Anone up4 joining SeaGypsy?

[Newfie]

SeaGypsy,

Finally just got to sit down and read that article. In fact I read it aloud to my wife. Let me recommend back to you this book. Voyaging on a Small Income by Annie Hill. This is about a couple who home built their own 34' dory, junk rigged, schooner and have been sailing it around the North Atlantic ever since. 20 some years. The have worked something like 5 years in this whole time and built up enough savings to pretty much live off their static income. I got this book a couple of weeks ago and have been touting it everywhere since.

Ms. Hill is very much of the same mind as your author. The sailing dory's she so strongly recommends are very much like the Bolger boats. Her book has several designs in the back ranging from a 26' raised deck cutter to a 37' 6" Bumudian rig. All by Jay Benford. Then she also has a steel design, hard chine boat, in 32' or 35' by Nick Skeates.

Another great site to check out is http://www.thomasecolvin.com/ . Tom Colvin lists many different designs and has several modern designs that were meant to be for third world trading with short crew.

Then there is Brent Swain who designs metal origami boats. Brent is active on the Metal Boat Society forums. There is a Yahoo origamiboats site ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/origamibo ... roup&slk=4 ) There are some nice pics there including a 47 foot bilge keel boat, something your author does not address but is quite common in England.

Finally I would recommend the rec.boats. cruising newsgroup as an active group of people who like to discuss cruising There is at least one fellow there who lives aboard in Bangkok. There are also a bunch of obnoxious trolls who lurk there. Just ignore them.

We personally are in Philadelphia, in the US. We are discussing things much along the lines of what you describe. However we are much older. I do already have a boat, a Ted Brewer Murray 33, steel cutter that I keep in Newfoundland - long story. My wife is one of those who is easily upset by the sea. Still she can see the advantages and is mulling it over actively. In fact Sunday we are traveling to look at a possible new old boat, a big cat.

Good luck and if this thread is still going when I get back I'll post an update.

Thanks for the link. It was a good read.

[SeaGypsy]

Newfie; cool& thanks for the links!

Be very cautious with the cat. I love their speed& fun, beachability& soforth but:

Remember the fixed (solid frame) multi hull is a very modern invention.
This is not an accident. The stresses between solidly joined hulls are enormous& all but the most expensive multi hulls need constant checking& repair on the join points.

The exception to this weakness in design is in the polynesian based designs by James Wharram: http://wharram.com/index.php
He uses the tied method with a cradle& rope to allow the energy between the hulls to dissipate at the join. Needs retightening& checking regularly but it's much easier to do than a complex stress fracture in fiberglass of any kind.

[Pretorian]

There are at least 6000 uninhabited islands in the Philippines alone.
Another 20,000+ in Micronesia, thousands more around Indonesia plus a hundred odd around Northern Australia.

The ones with year round easy water supply are virtually all inhabited.
So to get one to yourself, you need to be able to catch or dig water.

These are some amazing numbers. If in Phili, where human density is high 6000 islands are vacant, I guess in south-eastern Indonesia , where it is low, there are should be even more, and perhaps better islands. Who knows.

[ReverseEngineer]

While setting up shop on an uninhabited island in the Phillipines might seem a romantic solution, I would advise recalling what happenned to Fletcher Christian and the crew of the Bounty on Pitcairn Island. Lots of nasty inbreeding problems there.

I think you need to get a bigger group of Yachties together to make a sustainable Floating Tribe. Perhaps 50-100 Sailboats with 4-6 people each aboard could provide enough safety and diversity of knowledge to sustain long term.

I'd also look more to wooden hulls or steel hulls than Fiberglass for long term, since getting the composites for repairs will get difficult sooner than the other 2 building materials. Your other BIG problem will be replacement sails as these wear out. Certainly big nylon spinnakers will be pretty tough to come by, and just getting enough good sailcloth to make a new Mainsail or Jib or Genoa will get increasingly more difficult.

Fundamentally however the maritime life isn't any more or less valid post peak than the land based life. Either one will be a lot tougher once it becomes hard to get the products we are used to, but over time you will figure out solutions to those problems.

Reverse Engineer

[JJ]

Seagypsy, my pinay wife says they will find you and kidnap/kill you. Pretty succinct.

[bencole]

Who's going to have skills that knows how to shoot and repair firearms? Who knows how to repair electronics and engines? How about the most basic skill, maritime navigation? Sounds like a bunch of hippies who are well-intentioned but up to this point sheltered from the real world

.

Maybe they don't want anyone shooting people from their boats and want to live peacefully. More talk of killing with firearms, when does it end for you doomers? how many people have you shot in the real world? your no less sheltered from reality. Also there are plenty of well-intentioned folks who can repair engines, electronics, and navigate boats. These skills are not exclusively reserved for hardened violent minded individuals.

[SeaGypsy]

It looks like a reprieve in the server's collapse@ PO.com?

To the guy who's wife is concerned for my safety:

Did you live here at all?

The Philippines is the text gossip capital of the world.

Show please 1 scrap of evidence for private small vessels being attacked in the Philippines in the last 3 years??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy#Recent_incidents

The Malaccas is to be avoided along with some parts of the Celebes Channel& the Moro/Abu Sayef dominated parts of Mindanao, some parts of PNG.

There are lots of watchlists. None mention the Philippines in any time frame I would be concerned about. How collapse might affect this is another matter. As I have said in a previous post I would be on my way back to Northern Australia in a flash, (via, Guam, Micronesia, New Britain, Vanuatu, Noumea. I would be keeping track of the radio on as many wavelengths as possible& avoiding being anywhere near land which has become Zombified.

[JJ]

It looks like a reprieve in the server's collapse@ PO.com?

To the guy who's wife is concerned for my safety:

Did you live here at all?

The Philippines is the text gossip capital of the world.

Show please 1 scrap of evidence for private small vessels being attacked in the Philippines in the last 3 years??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy#Recent_incidents

The Malaccas is to be avoided along with some parts of the Celebes Channel& the Moro/Abu Sayef dominated parts of Mindanao, some parts of PNG.

There are lots of watchlists. None mention the Philippines in any time frame I would be concerned about. How collapse might affect this is another matter. As I have said in a previous post I would be on my way back to Northern Australia in a flash, (via, Guam, Micronesia, New Britain, Vanuatu, Noumea. I would be keeping track of the radio on as many wavelengths as possible& avoiding being anywhere near land which has become Zombified.

yes, I have lived there six times, actually. Bought land in Zamboanga del Sur (Pagadian City). I personaly have NEVER had anything bad happen to me (with the exception of being robbed in Manila). However, I concur with you, in every shadow lurks a bad guy. And I probably would not want to stay in Zamboanga City for very long, although I spoke with a white guy who had converted to Islam
and lived in Zamboanga and said that the current problems were exacerbated by the media....and as I mention earlier my brother-in-law fought with MILF but turned coat and now works for the government trying to get them to surrender....

[SeaGypsy]

OK JJ so we are on the same page.

I have friends in Mindanao including Zambo, GenSan, Surigao etc.

If you treat people like you wouldlike to be treated it is safer here by far than in similarly populated places elsewhere in the world.

Unless you are a security gaurd, journalist, or politician with strong ethics; RP is a wonderful, safe & friendly place to travel.

In Muslim Mindanao, all a westerner has to do is honor his family, grow a beard, stay off alcohol& not insult anyone publicly.

Same as any Muslim area in the world; if you can stick to the rules you will be admired& respected. If not you may wash up in pieces on a beach somewhere, or your family might get a 'Supervised' phone request for a few million Pesos. (Ransom)

Everywhere has rules; they change with the times, but still there are rules. Being married to a Filipina is a blessing indeed JJ. I bet I don't need to tell you that...

[Mesuge]

Great topic..

Bolger designs/boats> great for protected coastal/river waters. Relatively easy to build in manhours/money. Also, relatively living limited space, say upto a couple plus some small children.

Wharram cats> the best seafaring-living tool out there, ever. However, for bluewater travels or extended living on board you need at least Tiki 46 size, which is a project worth of ~10k hours to build, which can be accomplished by a dedicated couple in say 4-5yrs.

However, outsourcing the job to western shipyard will be north of >>500k EUR and the experience with asian builders qualitywise (even with western management) had shown very mixed results at the minimum, perhaps good deal could be done in some smaller Turkish shipyard, good quality and price mix..

Sadly, I doubt that even among the interested folks here are some who feel they've got the cash for tooling and materials and TIME for such a giant diy project in this currently accelerating system crash scenario..

However, there is also this rather rudimentary approach to building a big Wharram with cargo capability, perhaps this might be the route for some:

50ft:
http://www.atomvoyages.com/articles/hansklaar.htm

70ft:
http://wharram.eu/live/article.php?stor ... 3181619589
http://themorrisongroup.com/images_common/MilesMay.html

[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