Why the Welly Centaur will be better and safer than a donkey Centaur

bitbaltic said:
Bit of synergy here chaps.

We have one bunch of threads running about the depressed state of the boat market and owners 'selling but not rushing to sell', and another about Dylan wanting a centaur with a reliable engine for a period of about 12 months.

Why not try to find a chap with a good centaur just testing the market and offer him a 12 month charter for a reasonable sum. Survey the boat before and after and cover any depreciation as well as running costs and comprehensive insurance. Can't be more than the proposed project cost and although he loses use of the boat for the charter period he gets it back in12 months at no loss to him if he is not sailing it much. maybe you are looking for a person not a boat?

Of course the lack of any similar suggestion so far indicates that I might be being hopeful. But I thought I'd put it up there before I get me coat!

Cheers
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good plan

although the boat would need coding and all sorts of stuff unless it was all done on the QT

bit worried about Scottish harbour walls too

I have to say that I just got a email from a bloke who is an epoxy man

he said he is very keen to help with the work and says that a good looking Centaur (his words not mine) with a seized engine just went for £800 from his yard

£800 - blimey

D
 
dylanwinter said:
good plan

although the boat would need coding and all sorts of stuff unless it was all done on the QT

bit worried about Scottish harbour walls too

I have to say that I just got a email from a bloke who is an epoxy man

he said he is very keen to help with the work and says that a good looking Centaur (his words not mine) with a seized engine just went for £800 from his yard

£800 - blimey

D
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If you do put an outboard well in a centaur then I sincerely hope you are going to declare the release of the first new Westerly model in 20 years. I suggest you call it the MacCentaur 26X.

:p

Ok I will now get my tin hat and my coat!

Cheers
 
Just a word of encouragement to D , without reading more than a few selected posts...

Yup, do it!

( btw I cut round the rudder post on my last boat, moved it then glassed it all back in, very easy to do. Better boat for it too)
 
bitbaltic said:
Why not try to find a chap with a good centaur just testing the market and offer him a 12 month charter for a reasonable sum.
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Trouble is as soon as you mention the C word the gubbermint wants to stick its nose in with many rules about the size of your hatches and how many torches you have on board. Operating somewhat in the public eye, Dylan can't really afford to ignore this.

I suppose you could wangle something with a sale outright plus an agreement to buy back, but somehow that seems even less appealing (and I'm not sure the original offer was all that appealing in the first place).

Pete
 
prv said:
Trouble is as soon as you mention the C word the gubbermint wants to stick its nose in with many rules about the size of your hatches and how many torches you have on board. Operating somewhat in the public eye, Dylan can't really afford to ignore this.

I suppose you could wangle something with a sale outright plus an agreement to buy back, but somehow that seems even less appealing (and I'm not sure the original offer was all that appealing in the first place).

Pete
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Indeed the flaw in my post was the 'C' word. I meant it in a general not specific sense.

Let's say Dylan is skippering a boat owned by someone else, with a maintenance agreement. That's the idea. I don't see that as coded chartering, any more than share owners are chartering from each other- which would take the bottom out of that market completely. My insurance allows me to loan my boat to another skipper at my discretion, provided he is a 'competent individual'. Surely a sensible private arrangement could be arrived at.

Cheers
 
dylanwinter said:
I have been sailing with the Volvo MD11 - rated at 60 amps - for the past 18 months

so far so good

and it is one of the glories of having a hand starting engine - no full battery paranoia anymore

if the battery runs flat then it does not matter - you can still start the engine

Dylan
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Edited for mischief value. ;)
 
American Centaur powere by a 9 hp ouitboard - double bed

me mate Giles sent me this



Double Stern Bunk in a Centaur!



In the recent AWON (American Westerly Owners

Newsletter) Bob Kriet and Linda Benson described

the modifications to their Centaur “Beau” in which

they cruise. These are probably the most dramatic

Centaur mods that have ever been extensively reported

in a WOA Newsletter!






“Beau is a highly modified, much customised 26’ Centaur. In 1995 I cut out 2/3rds of the

cockpit well, took out the old, but running MD2B Volvo, redecked over the cockpit and

installed a 9.9hp Yamaha high thrust outboard on a bracket on a stiffened transom. By

doing so, I note the following advantages over inboard powered boats:-

1. a weight saving of 300 - 400 lbs.

2. no propeller drag under sail since the motor tilts up

3. no hot, smelly, noisy engine inside the boat

4. the space under the new cockpit is a full size double bed with lots of extra storage

5. the boats tiller can steer the engine as needed via lines and two blocks for greater

manoeuvrability under power. I can back or pull into any place a skiff can

6. no worries about catching crab pots on the prop.

With the 26 (US) gallon fuel tank I installed I can motor 52+ hours @5 ¼ knots or about

270 miles on a fill up. (I also carry a 2 ½ gallon reserve jug) The Yamaha makes 14 amps

of electricity for battery charging. We have 2 deep cycle batteries in our dry, cool. white

painted bilge and have never run out of juice. I have never experienced any serious

cavitation problems (more than a few moments) and after being in and out of many of

the inlets in New Jersey, some in NY, and many in Florida, a round trip that’s on the ICW

(intra-continental waterway) and two voyages to the Bahamas and back from Florida ( 4

Gulf stream crossings).

In all those 100’s of miles, we have not had any trouble with the Yamaha, which leads me

to another advantage of an outboard engine. Ease of repair. The motor can be taken off

the bracket and carried to a repair shop; it weighs just 100lbs.



not a well of course

D
 
Haven't read all the postings and on a personal level I find the idea of an outboard gut churningly awful but then I grew up with seagulls and very old johnsons and it seems to me buying a wreck to cruise Northern waters is about more than the engine. However, having said that there is that chap who contributes regularly to PBO who has a 27' sabre (bilge keels?) with an outboard and boats such as the Tomahawk, Ecume De Mar came with outboards. Might be worth looking on French sites for info as well. May be we should take onboard the idea of making the engine not part of the sale and buy ourselves a new one and take it from boat to boat at the end of the day a 30hp yanmar will fit a wide range of boats!
 
dylanwinter said:
not a well of course
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So there's first hand experience that one hung off the back works and cavitation with an extra-long would not be a serious problem - which is what I said ages ago, because that's what I have on my similar sized boat. So why not try that first? It could be fitted in an afternoon, and if you don't like it, easily removed. I know your other objection was that it would be too far away to be easy to reach, but an electric start and a remote control would solve that. An added advantage of one that can be easily tilted out of the water is lack of corrosion, no need for antifouling, and no anode wear. I'm still on my original after 13 years.
 
stav said:
However, having said that there is that chap who contributes regularly to PBO who has a 27' sabre (bilge keels?) with an outboard and boats such as the Tomahawk, Ecume De Mar came with outboards.
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All Dragonflies up to 35' come with outboards too. This summer on Colonsay I met another Dragonfly with a young family on board that had come from near Aberdeen via the North Coast, because no-one had said that they couldn't.
 
bitbaltic said:
My insurance allows me to loan my boat to another skipper at my discretion, provided he is a 'competent individual'.
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Yep, and the MCA is happy with that as well - provided the person in question is your friend and provided he is not paying you.

It's the second part of that which makes an arrangement like this for Dylan tricky.

Anyway, he doesn't seem keen, for the excellent reason that unless you're a sociopath it's less worrying bouncing your own boat off things than somebody else's.

Pete
 
dylanwinter said:
With the 26 (US) gallon fuel tank I installed I can motor 52+ hours @5 ¼ knots or about 270 miles on a fill up.
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1.7 litres per hour. Sounds about right to me. I use 1.2 litres per hour, but a more slippy boat. Puts to bed the arguments about horrendous fuel consumption - a myth pedalled by people whose experience is Seagulls and horrible old 2 stroke Johnsons, as Stav pointed out.
 
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1.7 litres per hour is still almost four times as much as our inboard diesel of a similar output used to burn. So while perhaps not outrageous in outright terms, comparatively it's pretty horrendous.
 
Simondjuk said:
1.7 litres per hour is still almost four times as much as our inboard diesel of a similar output used to burn. So while perhaps not outrageous in outright terms, comparatively it's pretty horrendous.
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But was that pushing a lumpy boat like a Centaur, which usually would have a significantly bigger engine? A better comparison would be for someone with a diesel powered Centaur to quote consumption.

Update: 1.5 litres per hour...

http://www.boatshop24.com/en/westerly-centaur-westerly-centaur/Sailboat/115892

so not horrendous at all, and very much in line with the extra joules per litre in diesel compared to petrol. Of course - as well as more being needed it is also more expensive, so total extra fuel cost could be as much as 50% more. But Dyl has already said that boat fuel costs are trivial compared to driving fuel costs. It's his car that needs a diesel engine in it. :)
 
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Similar size, 26 feet, but more slippery to be fair, Evolution 25.

1.5 litres an hour in a Centaur! Crikey, how draggy are they, and is the excessive 23hp just wasting lots of fuel? It's got to be more than necessary, surely. I only use two litres an hour to push 8 tons and 40 feet around.

I was thinking more about capacity than cost issues.
 
If the proposal was to buy a half decent Centaur with a cream crackered engine, stick a 15hp outboard (for preference but a 10 would do at a pinch) on a bracket on the stern and use it for a season before selling it on again it would make some sense

But the flaws in Dylans oft repeated in thread after thread plan are legion and are being ignored especially by the laudable Mr. Winters who does so delight in being a little perverse and slightly unconventional

The well isn't a totally barking mad idea, it will work passably (er) well (sorry) and Dylan will live with it's inherent flaws partly because it suits his approach and partly because there's no way he's ever, EVER, going to admit that the critics were in any way shape or form even partially right!

But it isn't going to suddenly redeem all the mouldy old boats festering away in the boondocks of boatyards because they are not there only and solely because they have knackered inboard diesels. They have knackered sails (£1.5k to £2k), knackered rigging, running and standing (got to be getting on for a grand), knackered electrics, pumps, instruments and everything old, tired and past its use by date.

It's all very well but by the time you've put such a boat back into half way decent condition, you've easily spent what it would have cost you to buy a tidy example in the first place! OK if doing up boats is your thing, that's fine as long as you're happy to "lose" money on it, or if you're doing it up as a long term keeper (which is what I'd planned with Brigantia <sigh>)

I personally think the well is a daft idea. For the love of God, either fix or replace the inboard or stick an outboard on a bracket!
 
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