Desirable and Undesirable Characteristics of Offshore Yachts

[Corryvreckan]

Desirable or Undesirable?

View attachment 439391

Saw this in a Defender email. Sorry. Please carry on.

As is so often the case with sailboats, it's the maintenance that'll get you.

 

[toddster]

Depends what kind of marriage it is, I suppose.  An American Protestant work ethic type of marriage, or a laissez-faire European kinda open marriage? (Notice in the pic they’re all staring at the starboard helmswoman, and smiling??!). 
 

Carry on. 

Just soze you know... if Wifey has the helm and Hubby introduces a course correction from the other wheel... she isn't gonna be laughing like that.

 

[Ishmael]

As is so often the case with sailboats, it's the maintenance that'll get you.

Doesn't look like there's much of a clothing budget. NTTAWWT.

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

Read 'The Totorore Voyage' for another take on it.

I heavily insulated my hull and cabin sides but 'cleverly' installed opening bronze ports. I would have to say that no other piece of gear has caused me more cursing during their machining from the castings, and now they get condensation on the inside - and drip RIGHT ONTO MY HEAD in the V berth.

Jud's boat, I'd be building a hard dodger for sure before heading to Chile.

Funny enough, Gerry Clark’s book is one that I lost (inexplicably) in a move years ago.  I’d recently gotten it - before Amazon was an Amazonian global sales behemoth— by purchasing it direct from a NZ bird conservancy!  So I never got around to reading it.  He was a nutter, a truly focused and dedicated one - the best kind!  I look forward to getting a copy of it —alas, via Amazon this time— and  reading it.

Re: condensation, Bob Shepton in his high latitude sailing book simply recommends double “glazing” with plastic sheet affixed somehow (can’t recall) over the hatches.  We have occasional issues with that too...haven’t tried glazing...perhaps if living aboard more in winter, when interior moisture is higher.

Yeah, hard dodger...man, you’re really cracking the whip hard!  I can only do 10 projects at once  Definitely have a design well lodged in my head for when I have the time...likely winter after next.  Want to focus on getting the boat dialled for Hawaii and back in the meantime. I’d like to hear/see more about your dodger.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

Yeah, hard dodger...man, you’re really cracking the whip hard!  I can only do 10 projects at once  Definitely have a design well lodged in my head for when I have the time...likely winter after next  Want to focus on getting the boat dialled for Hawaii and back in the meantime. I’d like to hear/see more about your dodger.

Haulout scheduled for 10 May so the plan is to install it then. It's finished except for final painting and sealing to the cabin.

Don't talk to me about the project list. I finished making up the anchor winch control box yesterday. Provision for deck switch, wired remote at the wheel and wireless remote which I hope to be the 'go to' device. Haven't installed anything on the boat yet, also a haulout project unless I get bored before then.

Oh yes the anchor winch required a stainless adaptor plate to get the new winch to fit on the old base and line up the chain pipe with the deck penetration because NFW I was cutting & welding on my deck AGAIN if I could avoid it. And a 15mm HDPE base plate because the standard winch wire run wasn't going to work. And I still have to actually run the wire harness through the boat which is going to be a major PITA when it comes to the V berth area.

I'm already contemplating the 2022 list.

FKT

 

[estarzinger]

plastic sheet affixed somehow

double-sided tape is the usual way. Heat gun on the plastic to take out wrinkles.  It is not very elegant, but it does the job.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

double-sided tape is the usual way. Heat gun on the plastic to take out wrinkles.  It is not very elegant, but it does the job.

I've been thinking of 3mm polycarbonate on polycarbonate standoff rings to clear the bronze trim rings, and high power magnets embedded to hold to the cabin side.

Not a real dirty weather solution obviously. Also a PITA to make which is why it hasn't happened. I should probably have set a grid of stainless acorn nuts into the cabin sides around each port opening while building but it seemed like an unnecessary lot of work at the time.

Hindsight.

Not having opening bronze ports would have worked too.

Your plastic & double-sided tape option sounds like a useful thing to try.

FKT

 

[Ishmael]

I've been thinking of 3mm polycarbonate on polycarbonate standoff rings to clear the bronze trim rings, and high power magnets embedded to hold to the cabin side.

Not a real dirty weather solution obviously. Also a PITA to make which is why it hasn't happened. I should probably have set a grid of stainless acorn nuts into the cabin sides around each port opening while building but it seemed like an unnecessary lot of work at the time.

Hindsight.

Not having opening bronze ports would have worked too.

Your plastic & double-sided tape option sounds like a useful thing to try.

FKT

Some friends of ours did their house every winter, it worked well for them. Big windows, too. It's important to make it as airtight as possible.

 

[estarzinger]

I3mm polycarbonate

Your plastic & double-sided tape option s

we did the plastic and double sided tape for quite a few years . . . but one refit we refit all the hatches and ports and windows and we then bit the bullet and did the work for 4mm acrylic inner panes (with a small band of foam tape around the edges as a gasket) - looked much nicer but worked about the same. The fixed ones we just screwed into teak trim.  And used composite studs and nuts where we wanted to be able to remove them in (like in the tropics).

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

Some friends of ours did their house every winter, it worked well for them. Big windows, too. It's important to make it as airtight as possible.

Climate isn't as extreme here, I don't have any real problems with condensation in the house even though I've got single glazed windows in aluminium frames. There's a lot of thermal mass and as I dislike being cold, I keep the house heated.

Some form of winter/storm windows would save me considerable heat loss so it's something worth considering. Way down the project list though, I have a hell of a lot of firewood.

Harder to manage condensation on the boat although the hull, decks and cabin sides are very well insulated so not a problem. It's the ports and the small strip of steel exposed along the top of the cabin sides that annoy me. As I've said, I have a plan. And a fallback plan. Or 3.

Warmer climate, also no problem. But if you want to go into cool/cold climates, condensation drips will be a highly undesirable feature. Especially if one of the drips is right over your pillow.

FKT

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

we did the plastic and double sided tape for quite a few years . . . but one refit we refit all the hatches and ports and windows and we then bit the bullet and did the work for 4mm acrylic inner panes (with a small band of foam tape around the edges as a gasket) - looked much nicer but worked about the same. The fixed ones we just screwed into teak trim.  And used composite studs and nuts where we wanted to be able to remove them in (like in the tropics).

Hmmm - you have me thinking now. I've had it stuck in my head that the covers needed to go on the outside of the cabin. I think because I was considering them as storm shutters originally.

Fitting a cover inside the existing cutouts on the inside could be a lot more do-able. I've never finished the trim around the port openings anyway.

Time to get sketchbook and measuring tape back out to the boat.

FKT

 

[Ishmael]

Some form of winter/storm windows would save me considerable heat loss so it's something worth considering. Way down the project list though, I have a hell of a lot of firewood.

Growing up in Saskatchewan, where the temperature range is -40C to +40C, we only had single-pane windows, so every fall we had to put the storm windows on and take them off again in spring.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

Growing up in Saskatchewan, where the temperature range is -40C to +40C, we only had single-pane windows, so every fall we had to put the storm windows on and take them off again in spring.

If I lived in a place where it was -40C in winter, I'd move.

Fun fact, on winter voyages south it rarely got lower than -30C and usually only -20C thanks to the ocean not getting below -1.8C. You could keep beer chilled very nicely by putting it against the glass on the ports.

FKT

 

[Ishmael]

If I lived in a place where it was -40C in winter, I'd move.

Fun fact, on winter voyages south it rarely got lower than -30C and usually only -20C thanks to the ocean not getting below -1.8C. You could keep beer chilled very nicely by putting it against the glass on the ports.

FKT

I moved as soon as I could, then got my double idiot badge by going back. I'm cured now.

 

[olaf hart]

 You could keep beer chilled very nicely by putting it against the glass on the ports.

FKT

Thats one of the good things about deep frying your turkey outside in the snow at Thanksgiving...

That and the taste of the turkey

 

[stief]

? you'll have to explain that one to me.

Shang's pic

 

[Ishmael]

Shang's pic

Thank you. I missed that thread.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Condensation from my forward hatch lands right on your head :angry:

In the winter I throw a yoga mat on top of it and some old anchor chain to keep it in place. Works great and so does bubble wrap.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

Condensation from my forward hatch lands right on your head :angry:

In the winter I throw a yoga mat on top of it and some old anchor chain to keep it in place. Works great and so does bubble wrap.

I think we're all in agreement - for once - that condensation, especially condensation that drips on your head, is a highly UNDESIRABLE attribute of a boat...

FKT

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

Speaking of desirable features of offshore yachts...what are solutions out there if you ever need to lash down the boom?  If running with bare poles, etc.  That sort of hairy situation.

My boom is now longer, spanning a good part of the cockpit, whereas previously it didn’t.  If I ever wanted to lash down the boom previously, it wasn’t pretty what it would do to the top of my dodger (since I never got around to sewing leather chafe patches anywhere) —but it could be sheeted hard, prevented and basically (more or less) be secured on top of the dodger - without impeding the cockpit, since it was shorter.

Some traditionally rigged boats have a boom gallows, whether forward or aft of the cockpit.

I was contemplating this yesterday - not adding something necessarily- because I don’t want to!  But contemplating how to deal with a large boom that now spans the cockpit - if I want to secure it with the sail down.  In big seas, big winds, ever?  Maybe it’s just a matter of topping lift to keep it up high, above heads, and another line to prevent it a bit?  
 

What’s a desirable feature/system for an offshore yacht that might need to secure a boom out of the way of heads and movement/people in the cockpit?  (Is incorporating a rigid vang worth considering? Or is that simply “complicating” things, since a topping lift works fine?)

(Pics of my boat show spray hood/dodger with canvas removed.)