tall stories in short supply

2020

oh, the boat is a steel, 20m (60ft) radius chine staysail schooner

 

General scaling up isn't the answer either. The engine isn't taller. The tankage isn't. The only thing that needs to be upsized is the cavity for the human cargo, under-sail height, and hatch size.
They alone are deformed.
Is this a picture of an existing design? Or, if your own rendering, it appears to be sixty-five feet or so. Does this boat suffer from lack of headroom?
If so, how much lower than you would like?

 

Gday again Alan,
Deformed? I beg your pardon.....
this is a drawing from one of the designers. I quite like it, many of the features I find particularly attractive aren't shown in that drawing.
I am at a loss to undertand what you mean by upsizing the cavity etc without scaling up.Otherwise we're back to trying to make a little boat bigger!
Essentially this is the problem: I need to find someone who has experience or understanding of the design ramifications. I can't afford to pay for and face the consequent risks of someone elses learning curve.

 

I don't understand your approach to design. There is one single fundamental requirement, that the living quarters be sufficiently high enough. This does not mean wider, nor that there be larger lockers (are your wine bottles larger? Your pots and pans? Your charts? Your engine, fuel tanks, water tanks, generator, sails, ground tackle, etc..
NO! They are like everyone else's. All you need is more height within and on a steel 60 plus footer, this isn't rocket science. It will have no effect on stability whatsoever, because you can simply calculate the requisite amount of lowered ballast. Your keel will weigh... what? 8-10 tons? You have an enormous amount of latitude in compensating for the cabin and/or deck increasing in height. But I would go down 2" and up 2" to get four inches. Steel is very flexible, engineering-wise. Floors can be lowered, tankage slightly reconfigured. Those bilges will be deep, with room to go down some.
Aesthetically, a two inch difference above is not going to be a challenge to deal with.

 

I'd side with Alan, oh and 2020 too on this one You are both making valid points IMHO.
2020 - you want in the order of 7' headroom - this much you've told us. But are you as wide as you are tall? Err - sorry, I mean are you a tall skinny bugger - or just plain bloody big.
I disagree to some extent that just because you're tall makes you more prone to falling over. Yes your CG is somewhat higher than we wee folk, but we need stuff to grab onto too. It's merely the placement that needs to be altered.
I can see that you might require a little more room at foot level, in order to spread your feet apart and things such as this, of course.
I'm not too sure what your problem is regarding starting with an existing design - or a number of them, incorporating those features that you like and discarding those that you don't. Of course, you will have some requirements that are particular to you. Meeting them is what custom design is all about. I still find it difficult to believe that any reputable designer would be unable to do so.

 

2020,
In my experience you should regard tall people as scaled up "normal" people. Humans are remarkably proportional heightwise. A small deviation from the normal proportions will make arms or legs look extremely long or short. The living quarters for a tall person should be "scaled up" to remain comfortable. In my experience from backpacking in mountains, the consumption of water and food is proportional to body weight. Weight and volume of clothes etc. are also proportional to body size. You really need to scale up the living quarters (but as has been pointed out, not neccesserily everything else.)

Naval architects are likely to be like the rest of us engineers - we always try to optimize in some way. As you have found a very nice ship, you have to keep the designer from optimizing by squeezing as many small people as possible into. Design it to accomodate six tall people instead of seven or eight "normal" people, or whatever the original intended number was.
I really don't think that a good naval architect will have any major problem to design for large and tall people once he agrees to do it, and understands that comfort for large people has priority. The second problem, to not exclude short people, is easy as long as you don't forget this aspect.

Erik

 

Really, this isn't so much about how to accomodate taller people comfortably, but more about design philosophy.
There are two extremes I see. One is engineering for known and regular usage, and the other is engineering for ultimate theoretical circumstances which have a tiny chance of ever occurring.
Boats tend, in general, to use the former to design systems, and the latter to design hull and structure.
Where the structure is the part involved in the alteration from the norm, it seems the primary concern is aesthetic, and not system-limit related.
As such, three topics of design come into play. Cabin height, cabin layout, and aesthetics.
Each interrelate somewhat, but height and layout can be mostly independantly tackled. Aesthetics must be considered in tandem with height.
I think layout is the place to begin. This is usually the part the owner can do, given the limiting space. From there, height can be worked on. Important to consider is the predominance of living space (compared to storage space, for example) in areas with the greatest capacity for allowing a high ceiling.

Alan

 

I don't agree that the living quarters are the only aspect to be considered, you require head room in every aspect of the boat, as well as the helm, it needs to be higher as most of the hight of a person is in the legs.

Even things that are normally low would require extra bending to pick up or operate.

On the side of designers there is economics, designing a boat specifically for a tall person is more that just moving things around, it would be a complete re-design from the start.

So it would be quicker and more profitable to design 5 boats for standard height people that to spend the time to design a specially built boat.

It is easy to say "size it up" but how does that effect the boats performance and does that require tank tests and if a designer does design you a special one off, their contracts probably have a disclaimer so if you do end up with a lemon, you have to wear it.

Most of what I know about boats has been from this forum, and from this I have the impression that a catamaran would be easier to alter that a mono hull, without changing its performance.

Poida

 

When 20/20 first posted I did not realize he was speaking of a 60 footer.

I think extra interior height would not be as hard to work into such a large boat compared to smaller ones.

My budget (or lack thereof) necessitates getting more headroom from a much smaller vessel.

Tim

 

The fundamental change is in the height of the living quarters. I would not really consider helm height or galley counter height, for example, to be something one needs to hire an architect to redesign. I suppose a person who absolutely hasn't a clue about anything structural might panic about redesigning galley counter height or table height himself.
I don't think that is the case here. This gentleman obviously knows construction enough to specify a lot of changes in detail.
So the galley table is too low as drawn on stock plans---- is this something requiring a call to a designer?
Nor does the layout really require any serious design work. Are hatches too small? Add 4" in width. It seems to me that most all tall people make do with kitchen counters at home that are a standard 36" tall. I've never heard a complaint in many years. Nor are there "tall people" furniture stores, tall people toilets, tall people cars, and so forth.
So while anything could be modified, the single biggest item is ceiling height.
Whatever else needs to be up-sized, most all can be handled by the builder.
This is why I say general scaling up is not the way.
This is all about raising a cabin roof. The floorplan is secondary---- it must be figured out to accomodate larger berths, but scaling everything up? The boat is 60 ft! Gimme a layout and some prints, and in a few hours I could rearrange things enough to make any tall tribe happy.

Alan

 

if you go here, these guys are perhaps the world best, and I mean best steall exponents, they are a tiny company,
they did Beowolf for Dashew amongst others(ALLOY), they are now doing a 19m steel schooner, perhaps you can save yourself a lot of grief by emailing them,
http://www.bosandcarrboatbuilding.co.nz/frames.htm
They may sell you their excellent dwgs

 

Posted by Allan

The fundamental change is in the height of the living quarters. I would not really consider helm height or galley counter height, for example, to be something one needs to hire an architect to redesign. I suppose a person who absolutely hasn't a clue about anything structural might panic about redesigning galley counter height or table height himself.

Galley height doesn't need to be changed, women do the cooking, the only reason you have them on board.

Posted by Allan

Nor are there "tall people" furniture stores, tall people toilets, tall people cars, and so forth.

No, That is exactly why 2020 started this thread.

Poida

 

To complain?

 

Depends on the definition of complaining, he appeared to me to be stating that boats aren't built for tall people, commodities are built for the largest number of consumers, ie right handed average sized people.

And, yes tall people do have a problem with the items you listed, but can't do anything about it. Car manufacturers for example are not going to put extra steel in cars when 90% of their clients don't need it.

Thank God I'm normal.

Poida

 

Me too. I'm glad you're normal.
Now, on a serious note------- a 20 m yacht is a million dollar custom boat that may have but one or two others similar to it in the world. A production boat, or a production car, is not going to be customized beyond a few add-on options.
So it strikes me as a bit odd that nowhere can be found a designer who could modify (yes, I say modify, and if 2020 disagrees with the term, he must know enough about design that the last thing he needs is help designing the boat).
So I'm assuming he doesn't know a whole lot about boat design.
It will be difficult to assist anyone who will argue with wisdom while professing to need it supplied.

Alan