MacNaughton Farthing questions...

That's an excellent question and one that can't be definitively answered. Forget about motion, sea-keeping and ability to claw off a lee shore for the moment and list what you're going to do with it.

Single-hand or crew? If crew, how many?

Longest planned non-stop passage?

Those 2 questions immediately give you what amount of food & water you'll need at minimum. Mass & volume. Where is it all going to go?

Now - engine or no engine? If engine, inboard or outboard? No engine, fine, needs thought to anchoring and coming alongside in less than perfect conditions. Maybe more and heavier ground tackle ready to deploy fast.

Rig? I made my choice based on money and simplicity of handling.

The designer of my boat once remarked that all cruising boats were essentially freighters. If you can't carry the stores you need or have to carry the minimum, life is pretty miserable. OTOH if you go too far the other way, you either never go at all or you spend a lot of time/money fixing broken crap you didn't really need.

Anyway if I had to nominate a size, I'd say 25' Folkboat type or a fat heavy displacement boat around 20' like Flicka.

PDW

 

PDW, the consensus on here is that you're right - the motion and stores carrying of a fifteen footer isn't up to the task. That was my original question - was it, or wasn't it suitable. The view of all who've replied is: no. Fair enough. So the next question is: how much bigger is reasonable?

Great to hear that someone is building! A 12 metre boat is more than I want to take on, and I imagine it's quite a project. I can appreciate the scale of your project.

Funny you mention Benford. I emailed him this afternoon. For some reason his dorys don't grab me.

Anyway, I'll send you a PM once I've figured out how. Cheers.

Edit: crossed posts, sorry - yours came in while I was typing!

 

What you need is a Drascome lugger. Although they are made commercially at the moment, the original version was available as plans/kit for stitch and glue plywood.you can buy second hand plans on the internet.

These boats have crossed oceans safely, made long sea passages , and are superbly stable and easy to handle with loose footed sails; ranging from 15 to 22' in length.

They even have a permanently fixed outboard in an OB well at the stern that tilts up.

http://www.drascombe-association.org.uk/drascombes.php

 

Three benchmarks have been mentioned but (IMO) they're apples and oranges...the differences are really big....

Flica is 20' LOA, 18'2" LWL, 8' beam, 6000 pound displacement, and sail area of 250 sq ft.
Folkboat is 25' LOA, 20' LWL, 7'3" beam, 4200 pounds, and sail area of 260 sq ft.
Vertue is 25'3" LOA, 21'6" LWL, 7'1" beam, 11,000 pounds, and sail area of 300 sq. ft.

The Folkboat has about 1/3rd the interior of the Vertue, and the Flica seems huge inside compared to the Folkboat, mainly because of her depth/height. Somewhere there's a decent blog by a couple cruising the south seas in a Flica, they seem to be doing fine.

 

Forgot to post some links on the a Drascombe luggers
can you make sea passages in a 15' boat? Yes!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drascombe

 

If memory serves me Flicka was available as plans at one time, maybe still is.

 

Hello all and especially Tussock,

farthing is a boat with very pleasing lines. She does not take a ton of materials to be built, her weight unloaded will be at about 650kg, 350kg will be the ballast, made of lead.This means, you can carry about 500/600kg of weight (yourself and the things to survive). There is enough room for storage.

She will be good at sea, because she has stability out of her weight, and not out of her form. So she won't have jerky motion, I hope.

It takes some time to build her, because she is strip-planked.

Not everything is oversized - no Dolly Parton ;-)- but essential things show up the dimensions to withstand the sea. Yes, one could build lighter, but why? The boat is meant to go to the sea, so she has to have some weight. To my opinion the designer knew, what he did.

PAR designed a boat nearly in the same range (Discrete) and called it oceangoing. To my opinion: Never.

Farthing will be stable at sea, she will do her job. The person who sails her will have to fight more than the boat.


Please take a look at the Herreshoff fish class. You will find a boat nearly in the same design range with good stability and good performance. They were not meant to be very fast. Their lines are full of sense. Farthing is an evolution of the fish class and a tribute to the falmouth working boats, and if you want, you can find a vertue26 as an idole in her lines. Look at the whole Coin Collection of Tom MacNaughton and you will understand, what I mean.

The Ionian

 

I'm not sure who you are Ionian, but comparing the Farthing to any Herreshoff, let alone the Fish Class is simply absurd and shows a true lack of the dynamics and physics involved.

The Fish has a SA/D of 21, the Farthing grotesquely lower, the Fish a D/L of 310, the Farthing 2 1/2 times this, and the Fish's AVS is in the 140's. All of these are in the same range as my Discrete design, which has proven itself repeatedly, over many builds, just like many other designs of her general size and configuration. Both the Fish and Discrete will sail rings around a Farthing and simply (also literally) are twice the boat of a Farthing. Making comparisons of boats that are twice the volume of the base line, simple lacks good sense or at least a reasonable understanding of what's going on.

 

Made a mistake because I meant the Herreshoff 12.5. So, sorry for this.

Take your sail calculator, put in the numbers, you find nearly identical results.

Once more: The displacement of farthing is, when she is fully loaded, with all gear and supplies.

But: don't waste your time to fight against me - I have already left this forum:!:


Ionian

 

There are reasons why a boat like Farthing may have appeal.

Maybe someone lives some distance from the coast and wants a beautiful trailerable yacht.

Maybe someone has crossed oceans in a bigger, faster, more comfortable boats, and found those boats to be a disappointment, and that the experience wasn't as satisfying as they'd hoped. Maybe someone wants a sailing experience that is less dependant on hardware and calls for more 'software' in the form of the kind of demands on the individual that we call seamanship. Of course tiny boats are more demanding and that may be the point: it's a greater test of qualities of the individual who takes her offshore.

And compared to the bigger boat, maybe someone doesn't want to have to provide workarounds for those times when a winch breaks, a roller furler jams, or the hydraulics go. Maybe there's some appeal in a yacht that costs less in materials than the rigging alone in a bigger boat. Maybe some prefer to trust their own construction than deal with an ageing, second hand boat. Who would deny the satisfaction of making a passage in a boat built with their own hands?

Let's acknowledge that for some, crossing an ocean in a tiny, homemade boat is a great test of building skills and seamanship. And perhaps sitting in a bar after such a crossing, beer in hand, smile on your face, listening to all those naysayers who say it can't be done.... well... you can imagine.

Lack of civility aside, a look at a Farthing reveals the influences of its designer. The heavy displacement, full keel with transom hung rudder, filleted wineglass sections, narrow beam and deep keel share a common ancestry with Hereschoff. Go back in time, and a number of designers - along with Hereschoff, on the other side of the Atlantic people like Harrison Butler, J. Laurent Giles, Albert Strange come to mind - who designed beautiful, small, cruising yachts that where built with the intention of being seriously used. To me, the Farthing is the smallest member of a group of yachts that combine purpose, beauty and tradition.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that such a small boat isn't to everyone's taste, but let's evaluate the Farthing against the criteria on which she was designed.

 

????

Maybe there are people who have to make themselves suffer due to the hideous crimes they committed as a teenager

 

Ah- you look past your teens in your photo...

But yes - it's disappointing to find that you need to wake an off-duty crew member in order to have enough hands simply to tack; it's disappointing to find that it needs two plus an engine in order to reef with adequate safety in big seas; it's disappointing to find that you need to dive into the Pacific to replace sheared bolts beneath the waterline; it's disappointing to find things such basics as steering and sail handling gear breaking in the middle of the Tasman; it's disappointing to find that the boat will hardly move to windward in 8 knots of wind; it's disappointing to spend two weeks on a boat and then need to spend a week repairing all that's broken in that time; it's disappointing to discover the amount of effort needed to perform what should be basic stuff such as gybing and anchoring...

...and it astounded me to find that such problems are regarded as a normal part of cruising.

 

not my photo

So, there is a magic boat size that avoids all gear failure, adverse sea and shore conditions and the rest ?

Oh, but there is a magic size that allows you to get some sleep while another person is able to control the boats and keep an eye out for danger.

 

Never said that.... try and stay focused...

What I am saying was that it's entirely possible to build a boat that avoids the routine disappointments mentioned above. Weather and conditions are what they are, but if cruising constantly involves doing boat repairs in interesting places, as the saying goes, then something is wrong. Would you accept that level of wear and tear in a car? Aeroplane?

The magic size for sharing watches begins with a minimum of about eighteen feet, and unless you're sharing a boat with a reincarnated Chichester, there's a size that's too big for a crew of two to make a reasonable guarantee an interrupted off-watch. The too-big-for-two size ain't that big, and personally I'm fussy about who I care to share an an area with a volume of less than my bedroom with.

 

"So, there is a magic boat size that avoids all gear failure, adverse sea and shore conditions and the rest ?"

yes you did !
gear failure

" it's disappointing to find that you need to dive into the Pacific to replace sheared bolts beneath the waterline; it's disappointing to find things such basics as steering and sail handling gear breaking in the middle of the Tasman;"

Gear failure happens on ALL size boats !


"find that the boat will hardly move to windward in 8 knots of wind;"

I bet a micro cruiser is no better than a large boat with similar underwater design

The sail area on a bigger boat is usually more efficient in light airs than a small boat, often for the reason it has a wardrobe of lighter sails to suit those conditions, and not simply one general purpose set of working sails.


I say again

How does a small boat solve these problems ?



And the classic
"it's disappointing to find that you need to wake an off-duty crew member in order to have enough hands simply to tack"

This is not a function of size, its a function of sail plan, and on a small boat with a bad sail plan you have the skipper holding the tiller extension and mainsheet in one hand, while scooting forward to uncleat one jib sheet, while pulling the other jibsheet taut.

Lets get to the real micro cruiser, where its really hard to even get out of he cockpit - when some fitting breaks in rough weather.


I also notice you conveniently dropped the "two crew" syndrome when it came to lookout safety, backup "man over board" resource, backup medical emergency etc.