Steelboats

[rotrax]

I can see the point you guys are making but it doesn't always ring true, I know of at least one 'brickie' that I'd sooner ask her to design and build me a house than I would a so called 'professional architect' fresh out of university (and even a number of people who profess that they are experienced architects). Experience counts and that's something Brunel knew very well. Brunel had an awful lot of hands on experience, in fact he's a rather poor example of education trumps experience as he took the vocational route not the academic route, civil engineering first and then design later.

Brent often comes across in certain way that does him no favors but think about it for a moment, he's not entirely wrong. Taking Brent's analogy of the aircraft pilot... while I wouldn't necessarily expect the aeroplane designer to be a top class pilot, I expect them to know what flying is like, what pilots seek out when choosing planes, any idiot can design a plane but it takes hands-on experience to design it well and when you're designing things without experience... you end up with transatlantic plane with no toilets and not enough extra fuel capacity to deal with any diversions mid flight (i.e. turbulence). Don't get me wrong I don't think education is worthless, but practical experience should be enhanced by education not replaced by it. Does Brent need an education? Probably. Are his boats terrible? (Probably not) Could they be better? Most likely.

Aside from the rust (because all steel boats are rust buckets, it's a given), i don't recall (last time I was here) that Brent's boats were actually bad as such compared to other steel boats is that the case?

In the case of the Maidenhead Railway Brunel used calculations. The reason so many travelled for days to see it fall into the River Thames was that Brunels peers and other Civil Engineers poo-pooed it and said it would not work.

They were proved wrong.

Brents steel boats are quite nice. We have all agreed that for a long term liveaboard visiting out of the way places where strength and self reliance are required they are ideal. If you look at BS designs for sale they look OK. They dont fetch high prices, few steel boats do. If you look on specific origami boat websites some are a credit to the builders/owners, some are sheds. And it was ever thus with boats!

Conversly, Brent dismisses any other boat building material out of hand and is scornfull and rude about them.

All boats are good.

Some are better than others.

The ones who should judge this are the owners, not a frustrated evangalist for steel boats.

 

[NotBirdseye]

Completely agreed with you. (Except that his boats are nice, I have no idea, I'll do more research; Edit: Can't find one for sale, that's either a good sign or a really bad sign XD).

Then the next question is.... compared to GRP and Wooden boats.... are steel boats sustainable and environmentally friendly? Including steel production, maintenance and end of life.

Edit:
Also, I'll stay away from the plane design analogies! I'm well aware that stuff is complex but I still wouldn't want someone who doesn't fly to be designing a plane I might fly on!

 

[rotrax]

Completely agreed with you. (Except that his boats are nice, I have no idea, I'll do more research; Edit: Can't find one for sale, that's either a good sign or a really bad sign XD).

Then the next question is.... compared to GRP and Wooden boats.... are steel boats sustainable and environmentally friendly? Including steel production, maintenance and end of life.

Edit:
Also, I'll stay away from the plane design analogies! I'm well aware that stuff is complex but I still wouldn't want someone who doesn't fly to be designing a plane I might fly on!

Try googling " Brent Swain steel boats for sale"

You will find some there-I just have anyway.

As steel can be recycled easily that must be a plus.

The way he builds them in a field, using shot blasters in the open with no enviromental controls might not be so enviromentaly friendly, as well as spraying epoxy compounds in the open air.

You would never get away with it commercialy.

But, the boats look OK and are well thought of by the owners.

But then, dont ALL boatowners believe their choice to be the best?

 

[Achosenman]

Edit:
Also, I'll stay away from the plane design analogies! I'm well aware that stuff is complex but I still wouldn't want someone who doesn't fly to be designing a plane I might fly on!

Don't board a Boeing or Airbus then, they were not designed by amateur pilots.

If you think about it, there weren’t any astronauts designing the Eagle back in the day for the Apollo missions either. Did the astronauts have input, sure but designing is the expert remit of the designer, not the driver.

Designers know what questions to ask and who to ask. In aviation that would include test pilots and engineers, backed up by vast amounts of telemetry and computer modelling.

As pilots, we get trained and certified to fly each type. We follow the manufacturers approved procedures to the letter. There is no latitude nor tolerance for “winging” it just because we think we know better.

Contrary to popular myth, we who fly the heavy stuff, are trained and certified on type without ever leaving the ground. ZFT sims have been in use for decades. The first time I flew the B787 for real, I had a full load of passengers and crew and flew to Jamaica on a revenue flight.

IMO cobbling together a floating steel skip does not make you an expert in any real sense of the word and certainly not the last word in naval architecture.

 

[NotBirdseye]

Don't board a Boeing or Airbus then, they were not designed by amateur pilots.

If you think about it, there weren’t any astronauts designing the Eagle back in the day for the Apollo missions either. Did the astronauts have input, sure but designing is the expert remit of the designer, not the driver.

Designers know what questions to ask and who to ask. In aviation that would include test pilots and engineers, backed up by vast amounts of telemetry and computer modelling.

As pilots, we get trained and certified to fly each type. We follow the manufacturers approved procedures to the letter. There is no latitude nor tolerance for “winging” it just because we think we know better.

Contrary to popular myth, we who fly the heavy stuff, are trained and certified on type without ever leaving the ground. ZFT sims have been in use for decades. The first time I flew the B787 for real, I had a full load of passengers and crew and flew to Jamaica on a revenue flight.

IMO cobbling together a floating steel skip does not make you an expert in any real sense of the word and certainly not the last word in naval architecture.

I'm certainly not saying that they shouldn't have a design based education and merely let loose a bunch of amateurs with no experience of that side of things. A brickie (going back to the previous analogy) will eventually (as they develop experience) get more involved with how buildings are built and why. This goes with aeroplane engineers who might become designers later. Most people who design ships have a hobby sailing and I suspect very much is the same for aeroplane engineers.

I'm not going to say Brent is an expert based on the fact that he's built 'one' ship, I'm going to say he's an expert because he's fielded a design that seems to be fetching prices in the circa $60,000 range... at the very least in steel boat yacht building. Not "the" expert of course but an opinion to take note of when it comes to steel boats and honest I'd rather have him design a boat than someone fresh outta university with a degree in naval engineering. (I know the standard of degrees, they're practically worthless).

 

[dom]

A brickie (going back to the previous analogy) will eventually (as they develop experience) get more involved with how buildings are built and why. This goes with aeroplane engineers who might become designers later. Most people who design ships have a hobby sailing and I suspect very much is the same for aeroplane engineers.

I'm not going to say Brent is an expert based on the fact that he's built 'one' ship, I'm going to say he's an expert because he's fielded a design that seems to be fetching prices in the circa $60,000 range... at the very least in steel boat yacht building. Not "the" expert of course but an opinion to take note of when it comes to steel boats and honest I'd rather have him design a boat than someone fresh outta university with a degree in naval engineering. (I know the standard of degrees, they're practically worthless).

I don’t think this argument holds. A brickie will not and cannot be expected to know about environmental surveys, foundation specifications, roof loadings, span calcs, and so on. They just work around the steels, lintels, shapes brick densities, wall widths, etc that the architect/structural engineer specify. Or one might think of a railway bridge. Not that the architects can do the brickwork ...it’s a team.

Unlike loner Brent, where his stability calcs look dangerously suspect, backed up by dubious and unsubstantiated claims of storm survival, being pounded by storms on a lee shore for weeks, impossible passage speeds, and so on. And surprise surprise, his creations have no external safely certs - for the inspectors are all idiots too!

His success or lack of it does however demonstrate the power of the free market

 

[NotBirdseye]

Perhaps it doesn't hold for every brickie who doesn't want to develop themselves, but for those that do it does. That's how Brunel started after all, pretty much by laying bricks his design work came later as a product of his engineering. That's what I think a lot of people are missing, university is practically worthless if you go in straight from school/college unless you have the practical background as a foundation.

I'm not gonna comment on the accuracy his claims, as I have neither the ship building experience nor the qualifications XD. Though I did read about one claim where his ship was doing 34kts and that doesn't sound right!

Do self-built boats tend to have external safety certs? I mean, no one has come out and said that they are unsafe (and give the price that they're selling for, I'd like to think someone has surveyed them at least once).

 

[NormanS]

People have been building boats successfully long before professional designers got involved. Many years ago I bought an old wooden 60' Scottish fishing boat, and converted her into a motor yacht. I contacted her builders, one of the most reputable of the many boat building yards in the Northeast of Scotland, to ask if it would be possible to obtain a copy of her construction plans. I was informed that these boats, some of the most seaworthy boats anywhere in the world, were not built to plans, but entirely by eye and experience. They knew the shape they wanted, and as engine horsepower increased over time, they beefed up the scantlings to suit. They worked on the principle of "If it looks right, it is right". I expect that Brent does something similar.

 

[rotrax]

Perhaps it doesn't hold for every brickie who doesn't want to develop themselves, but for those that do it does. That's how Brunel started after all, pretty much by laying bricks his design work came later as a product of his engineering.

I K Brunel's father was a Civil Engineer and had his son apprenticed to the top Horologist/Clockmaker/ Watchmaker Breguet in Paris.

When I K came back to the UK he was heavily involved with his father building the first ever tunnel under a navigable river at Rotherhithe. A tunnel still in use today. Laying bricks-certainly not.

You dont keep a dog and bark yourself.

He had a prolific imagination outside the then norm and was able in many cases to do what was thought impossible. He did, however, have several failures, his pneumatic railway being one of them.

He was among the first to use modern calculus in his designs, calculating where the forces were acting and what type and size of material was required to safely carry the loads.

As he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society at only 24 years old he was obviously a prodigy, and personal laying of bricks was not involved in his elevation to the leading scientific and engineering society in the world at that time.

He was just the best of his period. He died of a stroke, surely bought on by overwork, at 53 years old.

 

[NotBirdseye]

I'll refrain from metaphors in the future XD.

There's any number of sources out there saying design wasn't his first focus even his apprenticeship under his father wasn't immediately about design. No one is disputing his ability only that without practical experience and experimentation you don't get anywhere.

However, I note that you disagree with the value of Experience compared to the value of Education so lets leave it at that and get back to the subject?

 

[john_morris_uk]

People have been building boats successfully long before professional designers got involved. Many years ago I bought an old wooden 60' Scottish fishing boat, and converted her into a motor yacht. I contacted her builders, one of the most reputable of the many boat building yards in the Northeast of Scotland, to ask if it would be possible to obtain a copy of her construction plans. I was informed that these boats, some of the most seaworthy boats anywhere in the world, were not built to plans, but entirely by eye and experience. They knew the shape they wanted, and as engine horsepower increased over time, they beefed up the scantlings to suit. They worked on the principle of "If it looks right, it is right". I expect that Brent does something similar.

Sorry to rain on your parade but there are several aspects of your argument that don't hold water (if you'll pardon the double entendre.)

Designs that survive are the ones that are mimicked. Over the centuries, many ships/boats foundered at sea. Some nearly foundered and some disappeared. Some hard won design iteration meant that when you started out to build a new boat you built along the lines of the successful ones. Furthermore, wooden boat design is heavily influenced by the material being used. You could no more build a foiling cat or mono (Like Hugo Boss) with traditional wood working methods and fastenings than you could build a space rocket.

This means that the seaworthiness is something that has been developed over many years (sometimes hundreds of years).

However, I surely don't need to remind you that different materials produced different problems and the early days of ship building using iron and steel were fraught with difficulties. These difficulties were overcome by engineers.

It's complete baloney to maintain that one of the pre-requisites of being an engineer is hands on experience. Although one can cite tales of stupidity with novice graduates making silly mistakes, the exceptions don't prove the case.

One thing that Brent continuously prevaricates over is the fact that contemporary boats builders don't build using his designs or techniques. If they were so quick and easy and such a saving in time, boat builders would be flocking to build them. Time is money and boat builders are not stupid or party to some conspiracy (as Brent keeps alluding) to keeping expensive techniques and building materials going. There's no conspiracy of salesmen and boat builders deceiving the boat buying public. If origami and steel were so good, thousands of boats would be being built and thousands of people would be buying them. After all, lots of people buy ocean going vessels but only sail them locally.

The truth is that steel boats built using origami designs are limited in their shape. (Get some card out and start cutting and trying to make different shapes - the end results are VERY limited despite what Brent says.). Steel is a great material for boat building, but it has some severe limitations. In small LOA, a steel boat is disproportionately heavy. In moderate LOA, the weight difference starts to not matter as much, but you've still got to sort out corrosion and insulation.

Brent will claim that corrosion etc is easy to deal with. Whatever he says, it's not as easy to deal with as the non existent corrosion of GRP...

Brent will claim strength, but conveniently forgets that GRP boats can be immensely strong and two or three cases of steel boats bouncing off rocks and reefs and various GRP boats breaking up don't prove anything. Lots of steel boats sink too.

Horses for courses and having sailed across oceans in both steel boats and GRP boats, I can confidently say that I sleep just as easily in both when sailing on a dark night with zero visibility.

 

[NotBirdseye]

Pretty hard to argue with that (although we disagree about the experience and engineering bit, I'll agree to disagree at this point). I think this is about the time where Brent has an opportunity to display the flexibility of designs of origami boats perhaps by posting two extremes.

I see for smaller boats that some people opt for aluminum, which is of course considerably lighter.

When you say immensely strong... which boats are we talking about here?

 

[NormanS]

Sorry to rain on your parade but there are several aspects of your argument that don't hold water (if you'll pardon the double entendre.)

Designs that survive are the ones that are mimicked. Over the centuries, many ships/boats foundered at sea. Some nearly foundered and some disappeared. Some hard won design iteration meant that when you started out to build a new boat you built along the lines of the successful ones. Furthermore, wooden boat design is heavily influenced by the material being used. You could no more build a foiling cat or mono (Like Hugo Boss) with traditional wood working methods and fastenings than you could build a space rocket.

This means that the seaworthiness is something that has been developed over many years (sometimes hundreds of years).

However, I surely don't need to remind you that different materials produced different problems and the early days of ship building using iron and steel were fraught with difficulties. These difficulties were overcome by engineers.

It's complete baloney to maintain that one of the pre-requisites of being an engineer is hands on experience. Although one can cite tales of stupidity with novice graduates making silly mistakes, the exceptions don't prove the case.

One thing that Brent continuously prevaricates over is the fact that contemporary boats builders don't build using his designs or techniques. If they were so quick and easy and such a saving in time, boat builders would be flocking to build them. Time is money and boat builders are not stupid or party to some conspiracy (as Brent keeps alluding) to keeping expensive techniques and building materials going. There's no conspiracy of salesmen and boat builders deceiving the boat buying public. If origami and steel were so good, thousands of boats would be being built and thousands of people would be buying them. After all, lots of people buy ocean going vessels but only sail them locally.

The truth is that steel boats built using origami designs are limited in their shape. (Get some card out and start cutting and trying to make different shapes - the end results are VERY limited despite what Brent says.). Steel is a great material for boat building, but it has some severe limitations. In small LOA, a steel boat is disproportionately heavy. In moderate LOA, the weight difference starts to not matter as much, but you've still got to sort out corrosion and insulation.

Brent will claim that corrosion etc is easy to deal with. Whatever he says, it's not as easy to deal with as the non existent corrosion of GRP...

Brent will claim strength, but conveniently forgets that GRP boats can be immensely strong and two or three cases of steel boats bouncing off rocks and reefs and various GRP boats breaking up don't prove anything. Lots of steel boats sink too.

Horses for courses and having sailed across oceans in both steel boats and GRP boats, I can confidently say that I sleep just as easily in both when sailing on a dark night with zero visibility.

I'm not at all sure why you addressed the above as a reply to my post, to which it seems irrelevant, but if it makes you happy that's OK.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I'm not at all sure why you addressed the above as a reply to my post, to which it seems irrelevant, but if it makes you happy that's OK.

Apologies. The first bit was a reply and then I got carried away!

 

[john_morris_uk]

Pretty hard to argue with that (although we disagree about the experience and engineering bit, I'll agree to disagree at this point). I think this is about the time where Brent has an opportunity to display the flexibility of designs of origami boats perhaps by posting two extremes.

When you say immensely strong... which boats are we talking about here?

There are lots of examples but perhaps we could start with the videos shown earlier in the thread of the GRP boats being sailed into all sorts of objects at hull speed and just bouncing off.

 

[NotBirdseye]

There are lots of examples but perhaps we could start with the videos shown earlier in the thread of the GRP boats being sailed into all sorts of objects at hull speed and just bouncing off.

That's over a 140 pages I gotta go back through! *hoists the sails* I'll be back in six months.

Apologies. The first bit was a reply and then I got carried away!

I know that feeling :redface-new:

 

[rotrax]

I'll refrain from metaphors in the future XD.

There's any number of sources out there saying design wasn't his first focus even his apprenticeship under his father wasn't immediately about design. No one is disputing his ability only that without practical experience and experimentation you don't get anywhere.

However, I note that you disagree with the value of Experience compared to the value of Education so lets leave it at that and get back to the subject?

He was not apprenticed to his father, but to one of the best Horologists the world has ever known.

He worked with his Father on the Thames Tunnel - in fact was almost killed while underground. With his father he developed a shield system subsequent to the accident which allowed safer tunneling.

I often use a truism, in fact have used it here on these pages.

It is that "True knowlege is the product of direct experience".

Brent has direct experience of steel boat building, therefore he has, according to my truism - from Mao's little red book BTW - true knowlege. But it is empirical knowlege of a conservative design built in a strong material.

A proper Engineer/Designer/Architect will have Education and experience in ample measure. He/she will have learned in the classroom, on the job working with qualified people and finally, if any good, on their own. It might be years before this point is reached.

Not, as Brent alludes, just in the classroom without any practical history.

Leading edge stuff, like breaking the sound barrier, space flight and looking back, Brunels stuff, had never been done before.

But, it was a mix of calculation, material choice and testing in all three examples.

And, I suspect, a fair bit of finger crossing!

 

[john_morris_uk]

That's over a 140 pages I gotta go back through! *hoists the sails* I'll be back in six...:

Here you go: https://youtu.be/YIglL5vks4g

 

[rogerthebodger]

A proper Engineer/Designer/Architect will have Education and experience in ample measure. He/she will have learned in the classroom, on the job working with qualified people and finally, if any good, on their own. It might be years before this point is reached.

Not, as Brent alludes, just in the classroom without any practical history.

I 100% agree it the combination of both theory and experience that makes an all rounded Engineering designer.

My B Sc in Mech Eng was holf in classroom and half on various practical assignments in industry.

To become a C Eng you need several years post degree experience and sponsorship/proposal by several C Eng who know your work experience.

 

[NormanS]

Yes, but building a modest, uncomplicated yacht is not rocket science. An understanding of basic mechanics, strength of materials, and being reasonably practical, helps.