Small blue water boat?

Hi all!

I am newly registered to this forum, but have been lurking around a while. It is a great place

First of all i want to apoligize if this question have been asked before, i searched and did not find what i wanted.. Also i looked around in the boat design directory, but since my dream boat is slightly out of the commercially mainstream, it is hard to find something.

That said, what i am looking for is a design for a small blue water sailing yacht. It should be no bigger than 18-20 feet, with a V-shaped long-keel hull that can be reinforced if it is not already very strong in the design. Preferably i would like to build the boat in wood, but i might rethink if i get strong advices in other directions.
Basically, the boat should be made to survive a storm, not to look good in the harbour or win the flatwater racing prize.

If anyone of you old true sailors could point me in the direction of a specific design or designer, it would be greatly appriciated!

Thanks already in advance!
Best Regards
Erik Sundstrom

 

I have precisely the type of designs you are looking for, contact me by email (click on my mane) and we can discuss your needs and the options.

 

PAR, i tried to send you an email but got no reply, so i answer here as well that i am very intrested, and maybe you could try to send me a message through my avatar?

And to all you others, over a 100 views on this thread, and no tips or comments? This is strange, are there no people out there with a love for small boats?

 

I've sent an email to you, I've resent it now.

 

Whatever design you pick, for comfort, about 4 tons displacement per person for reasonably long, away-from-resupply voyaging is about right. This covers food, water etc.
No matter the design, this is an ergonomic parameter that humans require. Long and skinny or short and fat, the equation for figuring a cruising boat is the same.
My SPRAY-type yawl, BERTIE, at 13 tons registered gross, is luxurious for 2, works well for long periods of time for 3 people, 4 is crowded, and we have had 8 aboard for 10 days once at that was definitely over the limit.

 

4-ton 20-footers are around. Check out ROMILLY for the best-sailing 22 foot trailer-sailer ever designed I think.
"Blue water" covers a lot of territory. What is your intended use, really? Circumnavigate in the roaring 40s? Not likely. Cross the Gulf Stream? Maybe. Trans-Atlantic to Europe in high latitudes in winter? These are all blue water but vastly different blue water.
The use designs the boat.
First do the really hard part and decide what the proposed boat's real use will actually be, not the dreams about dusky maidens on a sand beach as your tiny dream ship rides safely at anchor just offshore in the moonlight stuff....
What does this boat do for you? That designs it more than anything. I know it's hard to wrap a thought around when you're looking at dream ship designs, but it's the truth and will find the best boat for you.
Look at Iain Oughtred's and Ruell Parker's designs for inspiration in very good, very cheap modern wooden boats for "blue water", whatever that means.
I've crossed the Pacific and seen weeks of flat calm with no swell, like a big pond and then I once came close to dying on a CG boat in a breaking sea within 1/2 mile of shore. Both are blue water.

 

Thank you Bataan for the tip!

I am aware that the use designs the boat, and i have the intended use quite clearly figured out.
By "blue water", i mean that it should make an atlantic crossing, and survive any storm that i might reasonably head into. I of course do not sail the hurricane season and do not expect any boat to survive that, but i would like to come out alive from the "normal storm" that sometimes hits you even if you took all precautions to avoid it.
I also have no intention to sail into anything called "roaring", or places with evil ice bergs. Actually most of the time it will be used for easy coastal sailing, in good weather and nice company.
It should also be suitable for living in from times to times, since i work in a water environment and find it practically to live in the harbour.
It should be easily handled by only me sometimes, and it should also be on a budget most people in here would find silly. A tricky combination, but i know what is important to me and how to weight the different needs.

I must argue against you when you say 4 tons per person is necessary for a longer voyage. Some years ago friends-of-friends of mine circumnavigated the globe, 3 persons in an 8-meter Albin Vega with a deplacement of 2.5 tons, which they found a very good size. The wrote a book about it, sadly i think it is only avaible in swedish (isbn 9789189564589) but it is a good read.

As a coincidence, i owned the very same boat myself, and in the end i sold it because i found it WAY too big for 2 persons. I realize that i go outside the norm in this forum by saying this, but maybe i am still young enough to have a different "necessary level of comfort" (yes, i can live in a 18 foot boat, it is still bigger than a tent). There were of course other reasons for selling as well, but the main lesson i learnt from that boat was that i want something smaller and easier.

So keep it coming, all the different seasafe vessels that you know about! The more designs i see, the better off i will be!

 

"...old true sailors" he said
A bit of black water there, Bantam. Don't you sound like an old salt?
Blue water is blue. It signifies stuff away from land, typically off of the continental shelf where one would find green water. It does not include a few years on a little CG boat in San Fran Bay, BTW. The roaring 40s is not just in a book...

 

I'd also disagree in the 4 ton requirement, which is nothing more then old school wives tails of what maybe once was a reasonable, if ridiculously broad rule of thumb. A 4 ton 20' boat is a pig by any description as far as sailing ability. Lets assume the 20' boat has an 18' LWL, which means there's 10% in over hangs and a nearly maximized LWL. This suggests for a single person to be comfortable at sea (according to the rule) you're D/L would be a minimum of 612, which is grotesquely over the top, though likely quite comfortable in a rough slosh. I have a slightly over one ton design that is 18 LOD and open ocean capable, with a D/L in the mid 300's, meaning it's going to be relatively comfortable, considering, but not absurdly heavy for no apparent reason but to satisfy some sorry rule, that may have had some bearing of truth a century ago, though no longer a 100 years later.

 

Mark-of-the-beast, I see you're still puffing yourself up by cutting others down. The good old CG took me across the Pacific on winter Ocean Station Victor patrols repeatedly on W373 USCGC MATAGORDA and through typhoons in the process. SAR was later and the "potato patch" is not in SF bay and a CG roll-over surf boat working day and night is not "a little CG boat in San Fran Bay". Look up the number of people who have died in boating accidents there before you embarrass yourself by shooting your mouth off again. Small people must belittle others to build themselves up.

 

I believe 4 tons per person gives adequate stores and water for 30 days passage. Of course a light modern boat weighs less for equal capacity, but you still have to eat, sleep and not die of thirst.
4 tons=relative comfort most of the time, but certainly not the fastest alternative vessel. Comfort equals safety in the long run because you get less tired and make fewer bad decisions. People have crossed the Atlantic in 6-foot boats, so I guess they are blue water capable, and they are certainly less than 4 tons.
A good modern light boat is very seaworthy, it just gets slow and cranky when you overload it for a long passage. A heavy displacement boat, while antique and plodding in comparison, hardly notices the extra cases of food and water.

 

John Welsford has Sundowner at 21' and Swaggie at 18' might fit your needs.

And Swaggie



http://www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/plans/sundowner/index.htm

PAR, any chance of you posting outline drawing of your design?

Brian

 

Readers of this thread should keep in mind that displacement and registered gross tonnage are two different numbers with no direct relationship. The gross tonnage can be a much higher number than the displacement in tons for small vessels. That said, the gross tonnage may be a reasonable number for comparison since it represents the enclosed volume (not weight) of the boat.

 

4 tons per person is really heavy. My last 25 footer was 3 tons with all supplies and two crew for long distance ocean cruising. We could've squeezed three in too.

 

You're right, it's really heavy, so does not apply in the very small (under 30 feet) cruising boat, but fits more in the 30 to 50 foot range I guess. Also it's a relic from heavy wooden construction and modern materials are so different and it's a new game. I cheerfully withdraw the post.