I need help with a custom boat

Greetings and Salutations to everyone. I don't know where to begin so I will try to keep it short and to the point. I have recently come up with the idea to build a boat and I need to find out if it can be done. Everything is possible the question is how. That's what I am after.

Mission: Live on the water and travel the world.

Boat Size: Unknown.

Boat Style: Unknown, Impossible to flip over. Indestructible apart from hitting another boat or smashing into a rock.

Cargo: 10 passengers 12 dogs and one or two vehicles.

Propulsion: Ridged sail, Electric various power sources.

The boat I have been thinking about is a long rectangle with a triangle top. I don't know what the front and back will look like yet. 2 or 3 hulls. One on each side and maybe one in the middle. Aluminum will probably be the material of choice.

I am worried about storms so I have been thinking of being able to lower the boat into the water by filling the hulls with water. That way it will be more difficult to tip since its already mostly submerged. Have a protective top so waves will not cause damage.

Propulsion I am looking into multiple electric motors. Just in case one dies there will be others still running. A large diesel generator, hundreds of kilowatts to move when I need to really move. Small diesel generator for charging purposes. Very large solar panel array and wind turbines as well. The sail part I was hoping for a panel type if that would work.

These are just ideas, there's way more to it but I have started with the basic stuff for now. I guess size and hull type or shape are what I need to figure out first.

 

interesting project proposal. what is your budget?

what you describe would have to be a very large boat, larger in fact that most deep water cursing yachts. Are you just dreaming of a get-away fantacy, or are you really searious about building and financing such a large project? Do you have a place near the water to build it? If not how are you going to get it to the water?

A couple of things to consider: the more equipment, systems and appliances you have on board, the more trouble it will be to keep it all working. On really large yachts it is rare that everything on it is ever working at the same time, it seems to me the best way to build a self sufficient live aboard boat would be design it with as few systems, and keep them all simple, as you can live with. Many have sailed around the world without a refrigerator and desalination, some have even done it without any motor on board at all, just planing ahead for good sailing conditions.

Just something to consider.

 

Captain,

Don't run into conclusions on what your boat should look like. You admit being totally fresh in this business - which is fine. But there is a lot to learn and understand - by making assumptions of this and that (electric propulsion for a world sailer, shape of the boat) without the basics is not productive.

Search on this forum for recommended books / reading for beginning yacht designer. You shouldn't design a vessel of your own for such a large scale project but studying a bit helps you understand the decisions when CHOOSING a design.

a few things to consider:

-a boat to take 10 people across an ocean is HUGE. Its not cheap. In fact its crazy expensive.
-you cannot make shortcuts in the way a boat is built. Its expensive.
-An ocean crossing vessel needs to be built keeping that in mind = more expensive than coastal cruiser that can avoid nasty stuff.
-no boat is unsinkable.
-the hull is often the part people dream of building (and thing of saving money on) but in fact its juts a fraction of the cost of a fully equipped functional boat.
-10 people, 12 dogs what is that? 55ft?

if you were to build a big boat consider this:
-if you have no patience to build a 12-15ft dinghy as the 1st step then you con forget the rest.
-if you have no patience to build a 20-30 ft sailboat next you con forget the rest (assuming goal is 50-60ft ship).
-for a 50-60ft ship you need insane amount of money, a huge location next to shore, years of time. Much smaller boats cause divorces, exhaustion and depression.

And lastly - and please do answer these:
-what is your sailing experience?
-what is the sailing experience of the 9 others?

start by reading Nature of Boats by Gerr. Its a good yet not overly technical overview of what makes a boat.

good luck.

 

oh yeah - buying used is practically always cheaper.

now this one is not in top notch shape and I think its been for sale for ages:
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/195...04/Old-Saybrook/CT/United-States#.UVux7pNvB8E

same boat but nicer:
http://www.peakeyachts.com/Herreshoff55.htm

but to be honest - even that boat is crowded for 10 for sure. 10 people eat, drink, poop, stink, eat, argue a lot. And that is about as cheap as you can go. Upgrading some components and gear will quickly cost you tens of thousands. And just to clarify - I have no clue of your budget but these are extremely cheap. You couldn't build anything near this size for the same amount of money.

Also read:
http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Change-Ac...364964647&sr=8-7&keywords=seas of change sail

and

http://www.amazon.com/Adrift-Sevent...ie=UTF8&qid=1364964693&sr=1-1&keywords=adrift

and this one is a fun book too:
http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Seama...=UTF8&qid=1364964740&sr=1-1&keywords=uffa fox

 

Is it still April 1st somewhere in the world?

 

Buy a used free-fall lifeboat and be prepared to live your life in a box:

 

This seems ambitious and quite expensive. Just to give you one idea of the type of vessel that would satisfy the requirements which I high-lighted in bold:

http://www.ultraluxum.com/yachting/ultraluxum-cxl.html
(The world's largest trimaran design)

 

how many tens of millions of dollars does that thing cost?

 

The OP is asking for a boat that is "impossible to flip over". There has never been a design in Naval history capable of that.

 

A nuclear submarine comes pretty close to the OP's SOR.

 

Yes, but you can't fit two cars on a nuclear sub. Maybe if you put a garage where the silos are.

 

you could build a floating structure that is impossible to flip over, but it will not function much like a boat but rather a floating platform with a very deep counter balance.

"impossible to flip over", that does not sound like a boat at all.

If this is a real request, I think the OP needs to spend some time on sailing yachts and read some books that others have written about deep water cruising.

 

I would guess around 15 million would be a low figure. And still not unsinkable. Zinc maintenance alone would be outragous on a aluminum boat of that scale

 

I met what i thought was a old farmer in overalls , no, shirt, riding a b.icycle....when he said he wanted me to build him a boat,we laughed, . I thought he was drunk and dreaming big.. a year later we were building him a 2 million dollar boat..........that was the last time i under estimated anyones financle abbilities

 

I think you all have fallen for a classic troll on April first. When you look at the OP's SOR and the fact he's not been back, it's seems pretty obvious someone is having a good laugh. If it is a real request, it's also obvious the OP has no real experience in sailing/motoring at sea, so it's very difficult to take this very seriously. I don't think this would be a multi million dollar project, though it could be. If he comes back, there are some real palpable questions that need to be asked, but I doubt the good "captain" will return, possibly after pricing a couple of 100 KW motors to power his craft.