Steelboats

[rotrax]

Your suggestion being that, I should have spent my life working for money I don't need, to buy things I don't need ,to impress people I don't like, increasing my environmental impact exponentially, and, doing like so many, preaching against environmental destruction, to be less hippocritical , like you?
Ya sure ! Sounds like more fun that cruising full time!
You should be spending your time on a "Better homes and gardens"site instead of here, where people dream of the cruising life, if you hate the idea of the cruising life so much.

I always got a kick out of programs to junk old cars and replace them with more "environmentally friendly" new ones, to reduce pollution, completely ignoring the pollution involved in building so many new cars.
Once one moves aboard , the reduction in environmental impact, from that point on, adds up to exponentially more than that caused by the building of the boat, including the manufacture of the materials
Many look forward to not needing a car any more, which drastically reduces their environmental foot print even further.
How many cars have you gone thru in a lifetime? How much steel manufacturing did that involve? More than one boat? How much fossil fuel does your lifestyle use in a month? And you call me a hippocrite?
I have never owned a car; never wanted to.
Population? I haven't added a single person to the worlds population ( not that I'm aware of)

My post was NOT any sort of suggestion Brent, it was a factual statement of how I-and no doubt others-see you.

If you truly believed in your lifestyle choice, you would be designing and making wooden boats.

After all, Slocum did it after shipwreck in South America, and Spray sounds like it was almost a new ship.

It is a waste of time dealing with you as you are incapable of seeing any other view or opinion as having any value whatsoever.

As a critic on SA said about you, and you have just proved it for the fifth time " He wears you down with mind numbing repetition! "

He certainly got that bit right.........................................

 

[Mr Cassandra]

My post was NOT any sort of suggestion Brent, it was a factual statement of how I-and no doubt others-see you.

If you truly believed in your lifestyle choice, you would be designing and making wooden boats.

After all, Slocum did it after shipwreck in South America, and Spray sounds like it was almost a new ship.

It is a waste of time dealing with you as you are incapable of seeing any other view or opinion as having any value whatsoever.

As a critic on SA said about you, and you have just proved it for the fifth time " He wears you down with mind numbing repetition! "

He certainly got that bit right.........................................

You keep feeding him

 

[john_morris_uk]

160 miles a day is no raft. 15 days to Hawaii is no raft. 18 days from Hawaii to BC is no raft .

In terms of trying to provide a killer argument, your statements are meaningless nonsense and I'll show you why.

Lots of boats sail 160 miles a day. I've done the thick end of 200 miles in a day in several boats when on ocean passage. So what... It just shows that we were in reasonable sailing conditions in reasonably well found boats with reasonable rags and a half decent crew.

I know of at least two Sigma 33's who have sailed across the Atlantic in 14 days. Doesn't prove a thing. (By most people's reckoning Sigma 33's are delightful boats to sail that are well mannered and reasonably quick for a 32'6 boat. I'd certainly race one against a 36' BS design and put heavy money on winning easily...)

You keep quoting 350,000 miles of mainly trouble free cruising. (Sometimes you say trouble free and sometimes you say 'mainly trouble free or words to that effect so I'm not sure which is true?) I suggest that composite boats have accrued MILLIONS of miles mostly trouble free. So what? Neither statement proves anything, as has been pointed out before, but you keep coming back to old tired and disproven arguments.

Might I humbly suggest that the major problem is your inability to see any point of view except your own. Yachts are ALWAYS a compromise and building them from steel forces several compromises on the end product. Add the origami design and that forces shape constraints on the end product as well. Steel can be a good choice, but it's not a panacea. People make other legitimate choices to sail composite boats and contrary to your opinion, they're not stupid or insane to go to sea in them.

 

[Brent Swain]

My post was NOT any sort of suggestion Brent, it was a factual statement of how I-and no doubt others-see you.

If you truly believed in your lifestyle choice, you would be designing and making wooden boats.

After all, Slocum did it after shipwreck in South America, and Spray sounds like it was almost a new ship.

It is a waste of time dealing with you as you are incapable of seeing any other view or opinion as having any value whatsoever.

As a critic on SA said about you, and you have just proved it for the fifth time " He wears you down with mind numbing repetition! "

He certainly got that bit right.........................................

It is my critics, who keep repeating the same questions and accusations, with mind numbing repetition , to which the answers don't change. Einstien said the definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment, over and over ,hoping for a different result, the way they keep expecting different answers to their same questions and accusations.

You remind me of the first origami boat I built, in a shop where a British, highly qualified wooden boat builder was building himself a 30 foot Harrison Bulter design in wood. He had been about a year on the project, and was just beginning to plank the frame work .
It took me 21 days to tack together the hull, decks, twin keels, rudder, skeg, cabin ,cockpit, bow roller, handrails, lifelines hatches, mooring bits , cleats ,in effect, all the steel work on the boat I was building . In that time, he got a bit more planking done .None of my clients could afford to pay for as many man hours it would take to do what he was doing, the antithesis of the lifestyle I am trying to help people live . Those who do things that way, seem far older than the 23 year old I was, heading for the south seas in my first boat.
He eventually finished his wooden boat. Then, he spoke to me about building him a steel one, as he since had kids to worry about the safety of.
While teaching in his wooden boat building school, he invited me to talk to his wooden boat building class. I sold every one of the big pile of books I brought ,very quickly, to his students.
He eventually sailed his wooden boat to New Zealand, where, unsure of her ability to take the pounding for the return trip, he shipped her home to BC on a freighter . When wood was the only option, crossing oceans in a small boat, was considered a daredevil stunt, worth writing a book about. Many did , about a single crossing.
No, I have never had any interest in burdening people with the huge expense ,and risks of a wooden boat. That is the antithesis of simple, affordable , practical cruising .
As with all my critics , what you advocate amounts to putting disinformation road blocks in front of any aspiring cruisers on a low income ,designed to hinder their ability to escape the treadmill early ,and maximize their cruising time in far greater safety .

All my critics advocate seeking out far more complex , expensive and less reliable ways of doing things ,and attack and ridicule any suggestion of less expensive, simpler, and proven over decades, and hundreds of thousands of miles of well proven reliability. Those who sell them far more complex and less reliable gear, have a big financial stake in keeping people in marinas, paying for their junk .
They outnumber me, by a wide margin .I expect they, and those who try to justify such screwups on their own part ,make up the bulk of my critics, definitly not a good source of advice, for anyone aspiring to go cruising, far more safely , on a limited budget.

 

[Brent Swain]

Like I keep saying, if a Brent Swain steel boat is so good-and can run off 160 nm days-why have we not all got one?

Because I have never felt like building more than one or two a year.
Once built 5 in one year . Was bagged out . Never again. Friends I trained, built even more that year.
Why don't more adopt my methods?
They would rather enviously attack, than emulate, especially when they cant claim credit for the ideas.
"An Expert is someone who opposes new ideas , as, when new ideas are accepted, they stop being experts."
Harry Trueman!
For someone who has spent a lifetime doing things one way, my methods make what he has learned, irrelevant. Of course he will defensively oppose, attack and ridicule them , for undermining his 'Expertise!"
I keep telling envious people;
"Don't envy ,emulate!"

 

[Brent Swain]

Your reply shows clearly the limitations and shallowness of your intellect.....

Just blindly parroting what everyone else does and thinks, as you advocate , doesn't amount to
"Intellect!"

 

[Brent Swain]

I had a steel hull and deck built which I fitted out.Fairly inexpensive way to get afloat but the hull. And deck are only 25% of the whole thing still if non yacht type materials used in interior fit out and. A keen eye kept on boat jumbles a proper seaworthy boat can be got float.Fertan was an initial error and so where built in tanks.Interior treated with car underbody stuff that worked and interior rust was not a problem.Decide what standard you want to achieve the less yacht finish the cheaper and quicker.Sold the boat and it’s still going 30 yeRs on.

"Yacht type" materials usually mean teak ,giving you a cave like interior,or a deck on which you cant see what's going on under the teak, until it becomes a major problem , as with any other wood on the outside of a boat .
"Yacht type" usually means a drastic reduction in practicality and function, at a far greater cost.
"Industrial" is far better for a long term cruising boat.

 

[Brent Swain]

Exactly the conclusion that I have come to.

I get a tiny bit anxious sometimes about the wide eyed wannabes who have dreams being sold down the river. I'm all for dreams and encouraging sailing away on the cheap, but I worry about some who shouldn't be taken in by anything approaching charlatanesqueness. (Good word huh?)

A much higher percentage of brentboats make it to Southern climes, or almost full time cruising, with their original owners, than almost all other types of boats.

 

[NotBirdseye]

Oh for the... give it a rest Brent, you're not helping. Let some other advocate of Steel Boats take up the mantel... I assume there are others...?

Some of us are relatively interested, but your anecdotal evidence/my boats are best/I did this that the other and oh look how much I got paid... just makes you look like a twit who hasn't gotten the first clue about anything (I'm starting to think you don't actually build boats, you're just making it up). Like that younger brother who wants to be in the in-crowd. Present the facts, let us make up our own minds, if needs must then provide counter evidence... preferably in Vancouver format with an ISBN number.

 

[NotBirdseye]

A much higher percentage of brentboats make it to Southern climes, or almost full time cruising, with their original owners, than almost all other types of boats.

Do you have any evidence whatsoever to back up this wild claim?

 

[rotrax]

Of course he has no evidence. He never has.

Lets examine his statement.

Where are Southern Cimes? For a Kiwi, probably Antartica. For a Brit, the Med or Caribbean. For a wuss Brit, Cherbourg might be far enough. For a BC'er, the Pacific Coast of Mexico or further down to the Pacific Islands.

Well Brent, just to put your tall stories into perspective, Jean Socrates is still plugging on around once more on her third circumnavigation. She is well into her seventies, so no chicken.

And she is sailing a GRP boat, of which she is the original owner. Whatever that fact brings to the debate-it is of supreme indifference in my mind.

What is " Almost full time cruising? "

I was almost a motorcycling World Champion once. Its just that some other guys were faster, had more reliable bikes and attended ALL the races when I could not get the time off work. But in my mind, I was ALMOST a World Champion. Like Brents statement, total fantasy.

We find a lot of that on his posts..........................

 

[rotrax]

It is my critics, who keep repeating the same questions and accusations, with mind numbing repetition , to which the answers don't change. Einstien said the definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment, over and over ,hoping for a different result, the way they keep expecting different answers to their same questions and accusations.

You remind me of the first origami boat I built, in a shop where a British, highly qualified wooden boat builder was building himself a 30 foot Harrison Bulter design in wood. He had been about a year on the project, and was just beginning to plank the frame work .
It took me 21 days to tack together the hull, decks, twin keels, rudder, skeg, cabin ,cockpit, bow roller, handrails, lifelines hatches, mooring bits , cleats ,in effect, all the steel work on the boat I was building . In that time, he got a bit more planking done .None of my clients could afford to pay for as many man hours it would take to do what he was doing, the antithesis of the lifestyle I am trying to help people live . Those who do things that way, seem far older than the 23 year old I was, heading for the south seas in my first boat.
He eventually finished his wooden boat. Then, he spoke to me about building him a steel one, as he since had kids to worry about the safety of.
While teaching in his wooden boat building school, he invited me to talk to his wooden boat building class. I sold every one of the big pile of books I brought ,very quickly, to his students.
He eventually sailed his wooden boat to New Zealand, where, unsure of her ability to take the pounding for the return trip, he shipped her home to BC on a freighter . When wood was the only option, crossing oceans in a small boat, was considered a daredevil stunt, worth writing a book about. Many did , about a single crossing.
No, I have never had any interest in burdening people with the huge expense ,and risks of a wooden boat. That is the antithesis of simple, affordable , practical cruising .
As with all my critics , what you advocate amounts to putting disinformation road blocks in front of any aspiring cruisers on a low income ,designed to hinder their ability to escape the treadmill early ,and maximize their cruising time in far greater safety .

All my critics advocate seeking out far more complex , expensive and less reliable ways of doing things ,and attack and ridicule any suggestion of less expensive, simpler, and proven over decades, and hundreds of thousands of miles of well proven reliability. Those who sell them far more complex and less reliable gear, have a big financial stake in keeping people in marinas, paying for their junk .
They outnumber me, by a wide margin .I expect they, and those who try to justify such screwups on their own part ,make up the bulk of my critics, definitly not a good source of advice, for anyone aspiring to go cruising, far more safely , on a limited budget.

Again total anecdotal bolleux.

The last training I did was in 2008 aboard a Brixham Trawler, Golden Vanity. She was 100 years old that year, so now in her 111th year.

She is made from wood Brent, and is in daily use within the Trinity Sailing Trust.

Lively Lady, Alec Rose's famous boat is still in use, as is Knox Johnson's Suhali and Chichester's Gypsy Moth. All wood, all made remarkable voyages and all still in use.

The point I made was to highlight your hipocrisy-you spout on about your meagre enviromental footprint but then bugger it up building steel boats, using loads of energy, when you are surounded by timber.

As I said-and you have not disputed it-if you truly believed in your lifestyle choice, you would build boats in timber.

I suspect, you dont have the skills.

After all, just about any plonker can cut and pigeon shit weld steel.

 

[NotBirdseye]

Again total anecdotal bolleux.

The last training I did was in 2008 aboard a Brixham Trawler, Golden Vanity. She was 100 years old that year, so now in her 111th year.

She is made from wood Brent, and is in daily use within the Trinity Sailing Trust.

Lively Lady, Alec Rose's famous boat is still in use, as is Knox Johnson's Suhali and Chichester's Gypsy Moth. All wood, all made remarkable voyages and all still in use.

The point I made was to highlight your hipocrisy-you spout on about your meagre enviromental footprint but then bugger it up building steel boats, using loads of energy, when you are surounded by timber.

As I said-and you have not disputed it-if you truly believed in your lifestyle choice, you would build boats in timber.

I suspect, you dont have the skills.

After all, just about any plonker can cut and pigeon shit weld steel.

Provided it's all salvaged equipment and no 'new' steel is used. The environmental footprint is technically lower as far as the steel itself goes, because you're extending its life. That doesn't get around the several layers of paints filled with various toxic chemicals to stave off the rusting, probably a galvanization process. But I can't find any evidence that backs up his claims that properly built steel boats take any less time than properly built wooden boats to build either. I mean, some people like to take care and time with the build process so it takes longer and some like to work at their own pace. Timber isn't always environmentally friendly nor sustainable either, so make sure to check where the wood is sourced from.

To be fair, I'm still looking for the evidence one way or the other.

 

[rotrax]

Provided it's all salvaged equipment and no 'new' steel is used. The environmental footprint is technically lower as far as the steel itself goes, because you're extending its life. That doesn't get around the several layers of paints filled with various toxic chemicals to stave off the rusting, probably a galvanization process. But I can't find any evidence that backs up his claims that properly built steel boats take any less time than properly built wooden boats to build either. I mean, some people like to take care and time with the build process so it takes longer and some like to work at their own pace. Timber isn't always environmentally friendly nor sustainable either, so make sure to check where the wood is sourced from.

To be fair, I'm still looking for the evidence one way or the other.

But BS uses zinc coated new steel.

So, someone had to make it in the first place.

 

[NormanS]

Why don't you guys just agree to disagree? It's all become depressingly repetitive, boring, and childish.:sleeping:

 

[Mister E]

Why don't you guys just agree to disagree? It's all become depressingly repetitive, boring, and childish.:sleeping:

Because bs is doing his sales bit, he needs to fly to Mexico again, to get the rest of his teeth fixed.
So he is doing his best salesman bit to sell another set of plans to afford the flight.
Hence to fantastic stories.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Because I have never felt like building more than one or two a year.
Once built 5 in one year . Was bagged out . Never again. Friends I trained, built even more that year.
Why don't more adopt my methods?
They would rather enviously attack, than emulate, especially when they cant claim credit for the ideas.
"An Expert is someone who opposes new ideas , as, when new ideas are accepted, they stop being experts."
Harry Trueman!
For someone who has spent a lifetime doing things one way, my methods make what he has learned, irrelevant. Of course he will defensively oppose, attack and ridicule them , for undermining his 'Expertise!"
I keep telling envious people;
"Don't envy ,emulate!"

I'm afraid that boat builders and designers are rather more savvy than you give them credit for. A boat builder pays people to work and if they could get away with paying fewer people and building boats faster that were as good as you claim, then they would be buying your plans and building them. There's no grand conspiracy among boat builders and the yachting industry. It's dog eat dog in many ways and if someone thought that could turn a penny making origami boats out of steel and then selling them, then they would be building them. To suggest otherwise is delusional.

A much higher percentage of brentboats make it to Southern climes, or almost full time cruising, with their original owners, than almost all other types of boats.

First of all, you are trying to shift the argument. I pointed out that composite boats sail millions of miles compared to the 350,000 miles that you claim as 'mostly trouble free sailing' for your designs and builds and self builds. It's a fact and shows your so called argument for what it is - a nonsense and of very little value. I have no idea whether more BS origami boats sail oceans than composite boats. You may well be right, but again it 'proves' nothing. You're selling to a niche clientele who have a stated aim of sailing across oceans. By your own admission, people don't build BS origami designs to sit in marinas. You sell them as the last answer in ocean cruising on a shoestring and if you could somehow show that more steel origami boats sail across oceans (proportionately) than composite boats, all it would show is that most people who buy boats don't sail across oceans and more people who build steel origami boats do. The '350,00 mainly trouble free sailing' doesn't actually prove that your designs are safe. GZ curves and stability data (without the false figures produced by sealed steel masts!) might give some ides of what is what. A critical look at all aspects of your design might help too. Some polar diagrams of predicted boat speed and VMG vs wind angle would be interesting, but I doubt they exist.

And please don't start harping on and quoting 'fast passages' that have been made. I quoted a couple to you from Sigma 33's sailing across the Atlantic and admitted immediately that they mean diddly squat.

Your claim that there is a conspiracy by boat builders and the yachting industry and 'yacht sailsmen and women' against your designs is more about your self justification as to why everyone can't see your point of view.

 

[NormanS]

I rest my case.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I rest my case.

I wish Brent would rest his.

 

[Brent Swain]

Oh for the... give it a rest Brent, you're not helping. Let some other advocate of Steel Boats take up the mantel... I assume there are others...?

Some of us are relatively interested, but your anecdotal evidence/my boats are best/I did this that the other and oh look how much I got paid... just makes you look like a twit who hasn't gotten the first clue about anything (I'm starting to think you don't actually build boats, you're just making it up). Like that younger brother who wants to be in the in-crowd. Present the facts, let us make up our own minds, if needs must then provide counter evidence... preferably in Vancouver format with an ISBN number.

Search Silas Crosby and Tagish. I built both of them ,as their owners confirmed. Search Origamiboats yahoo groups then Home origamiboats.
I have put together over 3 dozen of them, some with little detail, some all metal detail.
Your suggestion is that someone who has been cruising in, living aboard, crossing oceans in, and maintaining steel boats for over 40 years , doesn't have a clue, compared to critics who have done little, if any of the above. Your suggestion is that, when a boat survives all the torture tests I have listed, and cruised over 350,000 miles , over more than 40 years ,with no serious structural problems, that doesn't count, as it is only "anecdote",( which is solid proof of strength and reliability? !)
So what does count? Numbers on paper ? Which have been disproven over the above track record of undeniable proof? That is like saying, math can predict tomorrows weather more accurately than yesterdays weather record.
Ya sure!

If there are others with over 40 years of steel boat designing, building, living aboard , maintaining and crossing oceans in small steel boats, they have designed and built themselves, who semi retired in their 20's, I would welcome them here.
How many of these "Others" are there?
My book has no ISBN number, an expensive and bureaucratic process I no point in. Alex's video shows the building process, as does my book. No Trade secrets kept .
You are in Vancouver? There are not any left there, they have all gone cruising. However, if you go to Nanaimo, you will see one 36 at the yacht club, last I heard, then at Newcastle Marina. Silas Cosby was in Ladysmith, last I heard. Comox has several in the harbour, then one more on second avenue in Courtenay. Several in Genoa Bay last I heard . 2 more in Lund . At least a half dozen cruising the west coast of Mexico. Search the article 'When Kim Rowed Over", in Sail Magazine a while back.