Oddities are for wimps, Project Doom

Tranona said:
PS they don't sell for anything like the money you suggest - even in tip top condition.
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I just looked online at a few ads - of course something being advertised for sale at a price and selling are two very different things! Our prime motivation was the interior space of a westerly, and bilge keels. But it would be useful to know what they are actually changing hands for if you can illuminate us.:encouragement:
 
solent clown said:
I just looked online at a few ads - of course something being advertised for sale at a price and selling are two very different things! Our prime motivation was the interior space of a westerly, and bilge keels. But it would be useful to know what they are actually changing hands for if you can illuminate us.:encouragement:
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Two forum members have bought Longbows recently, one for less than £5k (with a modern Yanmar) and the other from memory less than £8k. Both needed work. An up and running longbow in a local yard went for £8k last year.

One plea. PLEASE put a proper engine and box in it. A Volvo MD 2030 would be perfect. Marine Enterprises have on for sale complete for just over £2k. Another £600 for installation bits and a new prop and you can forget about engine issues.
 
Tranona said:
Two forum members have bought Longbows recently, one for less than £5k (with a modern Yanmar) and the other from memory less than £8k. Both needed work. An up and running longbow in a local yard went for £8k last year.

One plea. PLEASE put a proper engine and box in it. A Volvo MD 2030 would be perfect. Marine Enterprises have on for sale complete for just over £2k. Another £600 for installation bits and a new prop and you can forget about engine issues.
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hee hee, I just put the demon to bed of marinising something random from a car. I could do it easily. Very easily.
Then if there was a problem half way around the UK... That would be that. No way of fixing, no one would know how either without machining and welding facilities. I do not propose to carry an entire fabricating engineering shop with us, so a reliable/plentiful, simple set up is a premium for us. 20 years ago I would have had the arrogance and energy to go for it, but now I just want things to work, or be fixable. Of course I will not be paying big money, and will buy something I will recondition myself over winter. Meantime I have a baby Yanmar to throw in to get it on and off the pontoon.
 
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solent clown said:
hee hee, I just put the demon to bed of marinising something random from a car. I could do it easily. Very easily.
Then if there was a problem half way around the UK... That would be that. No way of fixing, no one would know how either without machining and welding facilities. I do not propose to carry an entire fabricating engineering shop with us, so a reliable/plentiful, simple set up is a premium for us. 20 years ago I would have had the arrogance and energy to go for it, but now I just want things to work, or be fixable. Of course I will not be paying big money, and will buy something I will recondition myself over winter. Meantime I have a baby Yanmar to throw in to get it on and off the pontoon.
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Reconditioning of this size engine is for the birds. Complete waste of time and money. Anything that needs "reconditioning" is going to cost you more than buying a modern secondhand engine. your 1GM simply does not have enough power to swing a prop that will move a boat that weight at more then 2-3 knots..

Guess, though you maybe want to find all this out the hard way!
 
Tranona said:
Reconditioning of this size engine is for the birds. Complete waste of time and money. Anything that needs "reconditioning" is going to cost you more than buying a modern secondhand engine. your 1GM simply does not have enough power to swing a prop that will move a boat that weight at more then 2-3 knots..

Guess, though you maybe want to find all this out the hard way!
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no, I am aware of that. As for reconditioning a small marine engine, without going into the "what is a recon" can of worms, I have facilities here to skim head, hone bores etc etc. If I need anything more doing like line boring the carnk journals I can get that done for the cost of a few beers from mates. this is something else I will blog in this thread, our costs against what it would cost at normal rates.
I paid £400 for the whole boat. I can find a poorly engine or three where I am for little or no money, and there are all sorts of bits and bobs available here often. Failing finding that I will just have to buy a more expensive option as you suggest.
However for this coming few months or so, just getting it fixed, floating, and able to chug along the itchen to test it for the "do we like it" decision, I will just spend a couple of hours making the spare Yanmar fit. I am sure it will be a slug. But that will also motivate me to makespend on a better engine to escape the river with pece of mind
 
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Tranona said:
Two forum members have bought Longbows recently, one for less than £5k (with a modern Yanmar) and the other from memory less than £8k. Both needed work. An up and running longbow in a local yard went for £8k last year.

One plea. PLEASE put a proper engine and box in it. A Volvo MD 2030 would be perfect. Marine Enterprises have on for sale complete for just over £2k. Another £600 for installation bits and a new prop and you can forget about engine issues.
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The under 5k one was mine, new ygm30 yanmar with 90 hours on it, brandnew mainsail, genny 1 seasons use, old radar, but works, liferaft, standing rigging less than 10 years old. She does need work, but sailed over a 1000 miles as is, apart from one of the most pressing jobs, a new fuel tank, becoming a requirement about halfway through that mileage. The big jobs are replace headlinging, new steering cables, new morsecontrol /cables, a new rudder bushing, service parrafin heater and replace all ducting, and a full rewire. Once that's done, and some paintng/refurbing/rearranging of table arrangements and the like, she will be pristine.

In my case, the boat was a bargain, you would never normally get one with new engine/sails for anywhere near that.

The insurers insured her for 18k including eqpt, (12k for the hull.)

You sound in an ideal position to sort her out, and have the incentive of wanting to get playing with her, I'm sure you'll do well and you'll love it. Enjoy.
 
steve yates said:
The under 5k one was mine, new ygm30 yanmar with 90 hours on it, brandnew mainsail, genny 1 seasons use, old radar, but works, liferaft, standing rigging less than 10 years old. She does need work, but sailed over a 1000 miles as is, apart from one of the most pressing jobs, a new fuel tank, becoming a requirement about halfway through that mileage. The big jobs are replace headlinging, new steering cables, new morsecontrol /cables, a new rudder bushing, service parrafin heater and replace all ducting, and a full rewire. Once that's done, and some paintng/refurbing/rearranging of table arrangements and the like, she will be pristine.

In my case, the boat was a bargain, you would never normally get one with new engine/sails for anywhere near that.

The insurers insured her for 18k including eqpt, (12k for the hull.)

You sound in an ideal position to sort her out, and have the incentive of wanting to get playing with her, I'm sure you'll do well and you'll love it. Enjoy.
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thanks for posting, apart from the recommissioning, do you have any particular advice about these boats. We were sold on the interior space.
 
solent clown said:
no, I am aware of that. As for reconditioning a small marine engine, without going into the "what is a recon" can of worms, I have facilities here to skim head, hone bores etc etc. If I need anything more doing like line boring the carnk journals I can get that done for the cost of a few beers from mates. this is something else I will blog in this thread, our costs against what it would cost at normal rates.
I paid £400 for the whole boat. I can find a poorly engine or three where I am for little or no money, and there are all sorts of bits and bobs available here often. Failing finding that I will just have to buy a more expensive option as you suggest.
However for this coming few months or so, just getting it fixed, floating, and able to chug along the itchen to test it for the "do we like it" decision, I will just spend a couple of hours making the spare Yanmar fit. I am sure it will be a slug. But that will also motivate me to makespend on a better engine to escape the river with pece of mind
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You will quickly discover that rarely does a small marine diesel need that sort of work. They simply don't wear out, but fail because all the marinising bits fail or particularly in older engines the the water passages get filled with deposits and lead to overheating and are almost impossible to clean. You will also find spares either unobtainable or hideously expensive because many of them are unique to the now obsolete engines. Even if you do manage to get one working you still have a crude 30+ year old engine when for less money you could have a far superior modern engine.

Do the job properly and do it once. There are much more interesting parts of renovating a run down boat where you can use your skills and imagination then messing around trying to get c**p old engines running.
 
I wont be going for an old turner or sabb! ;) Ideally an old Beta engine.
As for renovating the rest of the boat, after the grp and painting is done there isnt very much to do apart from soft furnishings and modernising the electrics. One "luxury" we may consider later is making the built in cool box into a proper fridge. We will be fitting solar panels - eventually -
We will be going for this radio as it has the gps built in, and continue to use paper charts and navionics as our plotter.
https://www.force4.co.uk/standard-horizon-gx1700e-explorer-vhf-radio-with-gps.html
I will be adding a proper 240v set up too unlike the stand alone inverter/battery we have on the Trident.
The anchor chain has a gypsy, manual, but a luxury nonetheless for us!
One bit of fun, Karen wants us to have an LCD projector fitted, there is a large bulkhead area where she wants to put a mirror, I will make it removeable and have a white background behind it, or make a small roiller screen. We did this once before in a single decker glamping bus , was great fun
 
I remember reading that blog and was amazed at the lengths some are prepared to go to with such an ordinary (if popular) boat.
Pete7 said:
I spent a week sailing alongside a chap called Roy from Portchester Sailing Club a couple of years ago. He had done a similar project on his Longbow variant including decks and dropping a Ford 1600cc engine in it with Lancing marinising parts. Bit over the top but started and moved well. He even made his own try-radial genoa and mainsail in the club one winter, they looked really good and I wouldn't have known if he hadn't told me. We averaged 5-51/2 knots sailing comfortable cruising to the West Country and back.

What I really liked about his Longbow is the companion way is only a short step down into the saloon rather than the more normal flight of steps in many yachts. When you have climbed up and down 2 dozen times in a day refitting the yacht you will appreciate this. Good choice for some of the quieter out of the way places in the Solent but big enough to travel in some comfort.

About 5 years ago there was a blog of a chap doing a Centaur rebuild more as a labour of love and a fun thing to do, he even extended the keels to make them deeper. Would be worth finding the blog.

Okay, found the blog and his pictures are deffinitely worth seeing:

http://www.agentlemansyacht.com/2009/

https://plus.google.com/collection/oYgiPE
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pvb said:
Good radio, but it's £30 cheaper here - https://www.gaelforcemarine.co.uk/en/GB/Standard-Horizon-GX1700E-Fixed-GPSDSC-Radio/m-3283.aspx

There, that's saved you enough to buy another project!
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cheers chap! No more projects (not boats anyway!) we have traded and worked our way up to where we want to be. We just got "lucky" this one came along. Plan was to have something this size in about 5 years so we are ahead of ourselves. just need to get it done and in the water so we can learn to sail something this big!
 
I was just a tad shocked when I saw the pictures on Flickr.

I'll be up in October for a full report over a dram or two; to either celebrate or commiserate.
 
solent clown said:
thanks for posting, apart from the recommissioning, do you have any particular advice about these boats. We were sold on the interior space.
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Not really, it's a mab, so patch it up and get it sailing. I don't really know enough about boats to give you much advice. Mine's seems tough as old boots with a good motion in a sea, should look after you well. I occasionally look at the size of the waves I am hammering through without much regard, and think, jeez, my little bradwell 18 would probably be upside down by now :)

It's a very very different feel from the little boats, In truth, it's seems more of a ship than a boat in comparison, and the trips feel less adventurous. Even though I can cover much more ground and sail, laughing, in weather I would hiding from in bethfran...I miss the little boat. Don't get me wrong, the big one is great, it feels so much more purposeful and my horizons have broadened incredibly, but....

The wee boat was just so, well, wee! She was a plucky little thing. Always the smallest boat in any harbour she arrived in, always got a response from hm's when they asked where I had come from along the lines of, "what, in that!" Very often they never even bothered to charge me.

The reception is different as well now, in the longbow, I am just another yottie to locals and fisherman. In bethfran I always got a lovely warm reception, was made to feel welcome and everyone I met bent over backwards to help. (prob felt sorry for me :) )

I really fancy a trip round Ireland sometime, but the longbow is such a good boat, I don't think it would be very challenging or exciting. I would actually rather take the little bradwell round and take twice as long, i'd get into a lot more places and it would feel like an awfully big adventure in her. Or maaybe even something like your trident, but in the longbow it just seems like it would be a fab cruise, but not an adventure, if that makes sense? She wants to be taken to the faereos and iceland and big trips like that :)

That's how good I think the longbows/berwicks are.

So that's
 
Will this boat be getting a sideways sliding washboard arrangement and active collision avoidance bow thruster?

Joking aside, good luck with it - more power to yer elbow.
 
steve yates said:
Not really, it's a mab, so patch it up and get it sailing. I don't really know enough about boats to give you much advice. Mine's seems tough as old boots with a good motion in a sea, should look after you well. I occasionally look at the size of the waves I am hammering through without much regard, and think, jeez, my little bradwell 18 would probably be upside down by now :)

It's a very very different feel from the little boats, In truth, it's seems more of a ship than a boat in comparison, and the trips feel less adventurous. Even though I can cover much more ground and sail, laughing, in weather I would hiding from in bethfran...I miss the little boat. Don't get me wrong, the big one is great, it feels so much more purposeful and my horizons have broadened incredibly, but....

The wee boat was just so, well, wee! She was a plucky little thing. Always the smallest boat in any harbour she arrived in, always got a response from hm's when they asked where I had come from along the lines of, "what, in that!" Very often they never even bothered to charge me.

The reception is different as well now, in the longbow, I am just another yottie to locals and fisherman. In bethfran I always got a lovely warm reception, was made to feel welcome and everyone I met bent over backwards to help. (prob felt sorry for me :) )

I really fancy a trip round Ireland sometime, but the longbow is such a good boat, I don't think it would be very challenging or exciting. I would actually rather take the little bradwell round and take twice as long, i'd get into a lot more places and it would feel like an awfully big adventure in her. Or maaybe even something like your trident, but in the longbow it just seems like it would be a fab cruise, but not an adventure, if that makes sense? She wants to be taken to the faereos and iceland and big trips like that :)

That's how good I think the longbows/berwicks are.

So that's
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what a lovely post. I know just what you mean, there is a thrill to being intrepid in a small boat. We have plans to start using our dinghy again this week as you cant beat roving the solent in a tiny boat. The routine slog out of the itchen and past westonin a yacht becomes once again an adventure in a 12ft dinghy. Makes me think about having a little sailing dinghy as a tender for it instead of a flubber.
 
fredrussell said:
Will this boat be getting a sideways sliding washboard arrangement and active collision avoidance bow thruster?

Joking aside, good luck with it - more power to yer elbow.
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yes, I am doing both of those, and decided to use an aircooled beetle engine driving a generator to drive a motor to drive a hydraulic unit to drive the prop. I will be making my own bio ethanol on the way from seagull poo and fishbones. I will also be converting to a ketxh rig with twin junk sails.
I plan to use the excess energy produced by the beetle engine to turn the wind generators into hovercraft style drive units which I can vector to moor the boat too.
 
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solent clown said:
yes, I am doing both of those, and decided to use an aircooled beetle engine driving a generator to drive a motor to drive a hydraulic unit to drive the prop. I will be making my own bio ethanol on the way from seagull poo and fishbones. I will also be converting to a ketxh rig with twin junk sails.
I plan to use the excess energy produced by the beetle engine to turn the wind generators into hovercraft style drive units which I can vector to moor the boat too.
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No plans to use all the hot air generated in the forums?
 
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