Small blue water boat?

Traditional boat construction can be very light. There were some designers, like Colin Archer, that promoted extremely heavy boats. Look at the displacement of a Herreshoff or a Frers and they are comparable to many modern boats.

 

Heavy vessels like Bristol Channel cutters are so comfy at sea. Many of our traditions come from the fishing and cargo vessels of the past with their very stout industrial build. BERTIE is an "expedition vessel", and intended to last 50 years of hard use, so is accordingly massive, with oversize everything.
Looking at a Herreshoff racing sailboat, the scantlings are about perfect and you couldn't make it lighter without it breaking. I spent a lot of years repairing small wooden yachts of every stripe, and know about light build. Some southern California 1960s strip built lightweight 40 to 50 foot racers I fixed seemed very good, and folkboats, IODs and other traditional light vessels are fine vessels, extremely strong for their weight.
I think wood/epoxy is best for a light weight small cruising yacht if you have the money and time, as it gives the best strength to weight ratio, excellent shock resistance, long life without corrosion and is easily available and worked, plus you can build the boat you really want.

 

Sumpa.

Cruising in small boats is definitely a passion of mine too!

Have a look at Roger Taylor's website: http://thesimplesailor.com/
He has done some pretty tough ocean voyages in his Corribee 21. I can heartily reccomend his books as both interesting and useful for smallk boat sailors.

I currently own a 19ft Hunter Europa. One of these (well the Hunter 19 actually, but virtually the same thing) did the Transatlantic race in 1972. She was called Willing Griffin, sailed by David Blagden - his book 'Very Willing Griffin' is also a good read.

One thing that is apparent is that the rig chosen has a massive impact on the comfort of passage making at this size. RT puts his success down to the simplicity and ease of use of the junk rig.

There was another guy - swedish I think - who went blue water in even smaller boats, but I can't remember his name.

Jonathan

 

Sven Yrind is the chap I was thinking of:

www.yrvind.com/

 

Good post Rascal...thanks for the link to the MingMing site...some great pics and info there!

 

There are a lot of designs out there. This is a popular size, 18 to 25 feet. More attention needs to be given for the elements of seaworthiness for a smaller boat than a larger one. the waves in a hard chance are much larger in comparison to the boat. The truth is a smaller boat is more likely to meet survival conditions than a larger boat.
That said...Trekka circumnavigated twice with no substantive damage at all. Seraphyn pretty much the same. Also, lots of folk have crossed oceans in unsuitable boats and got away with it.

There are three main criteria for seaworthiness

1.....Adequate strength for the intended voyage. That is everything including hull, rig, suitable protection for people, electronics, engine...everything needs to be fit , working, and repairable or backed up or both.

2.....Adequate stability for the intended voyage. For a really small boat this might mean the ability to right itself after a complete roll-over, hopefully with the rig intact (see item 1). A complete roll-over is statistically more likely as the boat gets smaller. Larger boats should be able to right from well past the beam ends. I see 140 degrees or more mentioned. Adequate stability might also refer to stiffness under sail, the ability to carry sail, the ability to make useful gains to windward in gale or storm force winds.

3.......Adequate water tight integrity. This really is about the deck, housework, openings, vents hatches. We can usually assume the bottom of the boat will keep the water out (see item 1). keeping the water out and getting it out if it does get in are definitely part of basic seaworthiness.

Some people will mention seakindliness. I consider this a side bar.....greater stability in particular often negatively affects the comfort. It is important though. Imagine how the boat will move if the seas are running high and there is no wind to lean on.

The human factor is elemental, but not part of the physical seaworthiness. A superb and resourceful seaman can accomplish great voyages under almost impossible conditions like Shackleton and Worsley. Alternatively well found boats with less skilled or tough, or just perhaps tired crew have foundered.

 

True.

However my experience is showing that the total costs of epoxy is not that high because you are only applying one skin of say 600 gm glass on both sides of a 9mm ply - which gives a total thickness of say 10 mm.
If you had to produce a total of 10 mm thick polyester and glass it ends up being many layers ( 16 ??? ) and much heavier than the "composite ply board".

For the home builder epoxy is nice because you can work in small batches over a long peroid of time.
It is a lot of work and does take much longer than expected, but the end result is very strong with a very good finish.

All my exterior panels, like the cockpit tops are glassed both sides, before I install them, and I always use peelply - it saves a moutain of time

 

I think you can forget about that in your average 18-22 footer! Just holding position is difficult.

It's far more important at this size to navigate defensively - ie never get yourself into a situation where you have to work off a lee shore. By a lee shore I mean one that could be 30 miles away!

Good summary though gilberj.

 

A remarkable pursuit one sees at Svens site.
Thanks for posting.

 

I second John Welsford's "SWAGGIE" , it is designed just for the purpose you outlined,
but I wish it was designed for sheet ply like his smaller boats .

F

 

In the recent past, someone posted a cartoon of a small steel sharpie designed by Phil Bolger,on one of these threads. It was sketched out for a prospective long distance cruiser.It was an unusual stepped hull design, can anyone remember it?? and if so re-post it.

 

I agree LR few boats of that size can get to windward usefully in a gale. There are a few that can though. In smaller vessels the relationship between seakindliness and stiffness is more critical. Most near coastal cruisers of that size, are designed for yachting breezes and are not well suited for winds of 35 - 45 or 55 knots. They shouldn't be. A near coastal cruiser does not go out in that for fun.
I agree with the posts above recommending the traditional cutter type. I know there is the light displacement crowd and the 6.5's but something like Seraphyn has more space for people. I think that is important unless the people are supposed to just put up with the conditions.
The boat needs enough stiffness to stand up to sail, it needs enough drive to get through the waves and enough lateral plane to be effective when the boat is struggling to make weigh in a rough confused sea and screeming hoolie winds.
For what it is worth I currently have a very light displacement boat somewhat longer than the range mentioned here, and it will go to windward in a gale, and is not part of the heavy displacement crowd. I do not think this format will work in a very much smaller scale.

 

Welsford's SWAGGIE

 

That sounds like Bolger,s HASLER design. try google

 

Thanks Harry, that was the one indeed.