Specify your dream-boat (DON'T JUST NAME A DESIGN WHICH IS ALREADY OUT THERE)

Seajet said:
Well this was about 'dream' boats...
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Quite so, Andy. The idea wasn't to worry about details, or to carefully calculate the price and trouble of recaulking teak decks, or to justify the costed real-world sense made by this rig, or that keel...

...just name the favourite features and scale and ambient appeal which somehow always reappears when thinking generally of the boat you'd buy with lottery money.

For me, it's an elegant gaffer on very traditional lines, even if she was only built last year. Not sure why anyone would dream of a big contemporary plastic sloop with bow thrusters. :rolleyes:

There's not very much that's new or recent on the market, which I'd prefer above any 80 y/o design...

...to me, a large part of dreaming, is not needing the considerations of soulless Zafira/Bavaria-style cram-'em-in versatility. But to each, his own. :)
 
Schooner - we had a couple of hours on one in Maine, and the rig was so handy for short handed, and flexible, and low down for a given area.

Gaff - 'cos I've got used to fiddling with sails without starting the engine & heading into the wind.

Modern wood construction, glass & epoxy sheathed - 'cos I like the rigidity, and being able to cut & screw new bits.

About 40' on deck - big enough for living on, but rig not too heavy.

Tiller steering in big cockpit, but good canvas cockpit cover.

Solid fuel stove & oil lamps.

Reliable modern diesel.

Ability to dry out level enough, but no moving centreboard.
 
About 35ft, unpainted aluminium, lifting keel. Snug cockpit with tiller steering. Lifting rotating electric drive/generator leg. Diesel genset and batteries for ballast. Woodburner.
 
Mavanier said:
About 35ft, unpainted aluminium, lifting keel. Snug cockpit with tiller steering. Lifting rotating electric drive/generator leg. Diesel genset and batteries for ballast. Woodburner.
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Interesting how many people (including my earlier post) specified aluminium. Also how many (including me again) specified boats that could be cruised effectively with a small crew - 1/2.
 
I don't think I would like aluminium having owned Land Rovers and the bug bear of electrolysis with two different metals. They must have to sheath every single fitting but that doesn't always work as many will know with their ali masts!
 
Isn't aluminium, especially unpainted aluminium, laughably vulnerable to electrolysis? Don't you have to have an anchor chain made of something even softer than the hull, or insulated from it with unfailing care? And what about elements like propellors/shafts/rudder-pintles? (I admit I'm in the dark on electrolysis).

Is the liking for aluminium simply because of its lightness? I'd heard it's a pig to weld.

Dear me, I'm worrying about details...not very dream-like...
 
dancrane said:
Is the liking for aluminium simply because of its lightness?
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Ironically, it's because of its lack of corrosion :)

The grades of aluminium used for boatbuilding don't corrode in seawater, or wet salty air. So you get the strength and leakproofness of a metal boat, without the constant worry of maintaining a protective paint film that you have with steel. Aluminium boats only corrode electrolytically, which is easier to guard against with proper design and materials choices.

Pete
 
Thanks Pete, I believe that on some level, I knew that. But isn't a bare aluminium hull just as vulnerable to fouling? And by the time you've applied a protective layer, mightn't it just as well have been a painted steel hull?

Now, I really AM in dreamland...

...why doesn't somebody like Dupont develop a tough elastic 'body-stocking' for hulls, which doesn't fragment or degrade like paint? The boat-condom. :rolleyes:
 
dancrane said:
Isn't aluminium, especially unpainted aluminium, laughably vulnerable to electrolysis? Don't you have to have an anchor chain made of something even softer than the hull, or insulated from it with unfailing care? And what about elements like propellors/shafts/rudder-pintles? (I admit I'm in the dark on electrolysis).

Is the liking for aluminium simply because of its lightness? I'd heard it's a pig to weld.

Dear me, I'm worrying about details...not very dream-like...
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Ali just turns into a white bubbling powder when it comes into contact with a dissimilar metal. Some type of barrier has to be used in between, not easy and not always effective, especially in a wet/damp environment. You can see the bubbling on masts, around spreader fittings maybe even around rivets (ali rivets but with a steel core sometimes!) You hear people worrying about all the bits/fasteners that fall out of the inside of the mast when it is lifted off.

I wonder when carbon fibre will come down enough in price to use on mainstream boats :D
 
dancrane said:
Thanks Pete, I believe that on some level, I knew that. But isn't a bare aluminium hull just as vulnerable to fouling? And by the time you've applied a protective layer, mightn't it just as well have been a painted steel hull?
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You have to apply antifouling, yes. You don't have to apply anything above the waterline, though some do for aesthetic reasons. The difference compared to steel is that if something scratches your paint, the hull doesn't immediately bleed unsightly rust streaks everywhere and start dissolving.

I wouldn't reject a steel boat, but you have to approach it in the same frame of mind as wood; the maintenance requirements are probably similar (bearing in mind I haven't owned either). Something for living aboard if you don't have to go out to work and can keep on top of the paintwork little and often.

My fantasy world-cruiser design from a couple of years ago had a steel hull and aluminium deck structures, joined by explosive-welded strip. No worry about the ally fizzing away underwater, but all the little dings and scrapes to the paint that are bound to happen on deck don't result in rust bleeds everywhere. There was a hefty semi-sacrificial wooden rubbing strake round the hull (also helped aesthetically to break up highish topsides) to try to minimise scrapes to the hull in port, so that when (not if!) the paint was damaged, it would be due to major bashes that warranted immediate repair.

Pete
 
All interesting thinking, I'd like to see your bi-metallic boat produced. Has anybody built a stainless steel yacht? Or a galvanised yacht? Or how about a solid copper hull? Perhaps that wouldn't last much longer than one painted with a copper-based antifouling...but didn't Nelson's Navy give it a try? :rolleyes:
 
I would like please:

GRP - solid hull and decks. Cream or white hull.
c32ft LOA, c24ft LWL, c10ft beam, C/board: c3ft board up, 6' 6" down
Encapsulated lead ballast. Longish fin and skeg with cut out for prop.
Modest accommodation in the traditional manner, with attractive overhangs fore and aft. Heads and stowage forward.
Low freeboard/windage/coachroof giving 6' headroom in places
Deck stepped mast in tabernacle
Sloop, Masthead rig with biggish genoa. Reefing at the mast.
20hp diesel + cabin heater by Taylors
Bulwarks 3/4in
Double bow roller, electric windlass, 50 mts all chain plus my old Bruce.

I will be happy to take delivery anytime before the 2014 season.
 
Of course, stainless doesn't like being underwater, so I doubt that's been tried.

Copper's probably too soft. I have memories of seeing photos of a cupro-nickel boat - it had weathered to green. Impossible to paint, IIRC. But no antifoul needed.
 
dancrane said:
All interesting thinking, I'd like to see your bi-metallic boat produced.
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I think it's not that uncommon - usually to keep the centre of gravity low if there's a substantial deckhouse. Stavros is built that way - steel hull, aluminium deckhouses. The only piece above the main deck that's steel is the focsle head, and we have to rust-bust, metal-brite, and paint that fairly regularly. Very glad we don't have to do the same to the rest of the upperworks - they get a coat of paint from time to time, but in between can be worn down to the metal in places (for example if a stray line rubs around a corner) without becoming a mass of corrosion.

Pete
 
Keen_Ed said:
Of course, stainless doesn't like being underwater, so I doubt that's been tried.

Copper's probably too soft. I have memories of seeing photos of a cupro-nickel boat - it had weathered to green. Impossible to paint, IIRC. But no antifoul needed.
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Boats have been built in cupro-nickel, and one at least entirely in monel. Aluminium though is both lighter and stiffer: more strength for the same weight or similar strength for less weight. Carbon fibre is a good option, though for a cruising boat you'd want a composite sandwich hull, as on its own a CF shell is renowned as being very noisy. Given that you could build my twin keel twin rudder twin engine "cruisified" Open 50 hull in CF.
 
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