{"id":680,"date":"2003-03-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-03-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2009-04-15T09:00:39","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T14:00:39","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew214","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew214\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Boat #4"},"content":{"rendered":"
Surprising plans for the next boat finally revealed.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Powerboat, stinkpot, fizzboat, launch…words of approbation…and they are going to apply to us in some form. There, I’ve said it. It’s off my chest. Linda is fine with it. I’m still in shock. I cannot believe we are doing this! <\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/p>\n
The shape of things to come (fish eye view of what this hull shape is evolving towards).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But it is a solution that makes sense if we want to continue cruising on the basis previously outlined. There are some compensations. Most important is that we’re going to have room for a really cool daysailor. Something that has really hot performance, and will be lots of fun to sail when the PB (Powerboat-I really don’t want to use the long form of this pejorative term) is at anchor. <\/p>\n

Let me tell you a little about the origin of the design concept for this boat. We’ve been looking at the so-called “trawler” yachts for years. We met the first of our ocean crossing stinkpot friends in Fiji in the 1970s. He was cruising on a yacht conversion of a fish boat. That seems to have been the norm, but this has never made sense to us. Trawler hulls are developed for carrying big loads, and are often influenced by commercial fishing “rules” which limit certain design parameters in the hope of giving the fish a better break. All of our sailboat designs have powered faster, for better range than comparable displacement trawlers.<\/p>\n

Then there is the issue of heavy weather. When we did our powerboat interviews for Surviving the Storm I was stunned by the fact that all the professionals with whom I spoke told me the same thing. In heavy weather there is only one tactic-head into the seas. And if you happen to be running off when control becomes chancy, and need to turn into the seas, make your turn at the wrong time and it is the end of the story (due to wave-induced capsizes). This applies to 100,000-ton tankers as well as small yachts. <\/p>\n

Since we started thinking about the PB approach for our own use, we’ve been talking to everyone we could find with real-world experience. Of particular help has been one of our previous clients, who circumnavigated on a Sundeer 64, and now has extensive cruising experience on a large trawler. He, and the rest of the folks we talked to indicated heading down wind in tradewind seas could be very uncomfortable. This is the result of deeply immersed bows digging in to the wave ahead, while the stern is lifted by the wave behind, creating a potential broach. In other words, they don’t steer so well downwind. The result is this type of boat has to slow down, which reduces the effectiveness of its stabilizing gear; motion increases and comfort is down the tubes. <\/p>\n

And then there is the concept of speed. Eight and a half knots-200 miles per day-as an ocean-crossing speed is considered very good, even for the largest trawlers. But we have not crossed oceans at this slow a pace in 20 years. Why on earth would a sailor want to power across an ocean more slowly than he was used to sailing? We certainly don’t. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve got a long history-25+ years and thousand of miles-under power on sailboats that do better than the trawler norms, we’d give up right now and swallow the anchor. <\/p>\n

Now let’s look at a different approach. Suppose we take BEOWULF, remove the rig (a ton of weight and a huge amount of windage), reduce the keel size (wetted surface and form drag), push the hull shape around a bit to make it more efficient when upright (we don’t have to worry about heeled hydrostatics), and then add in a more efficient powering system (since we don’t have to worry about prop drag when sailing)? If BEOWULF will cruise happily at 11 knots right now-more if you really want to burn fuel-what would happen with these changes? <\/p>\n

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out she’d be a very quick and efficient PB.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: We’re going to have a highly efficient ocean crossing vessel, capable of dealing with extreme weather conditions, which will make average passage times every bit as fast as BEOWULF-with a lot less effort on the part of her crew. Of course we’re going to miss those breathtaking surfs, when the GPS would climb into the high 20 knot range, but that is a function of time catching up with us, and nothing can go on forever.<\/p>\n

Over the next few months we’ll bring you aboard with us as we go through the design process, decide on systems, and look at the myriad of decisions that go into a new boat. Our intention is to use the same highly efficient approach to life aboard as we’ve had with our previous designs. So the systems end of the design cycle will be the same as if we were doing a new sailboat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprising plans for the next boat finally revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}