Hogfish Maximus - 44ish sailing sharpie?

Hi Dennis
Have a look at Col Cliffords cc 33 -36
Google compucraft yacht design

 

Hi. I have looked at the CC designs and find them interesting. I emailed them a while ago and go no response.

 

Someone PMed me a link to a high res pic. Thought I would share it.

 

Chris & Rachel asked to look out for that stolen dinghy pictured above . . . . :idea:

Cheers,
Angel

 

Hope Chris and Rachel find their dinghy...an HM..well..that is the coolest boat...I remember the original "Hogfish"....that was a cool boat too...

 

Sharpie Design.

Interesting how many of Phil Bolger's sharpies had the forefoot above the WL. I think I read somewhere from Phil he did it to stop pounding at anchor, but that doesn’t work. I note the similar 110, 210, 510 et-al from Ray Hunt, and the ‘star’ class all had radius bottoms, and all had long bow overhangs below this ‘flat’ bottom section. I did read Maurice Griffith’s say he once put the hard chine exiting the WL right by the head end of the owners bunk, and would never do that again. As Chris Morejohn says, in a seaway, the bow is below the water, above the water, and everywhere in between in as manny seconds. I personally have put the forefoot on my sharpie/skiff designs exactly on the waterline at loaded rest. I also try to make the curve of the bottom at the bow the same as the forward chine curve, just as Bolger suggests. The water then has no pressure to transfer AROUND the chine. Of course, this phenomena of balanced flow, if it happens at all, only happens for a few tenthes of a second in any given 10 minutes, but it at least its an excuse for the shape drawn. I find these same boats sail to windward better with the bow depressed, i.e. trimmed by the head.

Phil Bolger was not the first to ‘popularize’ ‘square’ type boats, that honor might be lost in antiquity. Certainly they were popular in England before the second world war, possibly being brought to the peak of their development in purpose, if not elegance, by Tredwen et-al. Maurice Griffith's owned a Barge Yacht, called “Swan”, and spent a whole chapter of his book “Swatch-ways and Little Ships” extolling its virtues. He also described a voyage on another similar “Barge Yacht’ in a chapter entitled, “One man and his barge” where they deliberately ran aground on the lee of a known sand bank to avoid a bad tide and storm. I was impressed

Years ago i sailed such a boat off the south coast of England, and having a background in racing dinghies, i had little trouble, but i can imagine the horror of someone from a keel boat background. It was VERY lively. I disliked lee boards before this experience, now i hate them. These boats were extremely heavily built, especially by todays standards, had little or no ballast, and relied almost entirely on form stability. I think they rode easier (flatter) in a seaway too, but i was never in a position to judge different hull types on the same day/weather/sea conditions.

Maurice Griffith's spent a good deal of his design life refining the same ideas, and a superb example of his work appears on page 13 of his book “Little Ships and Shoal Waters’. A chapter in which he compares this style of boat with the “New Haven Sharpies” which he studied on a trip to America. He uses Howard Chapelle's illustrations in his book.

Maurice Griffith’s own designs ranges across really conventional (for the time) cutters and Ketches, but a lot of his popularly came from his designs catering to the people in Britain, and parts of France, who only had access to shoal or tidal waters. His designs drifted away from true ‘flat’ bottoms, toward slightly “V”d sections, apparently to cater for the increasing demand for standing headroom. He also used his ‘raised deck’ AND trunk cabins to give standing headroom, whilst maintaining the ‘sleek, low’ look demanded at the time. Now fashions have changed, even if the sea did not.

 

Hummm , Water Witch and AS29 might not be that far a part.

 

Welcome to BD.net, Sailor Alan

Do you have an opinion of how sea-worthy Bolger's Advanced Sharpie designs are, specifically the AS-39 (aka Loose Moose II)? At eight feet wide, with a draft of only 1 foot (but with 3000 lbs ballast) I wonder how stable it might be in heavy water? Does its tall topsides make it more liable to a knock-down?

 

Tall top topsides

To me it looks like tall top topsides add windage so they make the boat less weatherly, but they also provide extra buoyancy where it counts in a knockdown to resist to roll further*, but due to the higher center of gravity (the deck is also higher placed) they also accelerate the knockdown which makes it more likely to happen. And they add inside space and head room. So the height of the top sides is a compromise between these contrasting interests.

* The ballast inside attached to the bottom is than above the water and has maximum leverage to right the boat, tall top topsides enlarge this righting leverage.

 

BUT ... it doesn't have a keel to trip it (assuming the off-centerboard is raised), and the minimal draft might allow it to slide sideways -- though I'm not sure if the sharp chines would dig in and trip it anyway?

 

About above quote: See the post above it, I've edited and enlarged it a bit for clarification.

Yes, when pushed by the seas and the wind on the hull with much or all of the sails down.

Yes, with too much sail up.

 

So why aren't sharpies like Hogfish Maximus and LM2 more common as ocean-going cruisers?

 

Sharpies

I suspect its an image thing. Most people want to 'fit in' and it certainly helps when mooring in free 'public' space. The less outrageous and tidy a boat looks, the less likely it is to attract negative attention.
The high sided, flat(ish) bottom boats are extremely seaworthy, but need intelligence at the helm. They will indeed snap back up from a knockdown, and definitely slide sideways when hit by a wave. BUT, one needs to reef early and often, especially at night. Their motion can be very 'quick' and therefor very tiring for the crew. Its often the crew which fails first, and many of the historic ocean voyages in small boats were really just endurance tests for the sailor.

Should you build a 'square boat". Well only about 10% of the cost of the boat is the hull, all the rest is still the same, more or less. Rigging and moorage costs seem to dominate these days, next year it will be something else.
Moorage costs demand a short boat, build costs demand a light boat (boats are like butter, you buy them by the pound), and neither promotes a fast or safe boat. I would go as simple and cheap as you can stand, especially in rig and systems, but remember, pride of ownership (appearance mostly) keeps you going when the project seems to overwhelm you.

I personally would go for an 'elegant' boat with simple rig. Any of Ruel Parkers for example, his 'simple' cold molding works well. Any of George Buehler’s are excellent sailers, cheap to build from 'hardware' stock. Ted Brewers Dories have crossed oceans, and Herreshoff’s Meadowlark still has appeal. My personal favorite might be a Bolger “Romp”, or “Manatee”, I particularly like Manatee for its easily handled rig, simple, cheap, easy to reef, and the whole boat has a sort of timeless elegance.

 

Most people dont build their own boats, and the pros build in fiberglass for the most part.
A boat like Hogfish would not exist if Chris Morejohn had not built it. I doubt he would have designed it if Bolger had not laid the ground work with his Advanced Sharpies. Technically they are similar boats. I think they are good solution, and offer the great advantage of shallow draft. But in the end they are just too far out for most people. That is probably why I like them.

I dont agree with the general idea that they will cost that much to build.
It depend on your resourcefulness. Hogfish's rig is used, power could be an outboard, or a used atomic4. Keep the approach minimalist will keep the cost down. You may have a hard time selling it in the end, so Romp would be a better investment. There is an AS34 , design out there that is interesting.

 

The 36' Loose Moose ‘‘36’ offshore cruising sharpie’’ (designed by Selway Fisher and commissioned by Bob & Sheila Wise) is that the predecessor of the 38' Loose Moose II designed by Phil Bolger and commissioned by the same couple . . .

- - 36' Loose Moose
- - -
- - click pics to enlarge​