3 blokes, 3 days, £300 - First draft of Centaur Well design

mrming said:
Sadly there is no formula for converting YouTube views into money. Making online video is a great way to promote your product / service / project at low cost and with a potentially huge audience, but any notion that the videos themselves can make you rich enough to run two boats is unfortunately nonsense.
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I have to say, I actually think it's not impossible - until about 6 months ago when I was making a video every fortnight or month, I was on up to almost $1000 a month! Although, since I discovered sailing my film-making has suffered tremendously. Damn you all!!

I'm down to only $300ish a month now, but it's still not to be sniffed at.. If only I wasn't so lazy, it could be considered a sort of pension?

I'm still a very low level YouTube earner though, and there seem to be still literally thousands and thousands of YouTubers that are getting serious amounts of views more than me!
 
bluerm166 said:
It's difficult to understand why you are happy to create something of a quality 'that need only last 18 months'.To do so is to accept from the outset that you are doing something that no-one else would want to do or buy ? You are missing the point about marine ply.Firstly,unless you want a particular face veneer,it is not expensive for what it is,and is far more stable than typical WBP.Secondly it is formed from durable species,normally a tropical hardwood.That means that you can bury it in the ground and in a couple of years time it will be unmarked and mould free.Typical WBP will gather mould if you leave it in the rain and it will buckle at the least opportunity.If there is any break in the grp skin the WBP will take up moisture that will be held captive and foster rot that is inaccessible.It is very easy to bond sheets of marine ply together where it is necessary and in any case it's dense composition and freedom from defects allows greater permissible stresses.
It doesn't make sense to skimp.Make a job of it.
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Ah. WBP ply. Have a look at my Flying 15 thread for how well that stuff works on boats...
 
Cruised the blog and do rather see the plot drifting over the horizon and away from you.....

Seems just short of criminal, or plain loony, messing about with a Centaur that has stood the test of time. They were made that way for a reason.

Standing up is over rated. The cockpit is for that. Being able to make tea, do the navigation and other natural stuff from the horizontal position is not all that bad.

We managed in an Achilles 24 - admittedly only 2 of us most of the time and single handed for some of it. That had an outboard in a well in the cockpit and was not one of her redeeming features.
The noise, vibration and fumes if the wind was in the wrong direction were not at all pleasant. Messing about with decanting petrol in the middle of the night on a bumpy sea was no fun either.
What about the safety of carrying enough petrol to get you 'round the top'?
Or finding the stuff the further north you go - I know it comes out of the ground up there, but it tends to be delivered in very large amounts.

Also the facility for the main sheet to manage to slip into the well and get involved with the propeller lead to some interesting moments - especially in a bit of a blow one dark night off the Mumbles!

Still have outstanding business with Cape Wrath.
 
chrisbitz said:
I have to say, I actually think it's not impossible - until about 6 months ago when I was making a video every fortnight or month, I was on up to almost $1000 a month! Although, since I discovered sailing my film-making has suffered tremendously. Damn you all!!

I'm down to only $300ish a month now, but it's still not to be sniffed at.. If only I wasn't so lazy, it could be considered a sort of pension?

I'm still a very low level YouTube earner though, and there seem to be still literally thousands and thousands of YouTubers that are getting serious amounts of views more than me!
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Okay I should probably rephrase that. You can run two boats (on moorings, somewhere cheap) off around 3 million YouTube views a year. You will however need another job to support the rest of your life and to buy the boats in the first place. :)
 
thank you thank you thank you Rob McG, Dave, Erbas, Big Nick

replies aare limted to 10,000 characters so I have had to split it

RobMcG

"Hmmm! Not wishing to p**s on anyone's chips here but you know those stories you here in Yachting Monthly etc about some Captain Catastrophe setting sail in a home made/modified boat and getting into all sorts of difficulties...............well draw your own conclusions! I think it may be time for people to stop 'enabling' the madness and get a cab back to real street. Lets face it, if pushed you could re engine a Centaur more reliably with an old Ford 1.6 diesel and the marinising bits for about the same price. You would also end up with a boat that had at least some intrinsic value on paper at the end of this.

RobMcg

thank you for your comments - and for the CC label. That is really very kind of you.

I have been a sailor for quite a few decades now and have not yet needed rescueing - long may it continue but it can happen to anyone.

The journey so far from the Iow To Edinburgh has included some interesting and challenging passages in an 18 foot boat.

I am surprised that you think that an old amatuer marinised Ford 1.6 will be more reliable than a new 10hp outboard. I do know that I would not enjoy the time spent working on the engine.

I have never heard the black cab simile - very good indeed

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Dave

"Re post #26
Sorry maybe not made myself clear I meant fabricate a 'D' or round section O/B housing from ply not PVCu. A twin wall structure will be very strong and could be glassed over to protect from water ingress. I guess the hull will be of substantial strength where you cut the hole but when a square/rectangular O/B housing is glassed in it will induce stress points at the corners. A curved shape would distribute loads more evenly as well as looking nicer. "



Dave

thank you for your suggestions.

I agree a D shape would be far more elegant - I would love to see some sketches of the design you are suggesting.

I think that a D shape would also have two square corners and might also generate stresses similar to the ones you get froma square well l

I have a built a few boats and getting a curve in ply is not easy - I made a Northumbrian coble which has a very severe bow twist and that needed steaming. A D shape made of ply would be a challenging shape to create.

All of the wells I have seen have been square. I liked the idea of a round well but that idea is now des due to the difficulty of sticking HDPE pipe to GRP.

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Erbas

"I rather suspect any scrap value from the metal bits and gear would be a good deal less than the cost of disposing of the hull,

I don't have a problem with scrapping a Centaur per se, it's not some classic or historic boat, but I think you're being optimistic if you think it's a zero cost option

I do like the idea of moulding a GRP tunnel though it's technically more challenging to produce something strong enough with reinforcement in the right places"

Erbas

Thank you for your contribution. Does anyone out there know how much it does cost to scrap a boat - should that be necessary. I do have the chap in Ireland who has offered to buy the boat if I can sail around the top the UK. If not it is ebay. I also like the idea of GRP moulding but this is a prototype so I am to keep this as KISS as aI can

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Big Nick

"It looks like the centaur has quite a nice deep cockpit. I know someone with a pageant and they close the cockpit drains before sailing to stop water coming up into the cockpit through them. Does the centaur do the same? It would be rather more difficult to stop water coming through an outboard well and that lip to attach the outboard clamp onto doesn't look very high... You can't move it up too much as otherwise it looks like it would foul the tiller? "

thank you Big Nick

The Centaur does have a deep cockpit. I understand that the waterline is only four inches from the cockpit floor. I have also asked other Centaur sailors and they tell me that the water never comes back up the drains. The lip should be 9 inches above the waterline. I have also asked about the depth of water in wells - 9 inches is a small amount - and it is one of my main concerns. I could raise that lip by going to an ultra long shaft engine or I could use blanking plates to curtail surging of water up the well. I have no idea how to predict if this will be problem although the fact that the well is on the centre line of the boat means that I will not get water ingress die to healing.

What will happen in a following sea? the answer is I do not know but in Katie L it does not seem to be a problem.

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thank you thank thank you Ian

part two

ian

Seriously beginning to thing this whole thing is just a wind up.

"I can extend the rudder shaft if needed to clear the OB". Dylan, do you know how much of an undertaking that is to do properly and ensure that it's square, properly supported, and will deal with the not insignificant loads on a tiller of a boat of this type?

"3 blokes, 3 days, and if I want to swap the wood over it's only a day..." Haha!!!!! Have you ever worked properly with epoxy resins? Do you realise you could throw 20 blokes at it and it won't happen any faster? Most of the build will be you doing precisely nothing as you wait for the last bit to dry before you come back to it to do the next bit. I would want colossal fillets and many layers of cloth holding that lot together...that takes ages to do. It took me weeks just to split a rudder open and reglass a repaired shaft back in. Weeks. Even removing the stern tube, glassing the hole up, fairing it, putting the relevant VC tar or similar and antifoul on is not a small task, and that's a teeny hole.

What on earth is the point of using softwood when you will be throwing hundreds, yes hundreds of quids worth of epoxy materials at this project? Why not do it properly initially? If you're not paying for it because of some sponsorship tie in, do you really think that Wessex resins will be that happy about being associated with a boat with potential structural defects that might sink with you in it, or years later once it's been abandoned somewhere or sunk on its mooring? Have you consulted a naval architect as suggested? Done the sums to consider the lost bouyancy at the stern? Thought about the increased loads on the rudder tube now it's not as supported as it was? Considered the waterline at an extreme angle of heel or a big following sea? Spoken to whoever is going to insure the boat for you? "Have you had a hull survey and the rigging changed in the last 10 years? Nope, but I've cut a hole in the bottom and made a softwood engine bracket to a fag packet design..."

I absolutely get the attraction of an outboard WRT cost and arguably manoeuvrebility. Can you cut a hole in the bottom of a centaur and make it outboard powered? Of course you can, but is it even slightly sensible?

Dylan, many people have contributed here and generally get a brush offish response to any questions posed. I even spent ages digging around in my loft to find you the article on outboard powered Sabres to photograph and send to you and did'nt get even a "thanks" but I guess you are busy starting all these threads...

Just do me one favour and please please please tell me why you have to chop a hole in the bottom of it and do this well idea rather than using similar ingenuity to hang it over the back. Standard pantograph bracket, perhaps on a mount that would slide up and down to give more depth? Two bits of stainless u shaped channel and a hardwood board?

Don't get me wrong, I love your films and your outlook on doing things a bit differently, but to be frank I don't think you have any idea of what you are taking on here and the drawings and ideas hardly fill me with confidence. This is not a duck punt. It would be a shame to see a centaur ruined, a project abandoned, or people and boats lost. It's the "3 days, a few quid, a few blokes, bit of PVCu, a bucket of resin and some softwood and it'll all be fine" approach that I find really worrying.

Potential scenario. You are doing your creek crawling thing, the Tohatsu is chugging along nicely at 5.5 knots, there's 2 knots of tide under you, so when the large concrete obstruction slides perfectly between the keels of your bilge keeled centaur, the outboard leg and a couple of tons of westerly hits it at a speed of 7.5 knots. Obviously the leg can't ride up as it would normally (or for that matter transom mounted) as it's in it's rather narrow well. It slams into the back of the well, right onto the join,as the boat starts to pivot round broadside onto the tide, stuck on the engine leg...which is by now applying a huge twisting force onto the well...just a thought. Better and safer than an inboard? Right-o...

Last edited by Iain C; Yesterday at 22:47.


Thank you ian,

i have sent you an email apologising for not saying thank you enough for the images you emailed to me.

this is what I said in the email

Dear Ian

I sincerely apologise for not thanking you by email for sending these

They were extremely useful

I had a fascinating phone chat with Ken and he confirmed in the discussion that the ten hp seems to have plenty of power for his 3.5 tonne yacht.

He also mentioned the problem with cavitation in a chop of the sort you get around harbour entrances or overfalls.

We talked about access to the outboard and he said that was why he cut the transom down - he said that was necessary to allow him to keep the engine close to the stern on his custom made bracket and yet still allow him access to the controls.

The sabre was designed to have a gate at the stern (you can see it in his images) so he modified the transom to give better access to the outboard. On a Sabre this was a fairly simple job.

To make such a modification to a Centaur would require quite a lot of surgery and cutting through into the lazarette - the access hatch would need to be watertight to stop the stern locker getting flooded and I think it would compromise the strength of the stern.

I assume that all these problems could be overcome....

One of the snags with an outboard bracket is that if it turns out that 10 hp is not enough and have to move to a 15 hp then I might end up with 15 hp hanging on a bracket over the stern - I assume the engineering for such a lifting bracket might get a bit complicated - Ken uses a block and tackle to raise and lower his engine on the custom made bracket.

I thought I thanked you in the forum but not specifically by name

That was extremely remiss of me - and for that I apologise again

I shall make amends in my next reply

Thank you for your interest and I am sorry if you feel that I have brushed criticisms aside

That was not my intention at all - all serious suggestions have been carefully considered.

Even some of the less serious ones have been considered as well.

I have been around the houses on all the options and every possible way of getting a boat for four of us and a dog has been considered.

I continue to be amazed at the passions that have been stirred up by something as simple as an engine well in a boat that is one step away from the scrap yard.

Thank you Ian. I am extremely grateful to you

Dylan

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Ian

I can assure you that this is not a wind up. It might still never happen. I might not get to sail around the top of this lovely island with my family. I am sure that as a sailing man you cabn appreciate why I would wish to do that. It will be my last chance for a sailing expereince with my adult offspring and this may well be a way of making it happen. I am putting an extra-ordinary amount of effort into whjat you consider to be a windup.


I am sorry that my TD skills are not as they should be - I agree an engine well is not a duck punt but a well is a bit simpler than a Northumbrian coble or a GP14 though -so I am reasonably confident that creating this thing is within my abilities.

I agree that there is a chance that the leg might catch on something - although it will be on the centre line of the boat, it will be a lot shorter than the keels, it is well protected by the prop shaft housing and although I will be drying out the Centaur in a number of Scottish harbours I will not be indulging my creek crawling proclivities.

I am hanging onto Katie L to do that when I get around the crinly bits on the other side.

I would like to take this opportunity of publicly and sincerely thanking you for sending me the camera scans of Ken Edeans most interesting article on his experiences with a 10 hp Honda on the back of a modified 27 foot 3.5 tonne yacht.
 
thank you thank thank Gwylam and Chinita

"Cruised the blog and do rather see the plot drifting over the horizon and away from you.....

Seems just short of criminal, or plain loony, messing about with a Centaur that has stood the test of time. They were made that way for a reason.

Standing up is over rated. The cockpit is for that. Being able to make tea, do the navigation and other natural stuff from the horizontal position is not all that bad.

We managed in an Achilles 24 - admittedly only 2 of us most of the time and single handed for some of it. That had an outboard in a well in the cockpit and was not one of her redeeming features.
The noise, vibration and fumes if the wind was in the wrong direction were not at all pleasant. Messing about with decanting petrol in the middle of the night on a bumpy sea was no fun either.
What about the safety of carrying enough petrol to get you 'round the top'?
Or finding the stuff the further north you go - I know it comes out of the ground up there, but it tends to be delivered in very large amounts.

Also the facility for the main sheet to manage to slip into the well and get involved with the propeller lead to some interesting moments - especially in a bit of a blow one dark night off the Mumbles!

Still have outstanding business with Cape Wrath. "



Dear Gwylam

Please feel free to tell me what your vision of "the plot" is and I will do my utmost to conform to your requirements.

My vision is to explore and experience the coast of this magnificent island. Six years in and the project is still under way and I am enjoying my sailing more than I ever have in the past. I love sailing to new places. It is much more enjoyable than racing around the cans or making those short overnight sails to all too familar and favourite anchorages.

The pleasure of pulling back the hatch lid and looking at a new anchorage in the morning light is a pleasure beyond measure.

Bless you for the looney label. This is the web so you must feel free to label things or other human being as you see fit.

The centaur was designed 40 years ago for a 10 hp inboard. At the time the average outboard was a two stroke and Seagulls were still very much the norm. I have no idea how the design would have been different had the modern, powerful, light, economical, battery charging long shafts been available.

This is an attempt to deliver the sort of thrust that LG designed for the boat and applying it in the same place LG wanted it to go. The fact that is seems to upset some people is very hard to understand.

The points you make about headroom are excellent. I spent around 70 days living on Katie L this summer. I have never yet owned a boat with fuill standing headroom anywhere than in the companionway with the hatch pulled back. I sailed a 15 foot trailer sailer for four seasons.

An Achilles is an excellent boat and your experience with two on board is in alignment with mine - for two it is viable but not perfect.

We have spent two weekends on katie L with four aboard. My kids slept in a tent ashore.

I once met 13 christians travelling in a camper van across America. I asked how they coped with the crowding

"There are times when we lean on Jesus" was the answer. I assume the Wintyers could theoritically spend six weeks leaning on Jesus but it would be a bit of a mission.

your points about sharing a cockpit with an outboard are nicely made. However, I am not entiorely without experience. I have spent the past 18 months on Katie L with the outboard in the cockpit well. It is noisy - so I wear headphones or I put the tiller pilot and and sit on the foredeck or I sail.

Petrol is a worry. I have two external tanks giving me 24 litres without decanting petrol. From another thread I am told to expect fuel consumption at 4 knots to be around 1.25 litres an hour. I should be able to motor for up to 20 hours at four knots without sloshing petrol around the boat.

Carrying petrol is a worry - but the yacht racing blokes, who do quite long delivery passages using outboards in wells, put the petrol in 12 litre cans and lash them to the stern rail.

I hear you concerns about the mainsheet although Katie L has a stern mainsheet right over the engine well - dropping it in the well has yet to become a problem. I expect that while I am motoring the boom will be centred. While sailing the engine will not be running. I am not a great fan of motorsailing and only used three gallons of fuel between the Humber and Anstruther.

Cape Wrath will only come at me after a long delivery trip from the solent to Scotland so by then the project will either be proven or junked,


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"Or a massively successful PR exercise. "

Thank Chinita

that is a wonderful accolade - although I assumne that most PR people would be weeping into their gin and tonics if the only PR they got was a few longish threads on small sailing forum.
 
dylanwinter said:
replies aare limted to 10,000 characters so I have had to split it

RobMcG

"Hmmm! Not wishing to p**s on anyone's chips here but you know those stories you here in Yachting Monthly etc about some Captain Catastrophe setting sail in a home made/modified boat and getting into all sorts of difficulties...............well draw your own conclusions! I think it may be time for people to stop 'enabling' the madness and get a cab back to real street. Lets face it, if pushed you could re engine a Centaur more reliably with an old Ford 1.6 diesel and the marinising bits for about the same price. You would also end up with a boat that had at least some intrinsic value on paper at the end of this.

RobMcg

thank you for your comments - and for the CC label. That is really very kind of you.

I have been a sailor for quite a few decades now and have not yet needed rescueing - long may it continue but it can happen to anyone.

The journey so far from the Iow To Edinburgh has included some interesting and challenging passages in an 18 foot boat.

I am surprised that you think that an old amatuer marinised Ford 1.6 will be more reliable than a new 10hp outboard. I do know that I would not enjoy the time spent working on the engine.

I have never heard the black cab simile - very good

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Dylan, I fear you may have taken my comment as a personal slight - it is not, merely a comment that there is significant increased risk of having problems at sea from owner (un) improvements to already established designs. This is particularly an issue considering the stretch of water you have proposed to cross. A simple solution would be to ask a naval architect whether your proposal is viable for what you want to do. I suspect it won't be the answer you are hoping for.

Rob
 
Simonpk said:
Getting back to the job in hand, my old Pageant, same rudder/tiller arrangement, had a modified tiller which worked well and would work to clear the outboard head.


View attachment 36985
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Simon,

that is so much more elegant than the solution I was working on - which was a short length of pipe with fitted over the top of the metal rudder rod, putting a pin through it and then attached the old riller a bit further up

your design makes a visual virture out of necessity

I like sailing standing up and manufacturing those two cheek peices will be much easier than laminating a whole new tiller

may I ask you?

how did it feel?
 
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TBH I haven't sailed a Pageant with a standard tiller but it felt fine to me and didn't feel it was a weak point. It may appear the tiller is high in the image, but it wasn't that high that I had to stand, but I did have a tiller extension & mostly I sat on the cockpit coaming for visibility as the coachroof is fairly high & assume the Centaur will be the same.
 
Simonpk said:
TBH I haven't sailed a Pageant with a standard tiller but it felt fine to me and didn't feel it was a weak point. It may appear the tiller is high in the image, but it wasn't that high that I had to stand, but I did have a tiller extension & mostly I sat on the cockpit coaming for visibility as the coachroof is fairly high & assume the Centaur will be the same.
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is there any chance you could email me more and larger scale images

I would love to examine the design in the closest possible detail

mine would not need to be nearly as extreme

and

tiller extension

never sail a small boat single handed without one

still looking for the old Centaur -

Dylan.winter@virgin.net
 
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