced in the Amazon Rainforest. More than half of the worlds 10 million species live in tropical rainforests. Of all the fresh water in the world, one fifth of it is in the Amazon. 2.47 acres of rainforest may have over 750 types of trees. 3,000 fruits grow in the rainforests, but only 200 are used in the Western World. The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres. If it were a country, it would be the 9th largest in the world. If people stop cutting the rainforest down and harvest its many nuts, fruits, oil-producing plants, and medicinal plants, the rainforest would have more economic value, experts say. If we care for it properly, the rainforest can provide the worlds need for natural resources. All this states that the rainforest is worth a lot more alive then cut down and burned.


I think people should take more care of the enviorment. That's the whole idea of this expedition.

 

Keep it up lads - a very Noble thing you are doing there! But please get a qualified Marine Architect to look over those plans with you before you start building. He should be able to help you a lot. Also I would talk to your teacher about it, don't worry if people laugh, as long as you have faith you'll ge there! Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but you will,as long as you take your time and do it right!

 

Thanks!

Thanks for replying to the post. I know I have to get all this stuff done before I start building anything. All we did was draw a small sketch of the boat and list the rooms. We don't plan to do anything untill we're out of collage and have raised enough money. Today, in science class I learned that the price for gasoline for a yacht for a one way trip to florida is about $100,000.!!! Scary thought. Good thing The Starling is going to be solar powered. I've always lived by the sea and have always loved it. I belong there. I think the Starling won't easly be forgotten when we're in collage. As long as we stick together, we'll come through. Just today, my friend Maia who plans to be an archaelogist said she would love to join. We have a good amount of people, now.

 

Sounds like you're getting a good, diverse team together, and, just as importantly, planning to do good things for the planet (we need more people like you). I do wonder, though, why you are basing your boat on the Beagle, and not something more modern.

What is a huge issue, is solar-power. I did a (very) quick feasibility study on it some time ago, and basically, using a solar/electric system just isn't feasable for doing more than a few knots for any length of time. I suspect in eight or ten years, it might well be more possible, but at the moment the technology just isn't there.

What might be feasible, is to use solar power to heat water and use it to power some kind of turbine. I suspect that would be ok around the equator, but not really great outside the tropics. Unfortunately, turbine efficiency isn't great either (perhaps slightly better than solar/electric).

For my money, I think I'd copy a relatively modern 45 to 50 foot sailing yacht. Perhaps with an electric motor and a small generator, instead of a big horrible engine.

Anyway, just a few thoughts, post a few ideas on the forum and we'll help you all we can.

It's a good (if tricky) project,

Tim B.

 

If you're interested in solar, may I suggest considering multihull shapes- a catamaran, perhaps? Solar panels take up a lot of space and the voyage to the Galapagos is not exactly short- so the catamaran's combination of lots of space inside the cabin, with lots of room on deck for solar array, might be a good one. Solar power technology advances very quickly; by the time you build your boat, solar cells will likely cost about one-half to one-fifth of what they do today, and will be more powerful and durable.

I always find it best with any design project to start by listing all the requirements- ie. range, how many crew must fit, how big a storm it has to handle, etc- and then come up with several ideas that would meet each goal. If a similar idea comes up for several goals, then I'll look at it some more, compare it to existing designs, etc. and redesign until it meets all of my goals.

Good luck with the project, folks. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it- I built my first boat in grade 8, and I know many who have started younger!

 

Whilst on the subject HMS Beagle was powered by Canvas! She was a sailing vessel! So the solar would be for ? Cooking? Navigation? auxilaries (get in and out of port?)

 

By the time you guys finish college their might be no gas/oil, so forget the expense of it. There might not be some of the basic materials to make boats either, except for wood and some old nails and screws you might salvage.
So buy a sailboat and keep it hidden! If there was such a place in NYC!

OK, seriously now, is your goal to built a boat capable of the trip, to make the trip, or to get there and do environmental research?
Read some inspiring story of a "kid" that circumnavigated the globe and became the youngest to do so, with an old little boat. http://holoholo.org/caldwell/
He went by the Galapagoes too!
It takes tons of experience and knowledge to do so and that is what you may be lacking at young age.

FOCUS!

 

Zero, be practical with what are they going to buy this vessel, if they buy it now will it be fit for purpose - big enough? capable enough? maintained enough? etc.

No better to finalise the boat just before go time with the materials and capabilites available at the time!

Alos you quote a lad of 15 who sailed around the world, alone! Then tell us that these sort of activities need lots of experience - most of these kids are now 12 and know where they are going, in three years time between them they will have more than enough experience, because I'm sure they will learn and not go until ready (besides which they may have parents and guardians who say no way until your ready)!

You are however right in telling them to focus - they are, but at the same time they need to grow up into young adults with a well rounded education - that includes parties, and having fun that all kids of that age do! Or are you so old you've forgotten?

 

12 eh?

Boy oh boy do I remember when I was 12!

You know - when your bout 14 or 16 maybe, you'll get a LOT more interested in the female entorage of your sailing trip...and likely it WON'T be for their ability to scale the rigging a reef a sail!

That said, it tis an admirable dream for a group of young people to have.

I have to ask you a question tho.

Try to remember tho, before you answer - I was a forester in a former life, and used to spend a LOT of years (more than you've been alive so far) trying to save the rainforests.

So heres my questions for you.

1. Have ANY of you ever been to a rainforest? ( A true rainforest, is where the tree canopy excludes more than 90% of sunlight from reaching the forest floor).

Ergo - explain to me how you have this great concern fpor the rainforest, if you've never even seen one - or sucked the fresh oxygen from it's folliage deep into your lungs...??

Do you really love this rainforest - or is it just something thats fashionable right now, among kids your age?

2. You tell us a whole acre / football fiel etc of rainforest os dissapearing every second!. So - on the other side of the equation, left to it's own devices - how fast does rainforest grow back?...i.e. - reclaim cleared land, if it's not kept cleared..i.e fenced, grazed down by livestock, and or burntt by humans?

3. If your so concerned about trees and the rainforest, why build a timber sailboat to go to the Galapago's Islands? Surely you'll just be contributing to the global destruction of rainforests to supply the lumber for your sailing ship?

Why not a steel hulled or alluminium or even fibreglass boat to sail?

Pretty good questions eh?

Damn foresters!,....think they know everything! he he he..

So - you want my advice?

1. Work out how much lumber you need for this boat.

2. Work out how many 35 year old Huon pine trees or cedar trees etc you will need to build this ark...

3. Each of you in the project - collects the seeds for abut 3 times as many trees as you will need....

4. You all germinate them and get them astablished as seedlings in pots that you all water every day and tend for weeds and fertilise etc.

5. When they are about 2 or 3 months old - you all establish a tree plantation, on land that all of you have sold enough lemonade at lemonade stands to buy outright. You'll need a stocking rate of about 2250 stems per hectare..so you should be able to work out how much land you will need.

6. As a group - you all own this land for 35 years while you protect those trees with your life from disease, insect attacks fire etc etc...

7. By the time your 47...i.e in 35 years time - when the trees are mature, you cut them down - mill them - dry them and then machine them - and then build your boat from them.

That way - you won't be asking ANYTHING from the rainforests of this world, that you aren't fully entitled too!

Course - one small last thing...

Before you mill your timber etc - you have to replant that piece of ground for the next generation - your kids and their kids etc etc.

And then - you have my blesing child - for you will truly understand about rainforests dissapearing - and you will have some small appreciation for the sacrifices generations of foresters before you made of their lives - to provide all the lumber for the vessels you see sailing the waters all over the world now! (and in the years to come!).

Forests are a "renewable" resource....the only reason they are dissapearing, is because no one wants to do the hard work (or pay foresters the $ necessary to do the hard work)...to ensure we plant & nurture more trees than we use.

That responsibility rests on everyones shoulders here (except mine).

Why not me?

1. I've planted about 5000 hectares of said trees a year (@ a stocking ratio of 2250 stems per hectare!) for about 10 years of my life - I reckon I've done my bit!

2. My boats made of aluminium!

Best of luck with your sailing project - you have a lifetimes work ahead of you - better get started right away, no time like the present to get started, the longest of journeys begins with the first step young Starling!

May the force be with you!

Cheers!

 

Hey come on Trouty don't blow the dream - they're only going to save the rainforests of the Galapagos Islands! The rest can look after themselves - mind you by the time they're ready to go that'll be the only Rainforest left! Apart from the Greenland one if the experts with their global warming are right

 

As we 'new'Aussies say - 'Go for it...'
The world, and we oldies, need a generation of dreamers, or else man(and woman)kind will degenerate into a race of zombie-like lumps fastened to their TV's and computers allowing the monopolistic media owners to do their thinking for them. (Thinking, if done at all, will conform to whatever particular political structure happens to be current - and makes most profit).
That grand old Scot, T.E.Lawrence (Probably beter known as Lawrence of Arbroath) said: "Beware of dreamers - for they strive to have their dreams come true..."
Dreamers are to be encouraged. Dreamers built Empires - Bureaucrats lose them. So design your ship, and one day hopefully you'll build it...And hopefully reach the Galapagos before it becomes too Disneyfied.
Oh, by the way - 'Starling' is an abreviated version of the bird's full name - 'Starveling'... maybe second thoughts on that ?

 

Well said Bergalia, spoken like a man who will never reach 12 (pushed to reach the mental age of 5 let alone 12)!

 

Go for it Starling - and never let anyone take away your dream..............

 

Oh! The Beagle idea was kinda random. I think what avery had in mind was that it was based on the size. I agree with mashmat. I have a notebook full of deferent ideas for this project. I just need to sort them out along with the rest of my life............

 

Sorry! I meant I agree with maRshmat. I'm really distracted today.