Anone up4 joining SeaGypsy?

[SeaGypsy]

Hi Skymoor,
I think it's possible to simplify the wharram design significantly. Yes it's a dream cruiser; but will stay just that for most.
In South East Asia the very common trimaran outrigger fishing boats can be water ballasted, buoyancy fitted, bamboo cross braces& outriggers modified if desired. They are able then to go anywhere I am interested in going. I would not cross the 30th parallel in this boat though.

Phil Bolger is a genius; Dmitry Orlov put me onto him. He lives in a Bolger Box in Boston and communicated the following to me by email:
I asked his opinion on a bulb ballasted micro yacht. He nicely sums up Bolger's principles from the perspective of one who lives and sails Bolger Boxes.


From: Dmitry Orlov
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 2:52:16 PM


It's a nice dinghy. I don't the bulb is useful except as a place for external ballast. As far as seaworthiness, there isn't enough internal ballast, the topsides are too low, the stern looks a bit too poopable, and if a bunch of the ballast is in the bulb, then pulling up the daggerboard in rough water would destabilize it rather than buy you safety. My boat, Hogfish, is a modified Bolger box: high flared topsides make it a lot harder to knock down and faster due to reduced wetted area, internal ballast makes it stiff, and the centerboard is neutrally buoyant so it bounces over shallows and can come up to avoid tripping on water and sending me belly-up when getting thrown sideways into a trough, which is what happens a lot to keel boats.Also, chine runners are a key feature: I can sail a close reach with the board up. I am dreaming of building Hogfish II, which wouldn't be all that different, but I would refine the bow entry to reduce pounding. If you take the stem a few inches below the waterline and give it a little cutwater/gripe, it turns out to help a lot, for no adequately understood theoretical reasons. Also, a bit of deadrise right below the transom reduces slewing in quartering waves. I also have come around to believing in enclosed cockpits, junk rigs with unstayed masts with all lines led aft, and higher topsides and superstructure than most people would consider yachty enough (but the windage turnns out to be irrelevant, and the higher form actually aids stability. Lastly, three short simple stubby masts are better than 1 huge tall complicated one. There is also a size configuration: I wouldn't want to take to the seas in anything under 10m, and the smaller it is, the more heavily ballasted it has to be to avoid broken ribs, etc. The weight would make it slow and sluggish, and that gets to be unsafe as well.

Well, that's enough boat theory for one morning!

[Mesuge]

Thanks for that email, the Bolger nation is worldwide community..

I think I mentioned it few years back in similar thread, there is a nice line of Bolger derivates designed in Australia called Mundoo, some models even featuring solar-electric propulsion, many of them trailable:
http://www.duckflatwoodenboats.com/mainpages/mundoo.php

From a different angle, I think there is even a family crusing/living Alaska coastal waters in Bolger inspired box (~30ft), there should be a blog or website w. pictures somewhere in the corners of the internets..

edit/here is the Bolger AS29 "Luna" :
http://www.akzeigers.com/DaveAnke.html
http://www.akzeigers.com/LunaFAQ.html

[SeaGypsy]

img5.travelblog.org/Photos/90195/369488/t/340...
www.eg-santander.com/image5.jpg
img5.travelblog.org/Photos/81307/368363/t/338..

These are some pictures of banca boats from the Philippines.
The boat I am designing myself is a cross between these and some of Bolger's key designs. I plan to widen the stern significantly, water ballast, deep chine, junk rig, flotation skirt, removable outriggers., raised deck with cabin interior.

At 32 feet this will cost me under 5kUSD.
That's building it here in central Luzon.
A good boat builder here earns $5 a day.

[Mesuge]

Bolger + junk rig sails:
http://www.leow.de/index.html

[SeaGypsy]

http://www.ace.net.au/schooner/jochems.htm
This is pretty close to my favorite Bolger; with building pictures and links to other Bolger Boxes. This is a full live aboard, raised deck unstayed mast, deep chined, leeboarded,water ballasted, 18 inch draft. Lovely

[Mesuge]

Another Bolger inspired fantasmagoria, Triloboat concept for big yachting space on little budget (32ft 5-10k), junk sail version possible..

http://www.triloboats.com/T32slides.html
http://www.triloboats.com

--
Sailing Bolger "Luna" (AS29-31) in Alaska:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/noeld/fur ... st-131.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/noeld/fur ... st-132.mp3
--
Phil Bolger interview:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/noeld/fur ... st-146.mp3

[SeaGypsy]

Thanks so much for the great links Mesuge!

[careinke]

SeaGypsy,

Are you living in San Fernando La Union? I spent a year at Wallace Air Station as the Director of Operations. Just wondering since you said you were close to Bagio, yet you are building a boat.

[SeaGypsy]

SeaGypsy,

Are you living in San Fernando La Union? I spent a year at Wallace Air Station as the Director of Operations. Just wondering since you said you were close to Bagio, yet you are building a boat.

I will PM you on this...

[Mesuge]

Microcruisers and micro catamarans (see links):
http://www.microcruising.com/new1a.htm

[SeaGypsy]

For those skimming this thread; the links to Bolger Boats and Micro criuser/yachts provide examples of serious ocean going yachts which can be built for the price of a 5 year old car. Anyone asking at the bar of the local yacht club is not likely to hear anything about these boats; unless there is a specific club for them. Most yachties will tell you 'Forget going to sea in anything that cost less than $50k.' This is bullshiv.
They spent a fortune and they want everyone else to do likewise.
If anyone can debate the seagoing characteristics of these small cheap yachts I would be most surprised. They have proven themselves over and over again. They may have less features than their bigger cousins, but they will do the job.

The top row of pictures in this link are of a tiny Russian yacht a guy built on his balcony and is now sailing around the world.

The ones below are some American designs, some are quite sleek; all are capable, seaworthy yachts.


http://www.microcruising.com/osb.htm

Not everyone's cup of rum but for me these things are almost erotic.

[threadbear]

Sea Gypsy--You're just scaring me. Fun looking boats, but look completely unsafe in rough weather. You really need a big cat, or a large, fairly heavy sailing vessel with a deep keel, for what you're proposing. I like the idea of a large motor sailor, but they cost a fortune.

I'm glad you qualified the fact that the Southern waters are safe, for now. If it's bad enough on land for people to have to escape to the sea, I can only just imagine what it will be like on the sea, eventually. The floating community is a good idea though, but close to safe areas, if such a thing exists in the future.

[SeaGypsy]

Sea Gypsy--You're just scaring me. Fun looking boats, but look completely unsafe in rough weather. You really need a big cat, or a large, fairly heavy sailing vessel with a deep keel, for what you're proposing. I like the idea of a large motor sailor, but they cost a fortune.

I'm glad you qualified the fact that the Southern waters are safe, for now. If it's bad enough on land for people to have to escape to the sea, I can only just imagine what it will be like on the sea, eventually. The floating community is a good idea though, but close to safe areas, if such a thing exists in the future.

WRONG! Uncomfortable does not mean the same thing as Unsafe.
Show me any proof whatsoever that these yachts are any more dangerous than those twice or 4 times the size and ten times the price please? Just coming out and saying it does not make it true.

The principle of ocean going yachts all comes from either rafting (sticks tied together) or the corked bottle with sand ballast idea.
If you get an ordinary glass bottle and fill it 25% with sand, cork it and throw it into a trans ocean current; it has every chance of making it to the other side. Some say it has a better chance than a big yacht because it will bounce off most objects where a large yacht hitting a semi submerged container will generally come off second best to say the least.

[ReverseEngineer]

Sea Gypsy--You're just scaring me. Fun looking boats, but look completely unsafe in rough weather. You really need a big cat, or a large, fairly heavy sailing vessel with a deep keel, for what you're proposing. I like the idea of a large motor sailor, but they cost a fortune.

I'm glad you qualified the fact that the Southern waters are safe, for now. If it's bad enough on land for people to have to escape to the sea, I can only just imagine what it will be like on the sea, eventually. The floating community is a good idea though, but close to safe areas, if such a thing exists in the future.

WRONG! Uncomfortable does not mean the same thing as Unsafe.
Show me any proof whatsoever that these yachts are any more dangerous than those twice or 4 times the size and ten times the price please? Just coming out and saying it does not make it true.

The principle of ocean going yachts all comes from either rafting (sticks tied together) or the corked bottle with sand ballast idea.
If you get an ordinary glass bottle and fill it 25% with sand, cork it and throw it into a trans ocean current; it has every chance of making it to the other side. Some say it has a better chance than a big yacht because it will bounce off most objects where a large yacht hitting a semi submerged container will generally come off second best to say the least.

I like the design of the Folding Trimarans designed by Ian Farrier, which come as large as 36' but 22' have been circumnavigated.




I thought one idea for a very safe craft would be to take 3 Hobie or Zodiac inflatable Kayaks and raft them together to make a trimaran (a 16' and 2 12'Kayaks). They are pretty much unsinkable and in rough weather you take down the rig and stow it and detach them into a line rather then a raft. Anyhow, for coastal cruising to get up to say Newfoundland on the east coast or to shoot up from Bellingham to Juneau and on to Seward it would be quite serviceable. Used you could put together such a trimaran for maybe $2000.

Reverse Engineer

[SeaGypsy]

Unfortunately I haven't a picture but I have some friends who lived in a very remote part of North Queensland for 15 years with their monthly 300 mile trip to Cairns being on a boat composed of a 14 foot alloy boat with large building frame timber cross beams and the hulls from a 20 foot Tornado class catamaran as outriggers. Utterly unsinkable, 10 inch draft, room for 2 adults, 2 kids and 500kg of supplies. Cost: virtually nothing.
The same idea scaled down a bit; 12 foot alloy boat with 2 windsurfer hulls as outriggers/ buoyancy. Using the sails from the windsurfer, all one needs is a set of lee boards and simple rudder arrangement. By ebay all up under $!k USD and capable of going almost anywhere in an emergency, with 2 or 3 people on board.

[ReverseEngineer]

Unfortunately I haven't a picture but I have some friends who lived in a very remote part of North Queensland for 15 years with their monthly 300 mile trip to Cairns being on a boat composed of a 14 foot alloy boat with large building frame timber cross beams and the hulls from a 20 foot Tornado class catamaran as outriggers. Utterly unsinkable, 10 inch draft, room for 2 adults, 2 kids and 500kg of supplies. Cost: virtually nothing.
The same idea scaled down a bit; 12 foot alloy boat with 2 windsurfer hulls as outriggers/ buoyancy. Using the sails from the windsurfer, all one needs is a set of lee boards and simple rudder arrangement. By ebay all up under $!k USD and capable of going almost anywhere in an emergency, with 2 or 3 people on board.

Agreed in principle, and if you live anywhere near a coast or a navigable lake or river, I certainly think having some form of sail craft is a good prep. I would not however go much more than a day or two out of site of land unless you have a good deal of experience with your boat, whatever its configuration. Again however, for "escapes" along the east or west coasts of the US or down the Mighty Mississippi, you certainly could put together a decent boat for very little money. Might not look beautiful, but it would work. Also, remember that cats and trimarans have little draft and can be beached, a significant advantage over a keelboat. You can sail into shallow waters and not get holed on a reef. You can live in said boat on the beach of a frozen lake all winter. Etc.

Reverse Engineer

[SeaGypsy]

Unfortunately I haven't a picture but I have some friends who lived in a very remote part of North Queensland for 15 years with their monthly 300 mile trip to Cairns being on a boat composed of a 14 foot alloy boat with large building frame timber cross beams and the hulls from a 20 foot Tornado class catamaran as outriggers. Utterly unsinkable, 10 inch draft, room for 2 adults, 2 kids and 500kg of supplies. Cost: virtually nothing.
The same idea scaled down a bit; 12 foot alloy boat with 2 windsurfer hulls as outriggers/ buoyancy. Using the sails from the windsurfer, all one needs is a set of lee boards and simple rudder arrangement. By ebay all up under $!k USD and capable of going almost anywhere in an emergency, with 2 or 3 people on board.

Agreed in principle, and if you live anywhere near a coast or a navigable lake or river, I certainly think having some form of sail craft is a good prep. I would not however go much more than a day or two out of site of land unless you have a good deal of experience with your boat, whatever its configuration. Again however, for "escapes" along the east or west coasts of the US or down the Mighty Mississippi, you certainly could put together a decent boat for very little money. Might not look beautiful, but it would work. Also, remember that cats and trimarans have little draft and can be beached, a significant advantage over a keelboat. You can sail into shallow waters and not get holed on a reef. You can live in said boat on the beach of a frozen lake all winter. Etc.

Reverse Engineer

The main thing it takes to go deep sea in any boat is balls (or equivalent).
Confidence is important to be sure, the only way to get this is practice.
The vast majority of yacht wrecks are from sailing too close to a lee shore.
That is with the wind blowing across your bow to shore. The safest options are to avoid rough weather as much as possible and if caught at sea in a sudden storm to head away from land not towards it. Collision with solid objects, mainly land, rocks, reef, larger vessels and semi submerged containers are the main dangers. Survival at sea is an art and a science. For some people it is hell, for some it is close to heaven.

[threadbear]

Sea Gypsy, My husband has a 39' wooden Monk design boat, without stabilizers, and a 5 foot draft. He loves it, but I have a bit of a problem in seas with 8 foot chop, particularly when it flies off the top of a wave, and then falls through the air into the trench below. Honestly....it's awful and I'm pretty brave. I've hit my head on the ceiling when it drops and leaves me suspended in mid air. I'm not exaggerating. In beam seas, I've been nearly beaten to a pulp by the side to side action, and my dog hasn't overcome the experience of being airborne after we got caught in the wake of a large tanker. So, don't take my comments personally. They're based on my experience with motorized boats, not sailboats. The thought of crossing the Georgia strait near Gabriola island, on anything smaller than what we've got leaves me weak in the knees.

[SeaGypsy]

Sea Gypsy, My husband has a 39' wooden Monk design boat, without stabilizers, and a 5 foot draft. He loves it, but I have a bit of a problem in seas with 8 foot chop, particularly when it flies off the top of a wave, and then falls through the air into the trench below. Honestly....it's awful and I'm pretty brave. I've hit my head on the ceiling when it drops and leaves me suspended in mid air. I'm not exaggerating. In beam seas, I've been nearly beaten to a pulp by the side to side action, and my dog hasn't overcome the experience of being airborne after we got caught in the wake of a large tanker. So, don't take my comments personally. They're based on my experience with motorized boats, not sailboats. The thought of crossing the Georgia strait near Gabriola island, on anything smaller than what we've got leaves me weak in the knees.

No offense Threadbare but where did your husband learn to sail?
The situation you describe is prevented by proper use of drogues; things you dangle in the water behind the boat to keep it from lurching at the speed of surface propulsion,as well as keeping the stern down and bow up.

The most secure form of drogue is simply knotted ropes. These also provide a last ditch hand hold to the vessel in a case of wo/man overboard.
One friend of mine who has done 3 circumnavigations without a motor, found 2km of abseiling rope at an Army auction. They cost him a couple of hundred bucks. he joined them up into 10/ 200m knotted lines. They were perfect drag for his 37 foot steel schooner weighing 16 tonnes. They also saved his life in the Southern ocean when a freak wave slammed the boat at the start of a 4 hour watch at 2am. He was knocked off and found one of his drogue lines in the water.

[ReverseEngineer]

my dog hasn't overcome the experience of being airborne after we got caught in the wake of a large tanker.

Fortunately you just got caught in the wake and didn't collide. One thing you definitely want to do in a small boat is stay OUT of the shipping lanes, though of course with commercial shipping falling off the map these days a collision is less likely.

Again I would agree in principle with SeaGypsy that Balls is probably the number one requirement, and if you at least study the weather charts before making a long passage and don't stupidly sail into a hurricane, chances are at some point you will make landfall. However, if your only navigation ability is using a GPS, I would be concerned that if/when TSHTF the signals coming off the GPS satellites will be encrypted so only the military can use them and your Garmin or Magellan unit won't function. Do you own a Sextant and know how to use it? They aren't all that easy to use on a small boat and small errors add up over ocean length passages. I personally doubt I could come within 50 miles of Hawaii for instance without a GPS, I would sail right by it. For myself, I would stick to the coast of North America except in the case it was a Thermonuclear wasteland and my ONLY chance was a passage to Kiwiland.

I'd also reiterate that the primary problem is not at sea, but keeping your preps and boat safe at any landfall. Unless you have a prior plan and know the harbor or marina or beach you intend on aiming for, dealing with the locals at any place in a SHTF scenario would be a nightmare of trying to bribe your way in. Heading for a Desert Island might seem a good Romantic Solution, but again I bring up the case of Fletcher Christian and the Mutineers of the Bounty on Pitcairn Island. Not sure I really want to live that life, even if I get to bring Ginger and MaryAnn with me. LOL.

However, if you take the premise of the thread of JOINING SeaGypsy, and postulate a fairly large Flotilla of Yachties all operating together, fairly well armed with maybe 20 or 30 boats in the flotilla, you might be able to set up shop as the Caribean Pirates did back in the 17th century. If you are going to try such a thing, much like setting up a land based Doommunity you would want to have a variety of people with different forms of expertiese available. The Water does provide a Barrier to others, its a great geographic separator. However, I still will stick to the separator I like the best, the Mountains. Really BIG Mountains. The Great Wall that God Built. Give me a Valley with only a few thousand people, some good farmland and wilderness full of Caribou and streams full of Salmon. Give me some mountains upon which to post sentries and dogsleds to move about the territory. That is where I would hole up. Oh yea, that IS where I am holed up. Here in the Matanuska-Susitna River Valley, I am not worried about a mechanized army rolling through here, or roving bands of Zombies either. I only worry that Redoubt will bury us like Pompeii or that we will hunt out the land and the fisherie might collapse from worldwide pollution. Barring those outcomes, I feel as safe as I can here on the Last Great Frontier. I probably won't last all that long, but somebody up here will, hopefully some of the kids I teach. Its my job to make sure that happens to the best of my ability before I walk into the Great Beyond. I can't save them ALL, but I can SAVE AS MANY AS I CAN. And yes, in the positive sense of the word I do practice Eugenics in the process. I pick the strong, the smart and the ones with good values who care about others and respect their teachers. The rest of them will twist in the wind. So it goes.

Reverse Engineer