Steelboats

[Brent Swain]

It is kept going by people responding to the fear mongering, fakery and general BS posted by one arrogant and offensive individual. If everyone stopped responding, the thread would die. Other than BS arguing with himself (which he seems to be doing the last week).

Let it die. Stop feeding the troll.

Stop anyone who gives advice on how to make cruising gear simpler and more affordable to the not so rich, to ensure only the rich get to cruise, and makers of over priced inferior gear dont get challenged ,by info on`how to build one`s own gear, far better gear and boats, for fraction the price .Stop any suggestions which in any way challenge orthodoxy,or try find better ways of doing things, stop all progress, so those in the business wont have to think.

 

[Brent Swain]

I see a common mistake in steel boats being repeated; fragile, white plastic thru hulls. I have slapped UV damaged ones of with my hand, leaving a 2 inch hole.
Welded in sch 40 stainless pipe nipples , with stainless type 316 ball valves on them, have given me zero problems in over 40 years.

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

I see a common mistake in steel boats being repeated; fragile, white plastic thru hulls. I have slapped UV damaged ones of with my hand, leaving a 2 inch hole.
Welded in sch 40 stainless pipe nipples , with stainless type 316 ball valves on them, have given me zero problems in over 40 years.

Does using stainless stand pipes and ball valves create any problems with eletrolysis?

 

[Brent Swain]

Does using stainless stand pipes and ball valves create any problems with eletrolysis?

I have had zero problems in over 40 years of use. If you have a big piece of stainless welded to a small piece of mild steel ,the stainless will eat the mild steel. A friend had a stainless anchor on a mild steel galvanized chain. In a month in the water, the last links of the chain were paper thin.
If you have small piece of stainless welded to a big piece of mild steel, you have no problem with it. Stainless thru hulls are a tiny surface area, compared to the surface area of a steel hull.
I Auckland, I was moored off a shipyard which built steel tugs. The foreman said they tried every kind of thru hull they could think of, and nothing worked better than a type 316 sch 40 stainless pipe nipple, welded in.

That also has the advantage of letting you run it parallel to bulkheads, saving a lot of space, and making your pipes straight, and thus easier to clear, if they get plugged.

 

[Brent Swain]

Few who have never cruised offshore in a steel hull, can imagine the huge increase in peace of mind it gives one, without having experienced it first hand. The pictures of Gringo, and the other boat should even further enhance that peace of mind. Hard to imagine encountering a greater impact, certainly not in a collision with a container , a tiny bump by comparison.

 

[lw395]

Few who have never cruised offshore in a steel hull, can imagine the huge increase in peace of mind it gives one, without having experienced it first hand. The pictures of Gringo, and the other boat should even further enhance that peace of mind. Hard to imagine encountering a greater impact, certainly not in a collision with a container , a tiny bump by comparison.

I've done a few long passages in a couple of steel boats.
They felt just as small and vulnerable as GRP boats of the same size.
48ft feels very big and substantial when you're trying to park it in Lymington, but it is still a small boat in atlantic waves two days from land.
The main difference I experienced was that they were slow and didn't go to windward very well.
Just not my kind of boat.
Personally I've found that peace of mind offshore is mostly about having belief that all the moving parts are reliable, the rig is sound, everything works. There are many things to rely on, on a boat. Just focussing on the hull material misses the point about the seaworthyness of the whole boat as a working system.

I also got the feeling that being in a boat not designed to have reasonable performance, the designer can't have been very good, so you question whether they really knew much about boats at all. I'd rather be in a wooden boat that went well, a boat that's evolved to do the job properly.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Few who have never cruised offshore in a steel hull, can imagine the huge increase in peace of mind it gives one, without having experienced it first hand. The pictures of Gringo, and the other boat should even further enhance that peace of mind. Hard to imagine encountering a greater impact, certainly not in a collision with a container , a tiny bump by comparison.

You previously wrote that steel boats are "sometimes safer" than GRP ones. Could you let us know when you think they aren't safer?

 

[Brent Swain]

I've done a few long passages in a couple of steel boats.
They felt just as small and vulnerable as GRP boats of the same size.
48ft feels very big and substantial when you're trying to park it in Lymington, but it is still a small boat in atlantic waves two days from land.
The main difference I experienced was that they were slow and didn't go to windward very well.
Just not my kind of boat.
Personally I've found that peace of mind offshore is mostly about having belief that all the moving parts are reliable, the rig is sound, everything works. There are many things to rely on, on a boat. Just focussing on the hull material misses the point about the seaworthyness of the whole boat as a working system.

I also got the feeling that being in a boat not designed to have reasonable performance, the designer can't have been very good, so you question whether they really knew much about boats at all. I'd rather be in a wooden boat that went well, a boat that's evolved to do the job properly.

Seeing what Gringo survived ,one would have to be extremely naive to feel as safe in plastic. Some are that naive , as you have pointed out. Ignoring hull strength, as you and others suggest, does not make one safer.
Some steel boats are slow, some are fast .Some plastic boats are slow, some are fast. 165 miles a day to windward is not slow for my 36, nor is 18 days from Mexico to Hawaii , nor is 18 days from Hawaii to BC , nor is 23 days from Hawaii to BC , in a heavily loaded 31 ft steel twin keeler, as my 31 has done, twice..

Slow can result from outdated building methods , from a massive overkill in totally redundant, heavy framing. I remember reading about a 30 footer with 3,000 lbs of framing. I met a couple on a Bob Perry designed 37 foot steel boat weighing 36,000 lbs. That would make any boat slow. My 36 is under 20,000 lbs ( which Perry says, is too heavy for a 36!)
My boats are evolved and designed for seaworthiness, and reasonable speed , as they have proven themselves in , in over 40 years, and over 350,000 miles of ocean cruising.

 

[john_morris_uk]

These claims have been made before and shown to be disingenuous.

‘To windward’ implies tacking or ‘hard on the wind and close hauled’ to most yachtsmen and women.

Brent admits his 36 footer wasn’t hard on the wind.

It would be a fantastic achievement for a 36’ boat to average over 6.8 knots to windward.

I’ve sailed and raced across oceans in bigger steel and GRP boats and never averaged their se sorts of speeds hard on the wind.

Brent needs to stop selling fantasies to innocent people who dream of going sailing. Sell realistic goals please! In fact don’t not sell anything on the Scuttlebutt forum as it’s against the rules.

 

[Brent Swain]

Here is a quote form the origamiboats site, from Paul Wilson , on Opus, a guy who has been cruising the South Pacific in one of my 36 footers since the 90s.

As long as I wasn't hard on the wind or on a dead run, I used to sail at 6 knots in 12 knots of wind on my BS 36 foot single keeler. I struggle to do that now with my tired out old mainsail.

I have twice gone over 1000 miles in just over 6 days. This was largely close or beam reaching using a huge over-lapping genoa. This genoa was great on a reach and the reason for some fast passages but very poor to windward. On one of the passages I left a day later but still caught up and passed a 65 footer and beat him to port by night. On the other passage, I was close hauled in a sloppy sea and passed a Fantasia 35 in 12 hours despite them leaving two days before me. The fat and heavy Fantasia was just hobby horsing and couldn't make any progress against the trade wind slop. This has convinced more than anything of the need of having a boat that cut through seas and sail to windward.

I have hit 8 to 9 knots under sail many times. The max speed I have ever seen is 11 knots but I had some waves and probably some current helping me. Those ideal conditions only lasted a few hours.

If I can generalize, I normally sail up with the typically heavily loaded 42 to 45 foot cruisers. I am loaded down too with a 90 gallon fuel tank and a 120 gallon water tank and plenty of books so I think this is excellent. The wind is never like you read about in the books. It seems all I get is either El-Nino or La-Nina. I think anyone who thinks it is all downwind has never been offshore in the Pacific. When I sailed from Canada to Fiji in 96-97, I had only 8 days with the wind aft of the beam. I am still waiting for a classic downwind trip in the trades to see what she can really do.

I think performance under sail has a lot to do with how well a boat steers. The windvane self steering gear keeps the boat on a rail, with the tell-tales hardly flickering. I use the windvane most of the time but sometimes I find that a electronic pilot does better. A windvane may not hold you to the wind but if the wind is variable it is better to just go straight at a slower speed and follow a compass rather than follow every wind shift and add to the distance sailed. I met one guy who arrived in tears in Samoa.....his boat yawed 20 to 30 degrees all across the Pacific. He had almost totally given up on his windvane and was mentally and physically exhausted from having to handsteer.

So much for the theory that, all plastic boats are fast, and all steel boats are slow!

It has often been suggested that one should not counter "attack lies" here, about any particular design, or lies about steel boats in general.

 

[rotrax]

Seeing what Gringo survived ,one would have to be extremely naive to feel as safe in plastic. Some are that naive , as you have pointed out. Ignoring hull strength, as you and others suggest, does not make one safer.

My boats are evolved and designed for seaworthiness, and reasonable speed , as they have proven themselves in , in over 40 years, and over 350,000 miles of ocean cruising.

To clear up this bolleux you are starting to spout again, Gringo's incedent could have-and should have-been avoided by proper watchkeeping.

IIRC-and I am sure I do-the onboard conversation went something like :-

" I say chaps-could you pop up here for a moment as a freighter is bearing down upon us! "

" CRASH! "

" Sorry chaps-too late! "

So, totally avoidable with competent and alert watchkeeping.

To be fair, the secondary safety inherent in a steel hull was of great use in keeping the vessel afloat.

Who is naive Brent? Hull strength is not ignored by sailors, it is judged to be adaquate for purpose.

Lightweight for racing. heavier for cruising. The material, in most cases, irrelevant if it is capable of serving its purpose.

Only a relative few ocean girdling cruisers who have to be self reliant because of their choice of destination and route choose steel-or those impecunious few who decide to build one on a beach for little money.

Now the last sentence in the above.

If it were true, we would all want one.

But we dont, do we?

 

[lw395]

Seeing what Gringo survived ,one would have to be extremely naive to feel as safe in plastic. ....

I feel safe, because I sail with people whom I trust not to run into freighters.

Maybe steelboat owners are too up themselves with the supposed strength of their little tinplate boats that they don't feel the need to look where they're going?
It's not being naive that makes me not want to sail with people like that.

Safety is more about seamanship than hull material.

 

[rotrax]

Safety is more about seamanship than hull material.

And there Brent, laid out in a simply and factual manner which I feel sure even you will understand, you have it.

I have alluded to it before, primary and secondary safety. You rely on secondary safety, and need to because of the amount of times you bore us with anecdotes of origami boats on beaches and reefs.

" Safety is more about seamanship than hull material. "

The above quote is a fact, not repetetive banging on anecdotal stuff from the facebook steel boat page or the origami boat website.

There is a place for origami steel yachts, a place which you are happy to occupy.

But for most of us-no thanks. We are happy as we are, in mortal danger-according to you-every time we leave port, but happy with our choices nonetheless.

Moderator-this thread is done. It is going to go round in circles again.

Time to close it if no more useful build and maintenance tips are forthcoming?

 

[Skylark]

Moderator-this thread is done. It is going to go round in circles again.

I’ve just opened this thread (in error). I see that BS is spouting exactly the same BS as he was about 40 pages ago, the last time I opened the thread.

It will only die if we all make the effort to stop feeding the Troll. Please

 

[Achosenman]

I’ve just opened this thread (in error). I see that BS is spouting exactly the same BS as he was about 40 pages ago, the last time I opened the thread.

It will only die if we all make the effort to stop feeding the Troll. Please

I think in this case you have to drive a stake through its heart, or expose it to sunlight. I don't think anything else works... :distress:

 

[lw395]

I think in this case you have to drive a stake through its heart, or expose it to sunlight. I don't think anything else works... :distress:

Metal, GRP or Wooden stake?

 

[lpdsn]

Moderator-this thread is done. It is going to go round in circles again.

Time to close it if no more useful build and maintenance tips are forthcoming?

This thread is immortal. You cannot kill it. If you tried, the subject would only pop up elsewhere.

 

[rotrax]

Oh, I think a GRP one would be most appropriate, dont you.

And pounding for 14 days in heavy Baja surf would surely see it off..........................................

 

[Brent Swain]

To clear up this bolleux you are starting to spout again, Gringo's incedent could have-and should have-been avoided by proper watchkeeping.

IIRC-and I am sure I do-the onboard conversation went something like :-

" I say chaps-could you pop up here for a moment as a freighter is bearing down upon us! "

" CRASH! "

" Sorry chaps-too late! "

So, totally avoidable with competent and alert watchkeeping.

To be fair, the secondary safety inherent in a steel hull was of great use in keeping the vessel afloat.

Who is naive Brent? Hull strength is not ignored by sailors, it is judged to be adaquate for purpose.

Lightweight for racing. heavier for cruising. The material, in most cases, irrelevant if it is capable of serving its purpose.

Only a relative few ocean girdling cruisers who have to be self reliant because of their choice of destination and route choose steel-or those impecunious few who decide to build one on a beach for little money.

Now the last sentence in the above.

If it were true, we would all want one.

But we dont, do we?

Yes plastic is adequate; for the infallible! All humans screw up, sometimes. Are you claiming to be infallible, super human? We mere mortals, unlike you, have to allow for the rare chance of a screwup, and don't passively accept a death sentence, for both us and any crew aboard, as a fair and unavoidable consequence of a screwup, on anyone's part . That would not only be bad seamanship, but a just plain loony tune way of thinking ( for us mere mortals). The delusion of infallibility didn't work out so well for the Sleavin family, and we will never know, how many others. Its that kind of forgiveness, which gives the not so naive, such peace of mind, while cruising in a steel boat.

Good seamanship is leaving as little as possible to chance ,and not relying on fate's "roll of the dice", or ones "delusion of infallibility." Advocating that is advocating bad seamanship.
Building your own, is the only way to really know how things were put together.
Its appalling how boats friends here bought, "professionally built" , were put together. They encounter a steady stream of unimaginably dense screwups.

They quickly learn the reality of the saying I keep giving them;
A back yard boat, built by an intelligent builder , for his own use is usually a far better boat than one built by a commercial builder, for sale . Commercial builders would go bankrupt, if they built their boats that way, having to compete on price with those who don't.
You can see this in the magazine boat reviews .Lots of interior pictures , usually with no pictures of the underwater profile ,and definitely no mention of how it is put together. Boat shows herd the sheeple up the stairs and into the interior. I have seen them actually hide the underwater portion of the boats, and get angry if they see you looking under the boat or lift floor boards , and look in lockers,or check how the chain plates and cleats are attached. You are supposed to only look an the interior, then sign the cheque. Yes, that is how most people think, and make decisions.

Building your own also means mostly new hull and deck material, something you don't get with a used boat. It also means stepping away from the personal uselessness of those who only buy things, while enviously attacking, and ridiculing those capable of doing things for themselves.

Several, building my boats , have gone on to lifetime careers in boat work and metal working.

 

[Brent Swain]

I feel safe, because I sail with people whom I trust not to run into freighters.
Like the Sleavin family did?


Safety is more about seamanship than hull material.

Seamanship BEGINS with choice of hull material.