Are 'Sugar Scoops' a con?

LadyInBed said:
Yes they improve your waterline length when sailing, but they give no extra accommodation and put three feet plus on your mooring fees!
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I love them. Handy for boarding from a dinghy. Nice place to sit at anchor and watch the world from. Excellent to piss off. Excellent to fish from. The most useful 3 feet of the boat in my view.
 
Useful for climbing aboard onto after a swim and then having a shower. Useful when climbing in and out of the dinghy. Great for sitting on and dangling your legs into the water to cool off.
 
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LadyInBed said:
Yes they improve your waterline length when sailing, but they give no extra accommodation and put three feet plus on your mooring fees!

Lady in Red - Anchored off Port Louis, The Lorient.
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Which is why the current crop of AWBs often have vertical transoms, PLUS a drop down bathing platform. Gives you most of the benefits of the scoop but without the extra cost in marinas.
 
boaterbaz said:
I always thought it was a racey thing to give you extra waterline length without weight in the ends. Could never figure out why cruisers would want one.
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Depends on where you boat. Invaluable in the Med for stern to mooring and all the other benefits referred to above. However not of much value if your boating is mostly in cold rough waters where you want to be kept as separate as possible from the water behind your boat.

Vertical transoms and drop down platforms are great for adding typically a metre to the length available for accommodation but still having a large cockpit. However, suspect that a rash of smashed up platforms will lead to a reappraisal of their value.
 
When looking for our new boat, a sugar scoop was in the top three of our list of must haves. The boat is kept on a swing mooring and we tend to use visitor moorings or anchor, and as others have said, this makes the scoop ideal for getting on/off the boat. Our scoop is quite large so we have the added benefit of being able to unload everything onto the scoop from the dingy.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by innesker
Which is why the current crop of AWBs often have vertical transoms, PLUS a drop down bathing platform. Gives you most of the benefits of the scoop but without the extra cost in marinas.

toad_oftoadhall said:
With moving components though. Personally I'd go with the scoop over the drop down platform every time.
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I agree with Toad. I have the drop-down platform. It has certain advantages -- less LOA, clean transom, and best of all -- behind the drop-down platform is an ideal place to store petrol and other dangerous things you don't want in the main hull volume.

However, none of that worth the PITA of operating and maintaining the moving components, in my opinion. Sugar scoop a la Oyster would be my preferred solution.


Both sugar scoop and drop-down platform vastly superior to plain transom, however, it should be said. My last boat had the plain transom -- PITA to go swimming, PITA to get on and off the dinghy, no place to pee off at anchor, etc., etc.
 
Dockhead said:
However, none of that worth the PITA of operating and maintaining the moving components, in my opinion.
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Does it have hydraulics or something, then? The only boat I've ever been on with a transom flap (can't remember what) just had simple pivots, a tackle to pull it up, and bolts to lock it closed. Can't see a lot of maintenance required there. Seemed quite neat to me, despite a certain amount of "newfangled rubbish" anti-streetcred from those inclined to think that way.

Dockhead said:
My last boat had the plain transom -- PITA to go swimming, PITA to get on and off the dinghy, no place to pee off at anchor, etc., etc.
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Does your pee not reach the water if it starts from deck level or something? :)

Pete
 
Tranona said:
Depends on where you boat. Invaluable in the Med for stern to mooring and all the other benefits referred to above. However not of much value if your boating is mostly in cold rough waters where you want to be kept as separate as possible from the water behind your boat.

Vertical transoms and drop down platforms are great for adding typically a metre to the length available for accommodation but still having a large cockpit. However, suspect that a rash of smashed up platforms will lead to a reappraisal of their value.
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+1

Those of us with sugar-scoop sterns in the marina here on Crete find getting on and off a breeze. Those with vertical sterns have to clamber down a steep gangplank off the bow or stern (depending on which way round they've moored).

Plus, my sugar scoop means that I can get easily to the rudder post and steering linkage and the pipework to the deck shower, the calorifier is tucked in there as is our isolation transformer on the other side, so the space is not wasted.

A sugar-scoop on a Med-based boat is very much a good thing I reckon! :)
 
mjcoon said:
You mean your feet go further aft than the transom, like a trotter-box? Interesting idea...

Mike.
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The transom actually starts to angle aft from very near the top. The original Corsair hull was 36 feet with a transverse double berth, it was extended to 38 feet with a sugar scoop in the Oceanranger which gave enough room to turn the berth fore & aft.
 
prv said:
Does it have hydraulics or something, then? The only boat I've ever been on with a transom flap (can't remember what) just had simple pivots, a tackle to pull it up, and bolts to lock it closed. Can't see a lot of maintenance required there. Seemed quite neat to me, despite a certain amount of "newfangled rubbish" anti-streetcred from those inclined to think that way

Pete
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The first Bavaria ones had electro hydraulic rams which were a disaster. First thing the charter companies did was throw them away and fit tackles. Cheaper boats still have tackles but larger ones have hydraulic rams - more things to go wrong.

However the big worry is damage when backing up to a quay and charter boats have big warnings not to lower the platform until the boat is moored and pulled clear from the quay.

The big bonus for builders is that removing the sugar scoop increases the amount of space available for cabins without increasing the overall length of the boat.

Personally I think it is a retrograde step and on balance the sugar scoop is better even if it increases berthing fees a bit, but it does depend on the value you attach to the feature.
 
prv said:
Does it have hydraulics or something, then? The only boat I've ever been on with a transom flap (can't remember what) just had simple pivots, a tackle to pull it up, and bolts to lock it closed. Can't see a lot of maintenance required there. Seemed quite neat to me, despite a certain amount of "newfangled rubbish" anti-streetcred from those inclined to think that way.
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It did have hydraulics. After three years of constant repairs, we've just ripped these out and replaced with a simple tackle. It's better but still kludgy. A sugar scoop is a much more elegant solution. I guess if I were in a marina all the time, I might care about the two feet or so of LOA saved, but I'm not, so I don't (anyway I have projecting davits).

I spent some time on a Swan 90 which had a drop-down platform designed without hydraulics. This was better -- among other things, it was not full width, but rather just a corner of the transom. Maybe best of both worlds . . .



prv said:
Does your pee not reach the water if it starts from deck level or something? :)

Pete
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Depends on the wind . . .

Much lower risk of peeing on your topsides if you do it closer to the water . . . also it's a little more discreet . . .
 
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