When are saloon windows get too big?

[pugwash]

I was interested to read about Rambling Rose in the earlier post and to see that she has unusually large saloon windows that have seen her safely through umpteen Atlantic crossings. My own boat is a 31ft Holman Sovereign also with large windows giving her a decent 6ft 4in headroom in the main saloon, one of her great delights. I don't know whether I will do a big voyage but I have always wondered whether the size of these windows is a drawback for voyaging in warm weather latitudes. No doubt wooden shutters could be fitted over the outside easily enough when a major storm looms but I remember Suhaili's entire coachroof was dislodged and shifted an inch or two sideways when she was quite close to home. What's the thinking on this? If you had a boat like mine (or Rambling Rose) and hoped to sail (say) to the Caribbean and back, what would you do about the window problem?

 

[sarabande]

I wonder if some wooden shutters (say, 1/2 inch ply) might help, if they had some e.g. LEXEN ports screwed into them. Anything to help attenuate the impact. They'd needed pre-determined and secure slots, to encourage quick usage.

I recall that David Lewis ("Icebird") had steel shutters welded to the outside, but they made the cabin permanently dark. People also make use of triangular prisms, which are set with one flat face to the outside, thus spreading light in two directions into the interior.



I hadn't seen these till I did an altavista search, but they certainly look practical.
http://www.torresen.com/intersail/link_in.php?action=next&link=708

 

[Roach1948]

[ QUOTE ]
I remember Suhaili's entire coachroof was dislodged and shifted an inch or two sideways

[/ QUOTE ]

The funny thing is that this exact same thing happened to Humphrey Barton on Vertue XXXV - and hence my intrigue into such large windows in the first place. You would have thought he learnt his lesson - but maybe a light airy cabin most of the time was a risk worth taking. Incidentally, I think Giles redsigned the Coachroof arrangment on the Vertue's after the encounter in XXXV.

 

[Mirelle]

The "grapefruit squeezer" type of deck prism is extremely effective; I have a pair of them in Mirelle's forecabin, let into the foredeck, and you can read by them with no trouble at all with the forehatch closed. The triangular type (which we have in the heads compartment) are less likely to damage your skull but give much less light.

Be warned that both can crack for no reason after years in use - probably locked up stress in the glass.

 

[Mirelle]

Doghouses are nice things, and I suspect it's a trade - years of comfort against a few hours of real danger.

Personally, I'll live without the doghouse.

"Duet" has got a very spendid one, which she acquired from "Bloodhound" because HRH Prince Philip is of our opinion on the subject.

I remember that "Baroque" had a doghouse with big windows in it when Tilman bought her. He caught me giving this a hard look and said, "Don't worry - the sea will abolish them one day" and the year after I sailed with him it did indeed abolish them!

 

[Bajansailor]

Although you want to get as much light as possible into the boat in your high latitudes, in the tropics large windows just have a greenhouse effect on the saloon, and you will be keeping the curtains closed all the time.
For a transatlantic passage in low latitudes (and for sailing down to low latitudes first from Britain!) I would definitely fit storm boards over the large windows.

 

[Roach1948]

I have just finished reading Barton's account of E-W transatlantic crossing on XXXV. It would transpire that the whole coach house moved and split along the deck seam in the knockdown. Two windows smashed in he was using "splintex" harndened glass. The scariest thing was that the companionway hatch was jammed due to the coachroof warping. He climbed out of the broken window in the end. He had no weather boards for the windows and used locker bases to nail the board over the windows, but the stanchions got in the way of the hammer swing!

Interestly in the back of the book there was a modified Vertue plan designed for ocean cruising. No doghouse this time and the large Vertue windows were replaced with two ports.