Steelboats

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Achosenman said:
He is not just a zealot. Considering his history, life choices and how he conducts himself, one with Asperger's.
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The suggestion being that "Sane" is living most of ones life in debt, being told what to do 8 or more hours a day 5 days a week ,with 2 days a week to recover, for 3 weeks or less vacation a year, to pay for things you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress people you don't like.
I think your definition of "Sane" is totally bass ackwards .
 
"Sailing Anarchy" is the site where "ultra conformist" sailors attacked and banned me, and deleted all my posts, for thinking outside the box, and not being "conformist" enough. I was the only real "sailing anarchist" on that site.
"Sailing conformity" would be a more accurate title for that site, as it would for all other sites which have banned me.
ZERO progress is ever achieved by ultra conformists.
One once told me that invention is dead , as everything there is to invent, has already been invented.

That was in 1968!
 
Brent Swain said:
"Sailing Anarchy" is the site where "ultra conformist" sailors attacked and banned me, and deleted all my posts, for thinking outside the box, and not being "conformist" enough. I was the only real "sailing anarchist" on that site.
"Sailing conformity" would be a more accurate title for that site, as it would for all other sites which have banned me.
ZERO progress is ever achieved by ultra conformists.
One once told me that invention is dead , as everything there is to invent, has already been invented.

That was in 1968!
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Once again, you are putting your spin on events Brent. I read some of the stuff on SA and you were attacking loads of people who disagreed with you, many of them with well supported arguments. Getting banned from there takes some doing and it wasn't for thinking 'outside the box' or being nonconformist. Do you really want to drag all that stuff up on here? It would be very foolish.
 
DownWest said:
Once again, you are putting your spin on events Brent. I read some of the stuff on SA and you were attacking loads of people who disagreed with you, many of them with well supported arguments. Getting banned from there takes some doing and it wasn't for thinking 'outside the box' or being nonconformist. Do you really want to drag all that stuff up on here? It would be very foolish.
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Brent doesn't like it when people point out he's made ridiculous and fantastic claims. When seriously challenged he starts to ask questions like 'Were you there?' or 'Show me the pictures'.

Most difficult and awkward questions he just ignores.

I very much regret his attitude as he has occasionally got some interesting things to say. The main failing of his (for me) is that he completely fails to have any sort of sense of perspective over issues.

Hull design: 'My way is brilliant and the best' (If it was that good way don't lots of other people do it that way - the answer is that origami can only produce a limited range of hull shapes'

'So what' he will say, 'The hull shapes are perfect for the sort of cruising that we all ought to be doing.' (No they're not - and other hull shapes might be better...)

You don't need a liferaft as one of my steel boats is extremely likely to let you down and sink. (A silly argument as any boat can sink and better people than BS have decreed that life rafts are quite a good idea when you cross Oceans etc)

You can put a fire out by closing the hatches and retiring on deck and waiting. (Of course you can in theory, but any cruising boat worth its salt has got lots of ventilation and it's very hard to close off all sources of air in a hurry. Besides which, any fire that's really got hold and that eventually goes out by you retreating on deck and closing the hatches etc leaves you sitting on the deck of a burned out hulk. I'd rather invest in some proper fire alarms and suppression systems and some serious fire extinguishers. )

GRP is really weak and will hole easily and your boat will sink. GRP might not have the strength of a bit of steel plate, but to suggest it's weak and will hole easily flies in the face of all the evidence and the experience of thousands of sailors. (Brent explains the thousands of sailors, by suggesting that they are all gullible and have been taken in by the mass marketing hype of the GRP boat manufacturers.) Furthermore, Brent has been shown videos of GRP hulls hitting rocks and semi-submerged metal structures all at full hull speed, but counters this with the two or three incidents he knows where a GRP boat has been lost at sea following collision etc. The argument is futile. He also claims there are 'many' boats and crews lost at sea or drowned and ignores the fact that this simply isn't true. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest that hundreds of GRP boats are lost at sea.

I could go on, but I will wait for Brent to start trotting out the same old tired and worn out claims to try and support his fixation with all things steel.

"If only you did it my way, you wouldn't have the problems you've had..." The fact that others haven't had any problems whilst others have had problems with steel boats is just an annoying aside in the unrealistic zeal of BS.
 
DownWest said:
Once again, you are putting your spin on events Brent. I read some of the stuff on SA and you were attacking loads of people who disagreed with you, many of them with well supported arguments. Getting banned from there takes some doing and it wasn't for thinking 'outside the box' or being nonconformist. Do you really want to drag all that stuff up on here? It would be very foolish.
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Attacking their ultra conmformist ideas, which are fair game in any debate.. They atacked me for not being conformist enough ,on a site called Sailing Anarchy , where true sailing anarchy is forbidden, piled on and attacked by advocates of ultra conformity, who, it appears , never came up with an original innovative idea in ther lives. Sailing Conformity would be a more accurate name for that forum. Their constant message was "Don't ask questions, dont try anything different, just do what everyone else does" and just pay whatever they ask for," a message which gets constantly repeated here.

Suns out,warming up nicely here, a great time of year to be cruising here. Anchorages which are crowded in summer (by BC standards)are empty.
No, I would not rather be doing as almost everyone else does , and working in the city. That is where their advice would have got me, for most of a lifetime.
 
Brent Swain said:
Attacking their ultra conmformist ideas, which are fair game in any debate.. They atacked me for not being conformist enough ,on a site called Sailing Anarchy , where true sailing anarchy is forbidden, piled on and attacked by advocates of ultra conformity, who, it appears , never came up with an original innovative idea in ther lives. Sailing Conformity would be a more accurate name for that forum. Their constant message was "Don't ask questions, dont try anything different, just do what everyone else does" and just pay whatever they ask for," a message which gets constantly repeated here.

Suns out,warming up nicely here, a great time of year to be cruising here. Anchorages which are crowded in summer (by BC standards)are empty.
No, I would not rather be doing as almost everyone else does , and working in the city. That is where their advice would have got me, for most of a lifetime.
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When getting banned from Sailing Anarchy you should've asked for it to be certified in writing. A few years later it would've been a collector's item and you could've auctioned it on eBay.
 
john_morris_uk said:
Brent doesn't like it when people point out he's made ridiculous and fantastic claims. When seriously challenged he starts to ask questions like 'Were you there?' or 'Show me the pictures'.

Most difficult and awkward questions he just ignores.

I very much regret his attitude as he has occasionally got some interesting things to say. The main failing of his (for me) is that he completely fails to have any sort of sense of perspective over issues.

Hull design: 'My way is brilliant and the best' (If it was that good way don't lots of other people do it that way - the answer is that origami can only produce a limited range of hull shapes'
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You can take the patterns off any hard chine hull, and put it together origami style, and end up with the same shape. Thus, any hard chine hull shape can be built by origami methods. Radiusing the chine has been done on several of my designs, no problem. Less than a weeks extra work.
Seems like you have been readng Kasten's lies again. Me too. I just read the one about origami taking a lot of trialand errer to get the patterns exactly right. Bull ! You can take them off the lines drawing ,or off a model , or off an existiung hull.
Kasten's problem, and that of others, is a complete inability to comprehend very basic geometry.
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'So what' he will say, 'The hull shapes are perfect for the sort of cruising that we all ought to be doing.' (No they're not - and other hull shapes might be better...)
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In what way? Better than a 36, heavily loaded, doing 160 miles a day to windward? Better than 18 days from Hawaii to BC.
Beter than a heavily loaded 31 twin keeler doing 23 days from Hawaii to BC; twice?
How much beter? Enough to increase the building times and cost ten fold?
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You don't need a liferaft as one of my steel boats is extremely likely to let you down and sink. (A silly argument as any boat can sink and better people than BS have decreed that life rafts are quite a good idea when you cross Oceans etc)
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Yes, and Inoticed that peopel who absorb costs like that without question, dont get out cruising untl lthey are much, much older.
And they go in plastic boats, where a liferaft becomes neccesary, because it has drasticaly reduced hull strength and toughness.
You say they are safer in a hull which will probably sink if it hits something hard in the night, with a liferaft, than go in a hull which wont, without a liferaft?
No logic there.
Many Fastnet tragedies happened because they had a liferaft to get into. The abandoned boats were found still floating, later.
You have absolutly no idea of the toughness of a good steel hull. I find far greater security in it, than in having a fragie hull with a ruber ducky to climb in to.
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You can put a fire out by closing the hatches and retiring on deck and waiting. (Of course you can in theory, but any cruising boat worth its salt has got lots of ventilation and it's very hard to close off all sources of air in a hurry. Besides which, any fire that's really got hold and that eventually goes out by you retreating on deck and closing the hatches etc leaves you sitting on the deck of a burned out hulk. I'd rather invest in some proper fire alarms and suppression systems and some serious fire extinguishers. )
I have plenty of fire extinguishers.
My 31 has 4 -6 vents, 2 -4 inch vents, an 18x18 inch fore hatch and a 21 inch by 36 inch main hatch. You say that is too litle ventilation for a 31 footer? How many have more than that?. Takes me about a minute to close them all . Then fire can't burn with out air ,as some here have suggested.
With the air shut off , the fire in my boat went out after burning about 1 sq ft of foam. Not exactly a "burned out hulk"! Another, with an oil stove overflowing and burning, burned about 3 sq ft before going out , not eaxactly a "Burned out hulk!"

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GRP is really weak and will hole easily and your boat will sink. GRP might not have the strength of a bit of steel plate, but to suggest it's weak and will hole easily flies in the face of all the evidence and the experience of thousands of sailors. (Brent explains the thousands of sailors, by suggesting that they are all gullible and have been taken in by the mass marketing hype of the GRP boat manufacturers.) Furthermore, Brent has been shown videos of GRP hulls hitting rocks and semi-submerged metal structures all at full hull speed, but counters this with the two or three incidents he knows where a GRP boat has been lost at sea following collision etc. The argument is futile. He also claims there are 'many' boats and crews lost at sea or drowned and ignores the fact that this simply isn't true. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest that hundreds of GRP boats are lost at sea.
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Lots of missing reports on some sites.
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I could go on, but I will wait for Brent to start trotting out the same old tired and worn out claims to try and support his fixation with all things steel.

"If only you did it my way, you wouldn't have the problems you've had..." The fact that others haven't had any problems whilst others have had problems with steel boats is just an annoying aside in the unrealistic zeal of BS.
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So much for your latest straw man arguements!
 
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Perhaps Brent can give some links to some of these sites with ‘lots of reports of boats missing’ ?

There’re nothing straw man about my arguments. Just plain facts that you try to counter with strange and weird and outlandish claims. Eg I can close down my boat in less than a minute. Let me put it politely: I don’t believe you. I think it will take you much longer to hermetically seal your boat. In addition to this, many boat vents have to be closed from the inside...! Are yours some strange design. How are you stopping up dorades?
 
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I said I was done here. I lied-THIS is my final post on this thread. I posted this piece from SA on post #863.:-

rotrax said:
Brent Swain is a populist type boat designer who appears actually to spend time on a functioning boat, which should gain him some admiration here. He lives cheaply, bodging together scrap metal gear and prefers age tested plywood he finds drifting , since its stronger than new which might delaminate. A post apocolypse type mad max boatbuilder who is unsure why a world still enjoying civilisation does'nt prefer his boats to those designed and built by skilled shipwrights.
His fatal flaws are mind numbing repetition and inability to see the merit of other views and crafts.
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He was called on SA, for apparent good reason, the following :-

" You Sir, are a "see you next tuesday" of epic proportions! "
 
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john_morris_uk said:
Perhaps Brent can give some links to some of these sites with ‘lots of reports of boats missing’ ?

There’re nothing straw man about my arguments. Just plain facts that you try to counter with strange and weird and outlandish claims. Eg I can close down my boat in less than a minute. Let me put it politely: I don’t believe you. I think it will take you much longer to hermetically seal your boat. In addition to this, many boat vents have to be closed from the inside...! Are yours some strange design. How are you stopping up dorades?
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Commercial work boats are required to have closing covers for all openings, closed from outside. Why? To stifle fires. It seems that the Maritime Authorities don't agree with you.
 
O
NormanS said:
Commercial work boats are required to have closing covers for all openings, closed from outside. Why? To stifle fires. It seems that the Maritime Authorities don't agree with you.
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For machinery spaces certainly. (I work on commercial vessels sometimes). I’m trying to remember if it covers all openings.

However it’s besides the point as I question whether Brent’s homemade efforts include closing vents (from the outside) for all openings. It certainly doesn’t apply to the average yacht.
 
NormanS said:
Commercial work boats are required to have closing covers for all openings, closed from outside. Why? To stifle fires. It seems that the Maritime Authorities don't agree with you.
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Are you sure? What is required, is that the engine/certain-machinery spaces can be shut down so that the fire extinguishing medium is contained; also that the compartment borders possess suitable fire ratings to retain the fire for a set period within which escape can be made if necessary.

Total fire sealing is tricky in that fans must auto stop, etc., but even then exhaust pipes and breath pipes must also be suitably fire rated to resist for a specified time.

Which takes us to the LRs and other prescribed SOLAS gear Brent so derides.

Besides, would anybody seriously claim that Brent’s contraptions could get anywhere close to compliance with say the MCA Workboat Code?
 
john_morris_uk said:
Brent doesn't like it when people point out he's made ridiculous and fantastic claims. When seriously challenged he starts to ask questions like 'Were you there?' or 'Show me the pictures'.

Most difficult and awkward questions he just ignores.

I very much regret his attitude as he has occasionally got some interesting things to say. The main failing of his (for me) is that he completely fails to have any sort of sense of perspective over issues.

Hull design: 'My way is brilliant and the best' (If it was that good way don't lots of other people do it that way - the answer is that origami can only produce a limited range of hull shapes'

'So what' he will say, 'The hull shapes are perfect for the sort of cruising that we all ought to be doing.' (No they're not - and other hull shapes might be better...)

You don't need a liferaft as one of my steel boats is extremely likely to let you down and sink. (A silly argument as any boat can sink and better people than BS have decreed that life rafts are quite a good idea when you cross Oceans etc)

You can put a fire out by closing the hatches and retiring on deck and waiting. (Of course you can in theory, but any cruising boat worth its salt has got lots of ventilation and it's very hard to close off all sources of air in a hurry. Besides which, any fire that's really got hold and that eventually goes out by you retreating on deck and closing the hatches etc leaves you sitting on the deck of a burned out hulk. I'd rather invest in some proper fire alarms and suppression systems and some serious fire extinguishers. )

GRP is really weak and will hole easily and your boat will sink. GRP might not have the strength of a bit of steel plate, but to suggest it's weak and will hole easily flies in the face of all the evidence and the experience of thousands of sailors. (Brent explains the thousands of sailors, by suggesting that they are all gullible and have been taken in by the mass marketing hype of the GRP boat manufacturers.) Furthermore, Brent has been shown videos of GRP hulls hitting rocks and semi-submerged metal structures all at full hull speed, but counters this with the two or three incidents he knows where a GRP boat has been lost at sea following collision etc. The argument is futile. He also claims there are 'many' boats and crews lost at sea or drowned and ignores the fact that this simply isn't true. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest that hundreds of GRP boats are lost at sea.

I could go on, but I will wait for Brent to start trotting out the same old tired and worn out claims to try and support his fixation with all things steel.

"If only you did it my way, you wouldn't have the problems you've had..." The fact that others haven't had any problems whilst others have had problems with steel boats is just an annoying aside in the unrealistic zeal of BS.
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I feel you and BRENT are of the same mould both thinking you’re right?
You have more in common than you think I believe?
 
Mister E said:
Alternatively John is the last man standing as the rest have given up on th bs nonsense.
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And to be fair jm is a moderator here, is aware that people look on these forums for advice, and he clearly feels some duty of care to point out that some of BS's Mad Max nonsense - amusing as it may be - is possibly highly dangerous.

Problems relating to stability, load carrying, fire, weld quality, etc. remain unanswered, the boats appear to have no Canadian, US, or other certification and the mind boggles at how many problems an inspector would find !!
 
For one he would not be allowed to go more than 40nm offshore here without cat A safety requirement that includes a registered EPIRB and serviced liferaft.
 
dom said:
And to be fair jm is a moderator here, is aware that people look on these forums for advice, and he clearly feels some duty of care to point out that some of BS's Mad Max nonsense - amusing as it may be - is possibly highly dangerous.

Problems relating to stability, load carrying, fire, weld quality, etc. remain unanswered, the boats appear to have no Canadian, US, or other certification and the mind boggles at how many problems an inspector would find !!
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I agree and it’s one of the reasons Brent needs to be challenged.

His only retort is to either quote ‘claimed satisfied customers’ or to say he’s sailed thousands of miles without a problem and therefore that proves his design is safe. I’m afraid it doesn’t ‘prove’ any such thing. After all I’ve saiked across oceans in GRP vessels and Brent suggests such voyaging is crazy and people who sail GRP boats are within a knife edge of losing their lives.

The truth is that a well found GRP or wooden boat may not be a strong as a steel boat in some ways but they can be built strong enough and seaworthy enough. Plenty of people sail round the world in boats that aren’t made of steel and to treat their choices as arrogantly as BS does says more about him than them.

When BS stops sneering at people who don’t hold to his life philosophy and when he stops sneering and making cheap derisory comments about GRP and life rafts then he might be taken seriously.

Sadly I suspect it’s a lesson too difficult for him to learn.
 
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