MacNaughton Farthing questions...

Ha! Ok.... pay attention....

1) Breakages. Bolts whose function is to hold devices that keep the prop shaft steady to the hull don't exist on microcruisers, nor does roller reefing, nor do winches, nor does hydraulic steering. I've seen all these fail at sea. Look at Farthing. It's extremely robust and very simple, with no bolts going through the hull. If it ain't there it can't break. There's no standing rigging. Gear failure is prevalent on the average 40+ cruiser, and type of gear that breaks usually doesn't exist on a well conceived microcruiser.

Anyway, you can build aircraft parts that don't break... Car parts that don't break... And yacht parts, if you're prepared to pay the cost. If the boat is small, the loads are too - laws of similitude - and it's a whole heap easier.

2) Light airs. The boats that I've been offshore on were grossly undercanvassed and need all the sail they've got in ten knots. I'd be amazed if a half-pie decent microcruiser wouldn't outsail 'em in light airs. My own boat, which is rigged for singlehanding and is by no stretch a race boat, will on a moderate day go faster than the average local forty footer in light wind. Sail area/wetted surface ratio, perhaps? But there's a human factor to consider. To get all the light wind sail up that the average cruiser has on board is a bit of work, on the micro you set all sail with one hand.

3) Tacking? Again, look at Farthing. To tack a junk rig you push the tiller over, or pull on the vane controls. Nothing more. There's nothing to uncleat. You tack, gybe, trim, set the vane and reef from inside. All of those can be done with one hand, without putting down the glass of rum. There is no foredeck work. There's no cockpit work. There's no outside work, beyond anchoring. Remember Jester? Hasler crossed oceans in his slippers. The junk rig does not have standing rigging, and if one of the few bits of running rigging hardware breaks, all the rigging can be reached from standing in the hatch.

Big boats have bigger sail plans. That was your argument for light winds, no? Bigger sails can be divided, but that's just swapping leverage for deck work.

4) Cockpit??? Foredeck??? Look at Farthing again. There's no cockpit to get into in bad weather. There's nothing on the foredeck.

5) I didn't conveniently drop the second crew member overboard. Farthing is a singlehander, for those who want the challenge, solitude and experience of crossing alone. If you aren't prepared to be self-reliant, or accept the added degree of risk, you don't go solo!

Obfuscations and borax poking aside, there are real arguments against singlehanding and objections to boats like Farthing....

 

I think the "Farthing" will be far more comfortable than most give it credit.

Its huge D/L will not make for good speed, probably 4 kts tops, but its enormous long keel will do wonders for roll dampening. She may be more comfortable than Serge Testas boat, but slower.

The Chinese lug will be far more easy to deal with than a more conventional Bermudan sloop rig, making reefing and shaking out reefs a snap.

Pitching may be another matter.

Heavier D/L boats are very limited in their speed but are often surprisingly consistent with it, given enough sail area for light winds. They also seem to tolerate being somewhat under rigged better.

This is because they have enough heft to bash through a chop, which can stop a lighter boat dead. They can also coast between zephyrs better

With a self steering vane, this boat could probably do 70 mile days in non storm conditions.

In storm conditions, I agree with everyone else. Be prepared to be a punching bag, and hope the rig survives the ordeal (the gentle roll period, due to the large long keel will certainly help).

The huge, heavy keel should all but guarantee the boat will self right, as long as the mast is somewhat buoyant. If using aluminum, stuff it full of foam.

This boat may be much harder to turtle than some here seem to believe. I'd be more concerned about it pitch poling over than it being careened. But her slow speed and probable refusal to surf may negate that more than most would believe.

The designer once commented that it was his intention to make sure the boat never planed or surfed, so the self steering vane would work more reliably.

As for being out on the ocean, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I know there are some that just enjoy being out there. Sven Yrvin is one of them. He designs his boats with seemingly ridiculously small rigs and doesn't seem to give a hoot about speed.

If you build this boat, you will most certainly have a conversation piece, if nothing else.

For your entertainment, I'm posting a design concept of my own, for a minimal ocean crossing boat. Though it has nearly double the WL, it is not expected to be much faster than the "Farthing".

Even with sand bags under the sole, it has a calculated stability range of 140 deg. This is mainly due to its heavier stores all being stowed low in the hull, its diminutive five foot Beam, and it's short rig.

 

Sure teacher -

For goodness sake - there is no such thing as a 'simple' sailing machine. I can think of half a dozen failure points on small boats that would render it useless. And the fact that the 'things' are smaller, make it more subject to heavy weather failure

yeah - no argument - but I repeat - smaller isnt always more reliable, because the parts have to be scaled back to weight. If you roll a 35 footer, or a 15footer, they are both disasters. But, in the 35 footer, I will have a big enough engine and fuel to limp to the next port, with enough water and supplies to handle the extra time without dying.

Well, bad luck for you. Why don't you go to sea in some decently designed boats ? And the big point is - you are advocating a Junk rig - hardly a performer in light airs.

You need to investigate you rigging options. There are plenty of say 25-35 ft yachts where that sails can be rigged easily by one hand. Let me suggest you research roller reefing, boom reefing, lazyjacks, winches etc.

So ? Junk rigs on bigger boats work exactly the same !!!

You bet there isnt. With those Micros, its dangerous to get out of the cockpit. In fact you are virtually confined to the cockpit in anything but calm conditions. After a few weeks at sea you would DIE to get on deck.

I repeat - big boats can have Junk rigs too. My ol mate PDW is building a 34 ft Junk rig for those reasons. Micros dont have a monopoly on easy use rigs.

No,no - you MISSED the point. Big boats have LIGHTER sails and HEAVIER sails to suit conditions. Micros have one set of general purpose sails, too heavy for very light airs.

Yes. That 'hole in the deck' is a Cockpit. Its also your home, but you cant help bad luck.

Oh really ? What about that anchor you mentioned ????? Tell me you dont have to get on 'deck' to take a reef in ?

You did, but I ressurected it for you to say ..

For sure - but dont forget to add Terror, Danger, Suffering, putting search and rescue people in danger and expense,

That's what I am saying - " there are real arguments against " , but more strongly. Unless you want to put your life at risk for some kind of record, you wouldn't put to sea in one of these pointy coffins at all.

The only virtues they have are
1) You have less money tied up in the pile of rotting materials at the marina.
2) You don't waste as much time building it
3) You will get over the urge to go to sea quicker, due to the added suffering during one of the rare times you get to use the boat.

 

Very curved deck for a 20 footer

 

Thanks for your interest in my design.

The deck is not curved at all. it's just two flat plains joined at an angle. I call it a pitched deck.

It has a lot of pitch for two reasons:

1.) So it will shed water better, and
2.) because no one will work on the deck. Hatches will be strategically placed so all the boat handling, except for docking, can be handled from below.

The hatch comings will be well above waist height, so the chances of falling over board will be that much less.

By the time I got to making the sketches shown, I had given up on the sand ballast and settled on using the two keels instead. They are to made of concrete and re-bar.

I found that by going this direction I could shed 160 lbs of ballast, which means that much more in stores.

I even thought of a single keel version, which could shed another 240 lbs, but decided against it because it would need legs to stand up in a falling tide.

Getting back the space the sand would have taken up was more valuable to me than the weight savings.

Below are some more sketches of this design.

 

Very important correction: Hasler's interpretation of the junk rig had no standing rigging. That rig has some pretty serious theoretical and actual drawbacks too, according to some other junk rig designers. It works for that particular and similar hull forms but it doesn't scale up very well.

The lack of staying is by no means universal. Colvin's junk rig designs do indeed have standing rigging, lightly stressed, to stop the masts whipping in a seaway. The mast sections can therefore be far smaller.

I have seen a free standing 'Hasler' type rig up close and have sailed on the boat. The masts were a work of art, tapering spars that took literally months to make. If you ever do break one, you're going to be seriously stuck.

My masts, in welded tabernacles with light staying, are 100NB Sched 10 steel pipe and all fittings are welded and could be replaced with anything from the original steel to aluminium to a decent stick of timber.

PDW

 

Sharpii2, thanks for the considered opinion on Farthing. It's good to get an objective point of view. I'm not sure whether or not to go ahead with building a Farthing - it's tempting, but there are alternatives, such as a very nice Vertue which may be available in the near future. The concept of building a microcruiser and making a passage in it has a lot of appeal, and although I'm not blind to what is involved, I think I'd find such a project immensely satisfying.

Testa's boat is intriguing. He had that cutout in the keel, ostensibly to reduce heeling, but I would have thought it was counterproductive, at least in terms of roll damping. He certainly suffered when things got rough, but managed a circumnavigation with no real boat issues in what I'm guessing was not a particularly heavy boat.

What are you intending for your design?

 

rwatson... .... Yes, you reef, just as you steer, set the vane, trim, tack, and gybe from below decks; the boat doesn't have a cockpit at all; I'm comfortable with engineering for single points of failure (built aircraft with multitudes of 'em); small simple boats have easily managed loads that can be dealt with by robust gear that shouldn't break etc.etc. You seem to be trying to say that no-one has the right to choose for themselves the degree of risk they're prepared to assume. If we banned EPIRBs, flares and radios from all boats would you feel happier? Would you like to extend your objections to risk taking to cover mountaineers, aerobatic pilots, motorcycle racers?

 

I would, with the caveat that if you take out rescue insurance, you can have an EPIRB. If you don't, you can't have one and nobody will come looking for you.

MikeJ raised the valid point that a captain is responsible for the crew and must use best efforts to aid their survival. I have some arguments to make about that but stipulating it for now, refusing single handed sailors EPIRBs and rescue services if they don't have rescue insurance seems quite reasonable.

Note well that I am NOT saying that people must have insurance to go sailing. I'm saying that if you choose to go blue water sailing where the cost of rescue is going to be very substantial, choose up front to have insurance or take responsibility for your own survival and have none.

You can sign a 'do not resuscitate' certificate that has force, I can't see any reason why you can't sign a 'do not rescue' form on clearing out.

PDW

 

Then your stipulation must apply to everyone, not just singlehanders, surely. Are you implying that if you're irresponsible when sailing inshore and require a rescue, hey, no worries, no insurance necessary because the rescue is cheaper??? Surely if you're inshore, singlehanding or with crew, you have exactly the same responsibility to be self-reliant? Do you get to sail a ratty unsafe boat inshore, with passengers, but it's okay to call for help when your leaky boat sinks because you have an obligation to your passengers to get them rescued? Surely your primary responsibility is to see that the rescue remains unnecessary, rather than cheap. What about other outdoor pursuits - same choice of insurance or no EPIRB for them? What about smokers, car drivers, those who use ladders - insure or you're on your own?

I own an EPIRB, as it's an expected item on my aircraft and I'd soon be behind bars if I flew without it, but I've made a conscious decision to leave it behind when sailing, including singlehanded passage. So for you, will it be rescue insurance or EPIRB?

I absolutely believe in backing yourself. "Safety gear" isn't EPIRBs, flares and radios. It's a well-found boat and sensible decisions.

 

Coastal versus blue water is a cost/time issue is all. Cheap & simple to pick up someone 3 NM off the coast if their boat is sinking. Different story if they're in the Southern Indian Ocean. Doesn't mean they should get a pass for setting out unprepared in an unseaworthy boat. And yeah, same rules could well be applied to bush walkers etc. The big argument in favour of people carrying personal EPIRBs is, it reduces the cost of looking for them. Well, so does not going looking at all.....

It's partly practicality. WRT the use of EPIRBs, we can argue from now until the crack of doom. The horse has bolted. Stupid and under-prepared people use them at whim; other people who want to prove something will set out in the Southern Ocean in something tiny to prove it can be done, knowing full well that they'll be rescued (or a serious attempt will be made) if their cockleshell gets into difficulties. Your country & mine have huge SAR zones so we wear the cost. I don't like it because I can see what's going to happen - more rules for people who prepare and have well found vessels in an attempt to protect the fools from their own foolishness. NZ is already a long way down that path - Bill Tilman would never be allowed to leave port from NZ these days. So I'm in full agreement with your last paragraph. Too late, though. Actions have been largely divorced from consequences.

As for what I will do, that depends on the legislation in force. If I have to have an EPIRB to go sailing, I'll have to get one. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't carry one. Any crew would be informed of this up front and could decide to come or not, as they chose.

But - these days we cannot make those choices and even if crew consented & signed articles saying so, they can't sign away legal rights and could still sue the skipper so - looks like an EPIRB if not single-handing. And in fact, being a bloody-minded person, if the Govt makes me carry one and there's a problem like running out of rum or diesel, I'll damn well *use* it. Screw the costs..... as long as I'm not paying.

PDW

 

Too much for my tastes... It sounds like "we're not going to rescue the crew from that well-found boat running downwind between islands in the trades whose boat goat struck by lightning because for that price we could rescue thirty inshore runabouts overloaded with drunkards who'd gone out for a boys' day of fishing in howling sou'wester"... Which sounds close to "we're not going to treat that chap with stomach cancer because it's too expensive and we could fix hundreds of broken legs for that price"... and isn't too far from "we (the duly elected officials responsible for such decisions) have reviewed you proposed sailing/mountaineering/cycling (pick one or add your own) journey and decreed it unsafe, and you're hearby prohibited on the grounds that a rescue would be too costly".

Look at the posts on this thread - the majority are emotive responses; there's hardly a single post that specifically discusses the boat which this thread was about. Who gets the power of veto over rescues?

I understand you're argument about insurance covering costs, but again who makes the call of the risk to the insurer? Isn't there also an unwritten law (of the sea, and everywhere else) that we do what we can to help each other, without attempting to place a dollar value on life?

PS - love "POGO" - she's gorgeous, definitely my taste for a daysailer!

 

There aren't any quotas or guidelines for who gets rescued and who doesn't. Yes, money can become an issue, but this is discussed after many days of fruitless search and it's become obvious it's a recovery operation, not a rescue. At least this is the case in the USA and yes, there's an unwritten law about rendering aid and assistance regardless, even the boneheads that pretty much bring it on themselves or possibly our meddling with God's attempts to whittle down the gene pool. We'll rescue criminals and debutantes alike and sort out the crap when they get ashore. Of course there are limits to how far off shore effective rescue operations can be carried, but at least a C-130 will do a grid pattern over your last known position for a while, before calling you lost.

 

Yes, that's the status quo. They rescue everyone - unseamanlike crews pushing unseaworthy Volvo 60s hard in the Southern Ocean, 14 year old schoolgirls attempting solo circumnavigation a in boats that are too big for them to handle safely, as well as the well-prepared in sound boats for whom the unlikely has happened. The questions above were intended to get some discussion as to what a better scheme would be...

 

The Volvo 60's are quite seaworthy and I'm not sure why you'd think they aren't. It's a bit like saying a Lamborghini isn't a safe car, compared to say a Volvo wagon. I agree in the 14 year old girl thing, which I thought was foolish from the start, but the boat was capable and could have been singlehanded, if setup differently and the skipper had enough physical strength to perform in adverse conditions.

There's nothing about traveling farther from shore, than you can safely swim back to that is bulletproof. The Colin Archer pilots that came into vogue some decades back, proved you can die just as easily as in a unjustifiably "seaworthy" boat as you can in a "around in ten" box.

The simple reality is solo passage making is hard and dangerous, exponentially so in a small boat. I crossed the Atlantic solo once (Swan 36) and wouldn't want to do it again. I did learn that I was able to cope with the solo nature of the adventure, but it's not something I'd intentionally want to do again. In fact, solo voyaging is only for a few types of personalities, most just can't do it. What I learned was that I could do it, without the usual emotional difficulties typical of folks doing this sort of thing regularly. I also learned that, though I could handle it, I didn't like it compared to a crew, or even just as a duo. I've made many passages as a duo and enjoy this immensely, as I can relax a bit, which the solo navigator just can't. It's also handy to have an extra set of hands, eyes and most importantly a different perspective when making decisions.

Tussock, I'm sorry your experiences have left you cynical of much of the design offerings and apparently the equipment in the industry. I've found that the industry has come leaps and bounds since the 60's when I first started to venture out into deep water. The boats and equipment have gotten spectacularly better, in most every way we measure. Would the '79 Fastnet have been as bad with modern weather tracking, newer rules, designs and GPS? I've seen the last half of a century of development and though I miss some of the features of the old CCA's, I wouldn't trade a new S&S -30 for the old MORC rated Arpege 30 I use to have, let alone the several CCA's I've owned. Both boats (S&S-30 and Arpege 30) could be considered fairly on the edge design wise for their scale, but the S&S is just so much better in every regard, that there's really no looking back. The same is true of modern racer/cruisers, compared to the old CCA's.

Good luck to you and don't discount length and accommodation, as it's the only advantage you hav,e when in blue water sometimes and nothing can replace it.