Steelboats

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For once, you are correct. Computers as we know them today did not exist when the designers you mention were designing their classics.


But, unlike you, they were engineers and understood applied loads and structural design. With this understanding and a drawing board and slide rule they were kings of their time.


Will the name Brent Swain ever be heard in a conversation alongside the illustrious names you mention?


I somehow doubt it...…………………………….

Tom Cunliffe had a great article in Sail Magazine recently in which he described the spade rudder with no skeg , as having the highest failure rate of any rudder design. Now the illustrious ,Benteaus ,Hunters etc, etc, all have the "illustrious" " rudder design which has the highest failure rate of any rudder design, which seem to often "illustriously "fall off from time to time. None of the over 3 dozen boats to my design I have built , nor the many dozens more of my boats others have built , have ever had any kind of rudder failure, unlike "Illustrious " rudders . A hurricane at sea, or a pounding swell, pounding a boat on lee shore are unimpressed with "Illustrious ". I'll take a solid , well proven design, over a flimsy, "Illustrious" one, any time.
A friend, sailing on a classic "Illustrious "Cal 48, designed by "illustrious", world famous designers, looked behind, and asked the skipper "What is that blue thing floating back there?" It was their" Illustrious" rudder which had fallen off. Designed by "Illustrious" designers. What impressed me most about that boat was how much it flexed underway ,something none of my boats has shown the slightest sign of ,at any time, in over 40 years of cruising in them.
My first boats was a "Pipe Dream Sloop" designed by Francis Kinney , author of the "Illustrious "book "Skene's Elements of Yacht Design" an"Illustrious "world famous designer .
When I looked at her , a 20 year old , with zero cruising experience, I visualized a rudder on a skeg 6 feet further aft. But I deferred to her "lllustrious "designer , a big mistake . Sailing her singlehanded from BC to New Zealand. I found her an absolute abortion, design wise , with absolutely no directional stability. In New Zealand , I put the skeg hung rudder on, 6 feet further aft, and it was a huge improvement over the next 3,000 miles of S Pacific Cruising. Shoulda done it before leaving BC. Blew my confidence in "Illustrious" world famous designers' ability to make better judgements than I could.
For my next boat, I designed her myself, then I took my drawings to another "IIlustrious" famous designer, who told me that, if I have 4 inch bulwarks on, it would hold a 4 inch layer of water over my entire deck. When the boat is rolling in a sea, or heeled 25 degrees going to windward, with it following uphill, to the bow, along a classic sheer?
"Yes "he said ,completely blowing my confidence in "illustrious" famous designers ability to be rational and logical in design matters.
 
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After closely reading far too many of your drum banging posts BS, the one showing little rationality and logic is you.

Your origami steel boats are purely empirical in design. Nothing wrong with that, they work and have proved durable.

What pisses me off-and quite possibly others-is your inability to see that your way is not the only way and your constant criticism and derogatory remarks about those who cannot, for various reasons, find the time-or often the inclination-to build a steel boat in a field. You criticise dealers, brokers and chandlers where most find that they offer a necessary service to those in the category above.

0n this forum you are preaching to mostly experienced sailors-most far more experienced than I-who are very happy with GRP, note GRP, not your derogatory term plastic, which is user friendly and free of the corrosion problems that everyone but you gets with steel in close proximity to seawater.

My steel Hartley is to be hauled, pressure washed and cradled this weekend. Routine maintenance, anodes, antifoul and checking through-hulls will be done-three days perhaps. I'm getting old-short days.

Grinding the corrosion, treating and repainting and epoxying will take far longer.

If it were GRP, these issues would not be there.

Other issues perhaps-after all its a boat-but not corrosion.

I wonder what other owners of "Pipe dream sloops" think of the standard rudder position?

Perhaps, crossing the Pacific without self steering made it so. Moving the rudder allowed sail trim to keep a bit of a course-like Slocums "Spray". Perhaps you had self steering and moving the rudder made it work better?

If you designed a boat with 4 inch bulwarks without substantial drainage capability, I can see where the second guy was coming from.

But as we are finding out, Brent always knows best...…………………………...
 
As one of the moderators of these forums, I'm interested to know how you quantify 'much better'. How are you measuring or assessing the moderation?

On Facebook , Metal Boat Society, etc , along side each post there are 3 dots. Click on them and you get 2 options . Report is one of them. I click on that, and I get several more options ,including "Hate speech" and "Harassment". I click on one, and if the moderator agrees, the post gets quickly deleted. Posts which have no relevance to the subject of the thread ,but are simply there to insult , jeer and troll the person ,and sabotage the discussion ,are all quickly deleted,On one occasion the moderator found one which was just there to insult me and another designer, with no real design points made, with a stream of insults , the moderator took it on himself to delete it .
Check it out yourself John. Try it. It works . Makes a much more civilized and useful discussion, far less prone to troll sabotage. Hope you can bring the idea here.
 
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After closely reading far too many of your drum banging posts BS, the one showing little rationality and logic is you.

Your origami steel boats are purely empirical in design. Nothing wrong with that, they work and have proved durable.

What pisses me off-and quite possibly others-is your inability to see that your way is not the only way and your constant criticism and derogatory remarks about those who cannot, for various reasons, find the time-or often the inclination-to build a steel boat in a field. You criticise dealers, brokers and chandlers where most find that they offer a necessary service to those in the category above.

0n this forum you are preaching to mostly experienced sailors-most far more experienced than I-who are very happy with GRP, note GRP, not your derogatory term plastic, which is user friendly and free of the corrosion problems that everyone but you gets with steel in close proximity to seawater.

My steel Hartley is to be hauled, pressure washed and cradled this weekend. Routine maintenance, anodes, antifoul and checking through-hulls will be done-three days perhaps. I'm getting old-short days.

Grinding the corrosion, treating and repainting and epoxying will take far longer.

If it were GRP, these issues would not be there.

Other issues perhaps-after all its a boat-but not corrosion.

I wonder what other owners of "Pipe dream sloops" think of the standard rudder position?

Perhaps, crossing the Pacific without self steering made it so. Moving the rudder allowed sail trim to keep a bit of a course-like Slocums "Spray". Perhaps you had self steering and moving the rudder made it work better?

If you designed a boat with 4 inch bulwarks without substantial drainage capability, I can see where the second guy was coming from.

But as we are finding out, Brent always knows best...…………………………...

What do the Brits call plastic boats? GRP ,which stands for "Glass reinforced PLASTIC! "
Get it?
As I have often posted, ( which you never read) they are ideal for what most people use them for.

As you get further afield in the Pacific, the percentage of steel boats goes up drastically especially European boats. Read Jimmy Cornel's book "Modern Ocean Cruising," in which he interviews circumnavigators. 8 out of 10 said they would choose metal for their next boat ,several of whom had already started metal boats, mostly steel.

Perhaps you can explain to us how 4 inch bulwark holds a 4 inch layer of water over an entire deck with the boat heeled 25 degrees , and the sheer being higher in the bow and stern.
The most it can hold is a few liters.
Many of the liveaboard community here once believed that they simply buy a "no maintenance " plastic boat and move aboard.Then they work; a lot, dealing with rotted out balsa cores, leaks everywhere , especially the hull deck joint. They end up doing a lot more work than I do, touching up my paint chips, once a year.
I recently met a guy from the US east coast, who bought a Rhodes designed stock plastic boat , and headed for the West Indies .With all the maintenance he was exhausted . When he got there, he rented a hotel room for three days, then went back to his boat, to find a huge amount of maintenance waiting for him .He sold that boat, assuming there was no shortage of plastic boats for sale. So he wrote down his criteria . No cores of any kind. The number of available boats shrunk drastically . No fig leaf rudders. Rudders on solid skegs only .It shrunk even more. Adequate side decks .It shrink much further. No wood on the outside .That shrunk it drastically. A keel and skeg which could go over a drift net easily. It shrunk even further. By the time he had filled all his criteria, there were very few good boats available.
They do build far better boats on the east side of the Atlantic, than on the west side, l least they used to.

Friends rented a 5 HP compressor and borrowed a sand blasting pot. I found my $20 siphon blaster worked just as good for touch up as the pot.Try that next time, much easier and better than grinding, and it lasts decades , unlike ground surfaces.
My welded in ss sch 40 pipe nipples for thru hulls, with SS ball valves on, have been zero maintenance in 34 years.
If your steel boat is high maintenance , you are doing something wrong. Replacing rust prone spots with stainless can drastically reduce maintenance
My current boat is 34 years old, and in that time I have hauled out only 2 times.
 
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What do the Brits call plastic boats? GRP ,which stands for "Glass reinforced PLASTIC! "
Get it?
As I have often posted, ( which you never read) they are ideal for what most people use them for.
Perhaps you can explain to us how 4 inch bulwark holds a 4 inch layer of water over an entire deck with the boat heeled 25 degrees , and the sheer being higher in the bow and stern.
The most it can hold is a few liters.
Many of the liveaboard community here once believed that they simply buy a "no maintenance " plastic boat and move aboard.Then they work; a lot, dealing with rotted out balsa cores, leaks everywhere , especially the hull deck joint. They end up doing a lot more work than I do, touching up my paint chips, once a year.
I recently met a guy from the US east coast, who bought a Rhodes designed stock plastic boat , and headed for the West Indies .With all the maintenance he was exhausted . When he got there, he rented a hotel room for three days, then went back to his boat, to find a huge amount of maintenance waiting for him .He sold that boat, assuming there was no shortage of plastic boats for sale. So he wrote down his criteria . No cores of any kind. The number of available boats shrunk drastically . No fig leaf rudders. Rudders on solid skegs only .It shrunk even more. Adequate side decks .It shrink much further. No wood on the outside .That shrunk it drastically. A keel and skeg which could go over a drift net easily. It shrunk even further. By the time he had filled all his criteria, there were very few good boats available.
They do build far better boats on the east side of the Atlantic, than on the west side, l least they used to.

Friends rented a 5 HP compressor and borrowed a sand blasting pot. I found my $20 siphon blaster worked just as good for touch up as the pot.Try that next time, much easier and better than grinding, and it lasts decades , unlike ground surfaces.
My welded in ss sch 40 pipe nipples for thru hulls, with SS ball valves on, have been zero maintenance in 34 years.
If your steel boat is high maintenance , you are doing something wrong. Replacing rust prone spots with stainless can drastically reduce maintenance
My current boat is 34 years old, and in that time I have hauled out only 2 times.

Now you read MY post, look, mark and inwardly digest!

I never said GRP was maintenance free, I said it was CORROSION free.

You seem to know lots of people who suffer big problems with GRP boats, never anyone who has good service from one.

Again, in the past you have called owners of GRP vessels " Marina Queens". That is derogatory and patronising to those who undoubtedly do more, or as much sailing as you in their GRP cockleshells. Circumnavigating, crossing oceans, sailing in hazardous areas without issue. It is not only steel that can do that is it?

Over this side of the pond, biggest GRP problem is Osmosis. Funny-never heard you mention that one.

As has been suggested to you in the past, if boats like yours were so bloody good the harbours, moorings and marina's would be awash with them. Sailors would look to get an origami steel boat that only needs hauling twice in 34 years, needs 4 hours per year cosmetic work to keep it looking good and costs little to build.

Well, as you know very well, that is not the case.

I cant really understand why, can you?
 
After closely reading far too many of your drum banging posts BS, the one showing little rationality and logic is you.

Your origami steel boats are purely empirical in design. Nothing wrong with that, they work and have proved durable.

What pisses me off-and quite possibly others-is your inability to see that your way is not the only way and your constant criticism and derogatory remarks about those who cannot, for various reasons, find the time-or often the inclination-to build a steel boat in a field. You criticise dealers, brokers and chandlers where most find that they offer a necessary service to those in the category above.

0n this forum you are preaching to mostly experienced sailors-most far more experienced than I-who are very happy with GRP, note GRP, not your derogatory term plastic, which is user friendly and free of the corrosion problems that everyone but you gets with steel in close proximity to seawater.

My steel Hartley is to be hauled, pressure washed and cradled this weekend. Routine maintenance, anodes, antifoul and checking through-hulls will be done-three days perhaps. I'm getting old-short days.

Grinding the corrosion, treating and repainting and epoxying will take far longer.

If it were GRP, these issues would not be there.

Other issues perhaps-after all its a boat-but not corrosion.

I wonder what other owners of "Pipe dream sloops" think of the standard rudder position?

Perhaps, crossing the Pacific without self steering made it so. Moving the rudder allowed sail trim to keep a bit of a course-like Slocums "Spray". Perhaps you had self steering and moving the rudder made it work better?

If you designed a boat with 4 inch bulwarks without substantial drainage capability, I can see where the second guy was coming from.

But as we are finding out, Brent always knows best...…………………………...

My boat has 4" to 5" bulwarks, with only a couple of deck drains and one right aft. Sure, in heavy going, we get water on the deck, but with a pleasing healthy shear, very little can stay aboard for any time, so where's the problem?
 
On Facebook , Metal Boat Society, etc , along side each post there are 3 dots. Click on them and you get 2 options . Report is one of them. I click on that, and I get several more options ,including "Hate speech" and "Harassment". I click on one, and if the moderator agrees, the post gets quickly deleted. Posts which have no relevance to the subject of the thread ,but are simply there to insult , jeer and troll the person ,and sabotage the discussion ,are all quickly deleted,On one occasion the moderator found one which was just there to insult me and another designer, with no real design points made, with a stream of insults , the moderator took it on himself to delete it .
Check it out yourself John. Try it. It works . Makes a much more civilized and useful discussion, far less prone to troll sabotage. Hope you can bring the idea here.

We have a very similar facility on these forums. There’s a little triangle to the bottom left of each post. If you click on it you can ‘report’ the post for any reason you like. (There a message that says it should only be used for reporting spam, trolling, etc. but people use it for all sorts of reasons. ). Myself and the other mods get a copy of the complaint and a link to the post in our inbox.

I’m trying to work out how I decide between legitimate criticisms and genuine interest but worry about some detail and unwarranted criticism or trolling. How do you think we should decide?
 
We have a very similar facility on these forums. There’s a little triangle to the bottom left of each post. If you click on it you can ‘report’ the post for any reason you like. (There a message that says it should only be used for reporting spam, trolling, etc. but people use it for all sorts of reasons. ). Myself and the other mods get a copy of the complaint and a link to the post in our inbox.

I’m trying to work out how I decide between legitimate criticisms and genuine interest but worry about some detail and unwarranted criticism or trolling. How do you think we should decide?

Relevance to the subject matter is a good test . Substance, relative to the title , rather than personal attack, with no such relevance, is another one. Attacking a person as routine, for the sake of attacking, is another.
Thanks for the info. Wish I had found that much earlier. Its well hidden.

Another problem has popped up. When I am on page 12 and try to go to page 11, a completely new, irrelevant page pops up ,with no indication of how to get to page 11. Makes the site extremely difficult to use.
 
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My boat has 4" to 5" bulwarks, with only a couple of deck drains and one right aft. Sure, in heavy going, we get water on the deck, but with a pleasing healthy shear, very little can stay aboard for any time, so where's the problem?

Their problem is the difference between armchair theory and reality. They prefer to go by the former, then call me "illogical." because reality doesn't conform with with their armchair theory.
 
My boat has 4" to 5" bulwarks, with only a couple of deck drains and one right aft. Sure, in heavy going, we get water on the deck, but with a pleasing healthy shear, very little can stay aboard for any time, so where's the problem?

There is no problem with a boat like that.

My comment was clear:- " without substantial drainage capability ".

With drainage capability and shear, little water would stay aboard.

But BS's post just said he had designed a boat with 4 inch bulwarks and some shear. No mention of deck drainage.

His anecdote re asking a designer and getting the answer he posted may or may not be true.

I certainly don't know, but it seems strange that he would receive such an answer from a good designer or naval architect.

Not that I am suggesting he is line shooting, but he appears evangelistic enough about his origami steel yachts to embellish the facts a little.

IMHO, of course...………………….
 
Another problem has popped up. When I am on page 12 and try to go to page 11, a completely new, irrelevant page pops up ,with no indication of how to get to page 11. Makes the site extremely difficult to use.
I only see two pages in this thread, having set my preferences to display 100 posts per page. It is very much easier to read the forum.
 
Please help the uninitiated. Where do I find "preferences"?

Sorry, not preferences - click "Settings" (top right) then "General Settings" (middle left) then scroll down to near the bottom of the page and change from 10 to 100 posts per page. I think "default" is 10.
Then "Save changes" at the very bottom of the page.
I find it makes the forum much more readable/enjoyable.
 
There is no problem with a boat like that.

My comment was clear:- " without substantial drainage capability ".

With drainage capability and shear, little water would stay aboard.

But BS's post just said he had designed a boat with 4 inch bulwarks and some shear. No mention of deck drainage.

His anecdote re asking a designer and getting the answer he posted may or may not be true.

I certainly don't know, but it seems strange that he would receive such an answer from a good designer or naval architect.

Not that I am suggesting he is line shooting, but he appears evangelistic enough about his origami steel yachts to embellish the facts a little.

IMHO, of course...………………….

When did I ever advocate 4 inch bulwarks with no drainage scuppers? You are putting words in my mouth, because you have nothing else to a disagree with.
And you call ME a liar?
How big does a scupper have to be to deal with 5 litres of water? Are my 2 1/2 inch by 4inch ones , per side, not big enough to deal with 5 litres of water, in your "Precisely "engineered" calculations?
 
Sorry, not preferences - click "Settings" (top right) then "General Settings" (middle left) then scroll down to near the bottom of the page and change from 10 to 100 posts per page. I think "default" is 10.
Then "Save changes" at the very bottom of the page.
I find it makes the forum much more readable/enjoyable.

Thanks. Done that . Seems to have worked. Great!
 
Sorry, not preferences - click "Settings" (top right) then "General Settings" (middle left) then scroll down to near the bottom of the page and change from 10 to 100 posts per page. I think "default" is 10.
Then "Save changes" at the very bottom of the page.
I find it makes the forum much more readable/enjoyable.

At last, something useful to come out of this thread.
 
At last, something useful to come out of this thread.

Do you have a steel boat? Show us some pictures of your steel boat ,and give us a rundown of all the ocean crossings you have made, over how many decades, in your steel boat. Tell us how many dozen of them you have put together with your own hands.
Or are you just another plastic boat owner coming to a steel boat discussion to jeer and taunt about things you know nothing about? Or are you irritated that ANY discussion is not all about plastic boats? Or do you really expect a discussion about steel boats to give you tips on plastic boats?
No, you wont find anything useful on that subject here. That is not what this thread is all about.
Next time ,read the title of a thread before you partake in one, with such dense expectations.
Jeeze!
 
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