dutch steel at sea

[Guest]

After some years of planing hulls I've had enough of charging around and am looking for a new seaboat and fancy a twin engined dutch steel cruiser ( Linnsen, Hollandia, Stevens etc) I am put off by the large number of them I see on the inland waterways - anybody got any opinions/experience of seakeeping qualities?

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[miket]

Some are better than others but in reasonable conditions (To F3 ish) all are fine.

The older designs with plenty of flare are good, Van Lent, Super van Craft etc. The modern ones with multi chine hulls with a more boxy frontal aspect rely on shere weight to barge through the sea and I would think will be rather wet in rougher conditions.

I have thought about it myself but decided to wait until retirement when time will not be so important.
Meantime I shall continue burning disgusting quantities of fossil fuels!!

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[LiamS]

Have spent a few passages in fairly rough conditions and I am very impressed by displacement steel boats.The flare on my bow seems to keep the cockpit and deck quite dry.Even with a sea on the beam she handles very well.The faster planing boats are forced to slow down in poor seas where steel boats are at slow speeds anyway with a lot of hull under the water.People on inland waterways are limited to what speed they can travel at anyway and steel boats give a feeling of safety and stability especially if children on board.

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[byron]

<font color=blue>As long as you have a pair of decent sized engines you will find they don't pitch, toss and sway too much. Steel craft severely show a lack of stability usually caused by not having enough weight down below.

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[Observer]

Ask Kim. He should know all obout it having owned, I believe, a 33' Pedro.

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[castlevar]

Hi reference your query regarding suitability of dutch boats at sea I feel I am qualified to reply.
In march 1999 I started work on building my boat from a hull I imported from stentor yachts Navol shipyard Romania This is a dutch company operating in conjunction with a Romanian shipyard.
The hull was designed by Vripack of Sneek Netherlands.
The hull is 6mm plate 13mtrx4.27 draft1.4mtrs there are 2 bilge keels running 75% of the hull length.
The boat took me 2 years to complete working full time I was retired at this time I dont think I would have completed the project otherwise .
I fitted the boat with a 130 hp commercial engine I am ex merchant navy and I have been all round the world on ships with single engines so I could think of no good reason to fit two engines half the cost to buy and maintain I did fit a bow thruster.
The boat was completed March 2001 after a couple of short local trips we decided we require a reasonable shake down trip to prove the boat.
June of that year we fuelled 4300 ltrs 1000 ltrs water the boat now displaces 26 tonne left Carrickfergus in N Ireland and headed for North Spain as usual weather not very good usually f6 to f7 we arrived safely in spain spent a couple of weeks.
Left San Sebastian with a good forecast however as evening fell wind increased to f8 from the north this lasted for about 15 hours it was not plesant but at no time were we worried about are safety boat was teriffic handled well and we mantained our cruising speed of 7 knots rest of trip was rough but safe.
Last year we brought boat from Carrickfergus to the Algarve where she is now based for the winter hope to cruise further this year.
I would recomend a dutch boat to anyone cruising at displacment speeds is great and cheap

<hr width=100% size=1>geoff

 

[kimhollamby]

Oooh dear...

...going to fall out with you Byron but a few issues with your statement.

Firstly, a displacement boat with a large single diesel may in fact show better stability characteristics than a typical twin; the weight is lower down and on the centreline.

That said, my single engine Pedro 30 felt like it rolled more than my twin Pedro 33 Solano, but the latter was very heavy, it had three (yes three) keels and it was also beamier.

Displacement boats roll; round bilge ones roll like a pig and multi chine ones (like most Dutch steel boats) roll but perhaps not lke a grand porker, depending on design, but the motion might not be quite so 'smooth'.

Stability and rolling two separate things; a boat that rolls readily might in fact be more stable than one that is very stiff. Going to stop there in case someone accuses me of bringing up AVS on MBC again.

As for comments elsewhere, you cannot specifically call Dutch steel boats good or bad at sea because they do vary in design. The ones I prefer have plenty of rudder area and a good throw (both my Pedros had rudders that threw 45 degrees or so either side of centre) and relatively low top hamper. Many modern ones have bluff bows and I saw green water across the windscreen on my 33 Solano in F5 wind against tide Dover Strait, but then it was hitting a wheelhouse with 4mm steel and sturdy Gebo frames carrying 8mm armoured glass. Not all boats are specified to be quite so strong but I went a bit OTT!

The cruising is lazy...particularly because it simply doesn't pay to get that extra half-knot. My twin 33 could be pushed into obscene fuel burn (1.5mile/gal) if run up to 8.5kn but got down to around 4mile/gal-5mile/gal at 7kt-7.5kt. Put the coffee on, engage autopilot and go for a stroll around the decks...very different from a flies in the teeth fast-track Channel crossing. Don't ask me what I prefer; would develop a firm case of piles from fence-sitting because there is merit in both approaches but I do miss those lazy passages and the satisfaction of having got the tides just right. Don't so much miss the 18-hour singlehanders if in a hurry to get boat from one end of the South Coast to other with crew wrong end of the country.

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[pheran]

A really interesting account, castlevar, and I wish you luck in your travels. I am now taking a much closer interest in such matters having today signed my life away for a Dutch steel boat - a Valk Super Falcon. I suppose this migration was inevitable really. That sort of boat and I are both built for comfort rather than speed!!

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[Greg2]

Try putting steel boats in the search facility on the forum - I was, still am in fact, thinking seriously about a steel boat and asked for the views of the forum - I got lots of useful responses and they are still there to be read.

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[Guest]

You certainly have been getting around. Thanks for that valuable insight. I would still want to go with 2 engines though - I have had cause in the past to be very grateful that I had twins. We threw a fan belt on one engine and badly overheated on one occasion in the Menai straits in a 6 knot tideway - without the second engine we would definitely have been up on the rocks.

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[Guest]

Thanks for that LiamS - what boat do you have? I assume you would recommend it.

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[byron]

Re: Oooh dear...

going to fall out with you Byron but a few issues with your statement
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Can't fall out with me 'cos I will start crying and then little old ladies give me a 10p piece for sweeties and that makes me happy again.
and... I still say that steel boats are too roly poly unless carefully and professionally ballasted of which most ain't.

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[LiamS]

She is a one off boat built to order for a gentleman in Brussels in 1981.She can be seen at http://www.apolloduck.ie/feature.phtml?id=6879 I would certainly recommend steel.She stays in the water all year I am hoping to spend summers at sea and Winter on the Shannon accessing through the Barrow River.This way I can get maximum use.

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[castlevar]

Hi laim
Know arklow very well have been leaving there every year for spain portugall on previous boat trader 34 (carricktrader) the one with the stopper floppers wife said it always looked like fishing boat.
And new boat 13mtr stentor (castlevar) has a nice slow roll did not fit stabilisers not required

<hr width=100% size=1>geoff

 

[kimhollamby]

Carefully and professionally ballasted...

Tosh I'm afraid. Please don't send every owner of a Dutch steel boat into his bilges looking for ballast because most will not find any and that, by the way, is not a problem.

Loads of weight underneath could in fact make for a stiff boat and a horrible, snatching motion, so if the boat is not designed for a ballasted keel it doesn't need one.

More common to find some small compensation ballast weights out in the wings, as many of the custom and semi-custom builds come out heavier on interior joinery on one side or the other but you are simply not going to find tons of lead or concrete in the keels of most (some keels are oil-filled but that is to avoid corrosion problems in often inaccessible box sections).

It sounds like you've had a bad experience in one. Certainly the ride is very different to your Princess 435 at 20 knots as a displacement hull doesn't generate the lift of a planing hull and hence doesn't get the 'stabilising' effect of that in the roll plane. But it doesn't mean the displacement boat is just about to turn turtle either.

Not all Dutch steel boats were designed for seagoing use of course, which is an entirely different matter. But the mainstream makes muttered about elsewhere on this thread are not in that category although, like everything else, some makes and indeed, some models within makes, are better than others.

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[JEG]

Re: Carefully and professionally ballasted...

Just bought a dutch steel boat; would you care to advise which makes & models are better than others?

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[LiamS]

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