Sailboat into Displacement Powerboat

I go with Tad on this.

Perhaps this guy has a biz and it is a promo and a hobby...but every guy I've ever known/heard of that went nuts on a boat and spent too much changed it from a "good idea" and justified it as being his "hobby".
Or an excuse to be away from the wife,which is fine. However there are cheaper ways to get away from her

BTW, a trawler may not get the same mpg,but $100k goes a long way in fuel for the average use of 100-200 hours a year at the most...and many TTs have solid glass hulls.

 

.and many TTs have solid glass hulls.

True , but the decks and Pilot/Deck house is usually a thin layer of GRP over house plywood.

To create a smooth flat appearing deck house mold takes a remarkable amount of skill (not available on early TT) and can only be changed with huge expense.

The decks were sold with a teak option , that was added if purchased. The teak was in large wide planks with the calking in routed groves to look like a real teak deck.That they leak and cause rot is hardly a surprise

Remember these were entry level boaters sold on interior wood and huge internal volume.

 

IIRC there were 70 or so yards/brands by the late 70's ...and almost all of them were all glass by '81.
So...logic dictates to look for an all glass one and as assumed -have a survey.

 

Here is a sailboat conversion. This was planing racing skiff with a lightly ballasted keel. I'm not sure how much ballast if any remains.

http://www.biekerboats.com/Bieker_Boats/Nemo.html

 

This discussion is a bit out of my range of experience but a small non-planing sailboat is a somewhat pedestrian vessel when all is said and done. The fun is in the sailing, the beauty, the sense of oneness with Nature; take that away and what have you got?

It may be tempting to look at such a sailboat's hull and theorize how - since it was designed to glide along under a whisper of wind - it would need so little power to coast around. What happens if you encounter a headwind? You'll need enough power to handle that. And if the power's there, after a while the throttle's gonna get cranked, right? I motored along for a couple of hours keeping a friend company on a "I can't wait for the sails to try her out" trip, and now I don't have to be polite I can say what a dreadful bore it all was, all noise and vibration and none of the silent grace and challenge.

A displacement power boat of similar size would be designed for and achieve higher speeds than a displacement sailboat with the power plant that the sailboat would need to safely power all that mast and rigging through a headwind along a narrow channel, and it would be more comfortable, more spacious and quieter.

Perhaps the modified planing skiff makes more sense to some, but an el-cheapo run of the mill outboard boat is going to walze by that despite it's nifty appearance. I guess there's not enough real boatbuilding going on these days . . . sigh.

 

The boat being planned will be solar powered electric..
No sails, masts, rigging, or fuel, smell, noise, vibration..nor high speed.
Old 27ft sailboats are essentially free hulls.
30-35ft almost free with no engine or mast or sails.
What else will be done with them, but more non-biodegradable fill for the dump.
Or maybe they can be recycled into something more useful?

 

A displacement power boat of similar size would be designed for and achieve higher speeds than a displacement sailboat with the power plant that the sailboat would need to safely power all that mast and rigging through a headwind along a narrow channel, and it would be more comfortable, more spacious and quieter.

Most all displacement vessels will cruise cheaply at 2HP per ton. 3HP is all that is ever required.

The motorboat might have more volume but at the same displacement would go no faster.

The folks that service reefers for refrigerated trucks will frequently sell small, 15-25hp diesels , running takeouts,quite cheap, under $500.

A free sailboat hull , no mast or sails with a $500 engine would make a fine NO buck cruiser.

Just because it floats there is zero reason to spend BOAT bucks,

Bring Over Another Thousand !!

 

The boat hull may be free but the equipment you install will be very expensive and resale will be bad. I don't think you will be short of weight with all the batteries you will need for storage. If you dock the boat the solar will be pointless compared to the cheap shore power. It is very unlikely that you will be able to make the boat self sufficient -the mono just doesn't have enough room for panels.

The very idea that you can make an obsolete sailboat useful by converting to solar is fundamentally flawed. The solar power is far more expensive and less reliable than thrust from the wind -on a multihull, a little less so due to the larger area. If you got a good cheap sailboat, convert to electric drive, re-ballast with batteries and add solar and wind generator I think you will have wonderful capabilities at a reasonable cost.

If you want to make a solar statement -mount the panels on your house at the optimum angle and run your meter backward making the power company pay you for overpriced solar power.

 

I acquired one of these early 1960's 19ft catamaran sailboats to use as my testbed platform for solar electric power. A lot easier to use a smaller, trailered boat for testing.

 

>The boat hull may be free but the equipment you install will be very expensive and resale will be bad.<

Think like the 1920 Yachtsman and almost no boat bucks are required.

The big hassle is cold beer and foodstuff , which has been solved by the huge improvement in ice chest insulation.

In the good old days 10 lb of ice per day might be required , today 1 or 2 lbs of block will keep a quality cooler cold.

For the folks too lazy to transport ice the RV propane fridge.freezer in a large size will only go thru 20# of propane in a month.

One advantage of a cheap or free scrap boat is it can be large , a 45 ft sail hull will have the room of a 35 ft power boat .

In many locations a mooring permit is not required , so even keeping the boat can be almost free.

IF the interior is scrap one could build a king size teak bed and install a $1200 mattress or sling a hammock., a rootes berth or pipe berth.

The std of living of the 1920 yachtsman was far from primitive camping tho pressure water came from an overhead tank , or a hand pump.

No need to be a genius to innovate and think out of the box , any old pre 1960 book will show the way problems were solved with out monster expense.

 

I think he means the solar electric gear. Those get complicated and expensive quickly.

 

Great! Looks like an excellent testbed -easily driven and large surface area. Now lets get to doing some calculations. What panels do you propose and what drive?

 

Ah, a pacific cat, my favorite beach cat.