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Old 08-12-2013, 06:00 PM   #81
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Really glad Joe Pica and Ken Fickett have joined this discussion. Obviously there is a great deal of interest in these boats - and for good reason given the way most people use their boats. Now that interest can be met with an experienced owner and the builder!
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Old 08-12-2013, 06:10 PM   #82
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Dumfounded again. Plastic???

From the shape or shapes I assumed steel.

I need to click on some of these links and sites and see what other shocks I can experience.

On flat panels that lack stiffness frequently composites or/and sub frames are required for strength. Could the GH be a fiberglassed plywood boat? Or liberally laced w little bulsa blocks? Or FG angles and/or channels? Would metal reinforcement stay adhered to FG panels under hard usage?

Things to ponder
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Old 08-12-2013, 06:26 PM   #83
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Unfortunately I've gained a lot of weight...but oh, I was not in the boat when it was hoisted for an inspection short haul. It was very low on fuel and water and still showed 43,000+ lbs. on the hoist gauge. These are very stout built fiberglass boats, all glass below the rub rail and cored above. I wrote a long response to the questions posed about the design features and effect but it somehow disappeared into the ether. Perhaps I choked the list. Some of my posts were overly sarcastic so I hope no one was insulted and sincerely apologize if anyone was.
Lou Codega is the best to explain why the GH hull design is so stable. Something to do with hull sympathetic roll frequency to beam sea wave height of around 3'. Hopefully he or Ken will do a better job than I. I can only relate from my experiences in different beam seas. Beyond 3' the boat does not roll anymore than at 3' seemingly platforming wave. I observed this in 6-7' on the Chesapeake when turning due west(90 degrees to the 35 knt winds) to enter Thimble shoals to Norfolk. No drama, just the same as I would experience at 3'. This lateral stability is somewhat like a cat without the snap roll. This stability is best observed in an anchorage when some knucklehead wakes the anchorage. We roll much less then the other similar sized traditional round/soft chined boats which seem to oscillate like pendulums/metronomes laying much further over and continuing to roll much longer then we do. We seem to take one or two shallow rolls then settle. Head seas are head seas that can cause the boat to pitch as would any other displacement hulled boat depending on wave frequency and shape. Broaching from following seas seems moderated by the up sloped rounded stern(my unscientific assessment) that provides clearance for the keel/scag protected props and rudders. Following seas just seem to flow under and around the stern so broaching has never been a threat.

I will attach the link to our blog which has a link to our picasa albums back to when the boat was being built. There are enough photos to cure insomnia and constipation

Cheers Joe

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Old 08-12-2013, 06:27 PM   #84
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Mahogany with rubber rivets...
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Old 08-12-2013, 06:40 PM   #85
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I am the guy that owns the company that builds them. Trust me they are glass.

Remember that typically when a designer or builder talks about displacement that is the weight at the designed water line NOT what the boat weighs out of the factory. The displacement includes fuel, water, food, gear and all the other assorted stuff that comes aboard. In the case of RTF it includes his women, some are heavier than others!
Know Capt. Trey Rhyne (Over and Under Charters)? We know each other a bit ....

Have discussed diesel powering the smallish Mirage center console a few years back after he just got it.

Been following the line for years....

Nice when I saw the trawlers.
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Old 08-12-2013, 06:45 PM   #86
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Properly designed and laid up composite panels can be quite still....the aviation world uses them quite a bit....and are very popular in the multi world.

Sure they are heavy but on a trawler it's less important....certainly will rival steel at some point and be lighter...just may not have all the characteristics...good and bad.
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Old 08-12-2013, 07:36 PM   #87
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Eric / Manyboats,

I think I have drilled holes in almost every surface available in my boat. I have not found any balsa blocks nor any plywood on the hull. One feature we do enjoy is the v-groove fiberglass paneling that is made in the Mirage factory. I recently drilled in my pilot house roof to install a few antennas - between the rigid fiberglass surfaces, is a honeycomb that adds rigidity without the weight.
We made some scheduling decisions early in our ownership. Alligator River in 35knt winds put up a very interesting 6'+ seas. The high bow of the GH47 stuffed into some of the waves and threw water over the pilot house. We never felt uncomfortable in the boat and our only concern was if the Alligator River Bridge would close on us.
The GH47 has more tankage than the N37 but my engine room is not standup.
Calm Seas,
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Old 08-12-2013, 07:54 PM   #88
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... The high bow of the GH47 stuffed into some of the waves and threw water over the pilot house. ...
Haven't we all been there?

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Old 08-12-2013, 08:01 PM   #89
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Great Harbour Design

If I don't bore everyone I will explain a bit more about the “uniqueness” of the Great Harbour Trawlers. The shape which is often mistaken for steel came about as a result of the simple desire of a relatively small company to develop a significant line of live aboard boats. Had we chosen to build a much more complex shape with lots of compound curves it would have been beyond our reach financially. Simple curves are cheap to tool and a guy like Lou Codega can finesse those shapes to work as well as any compound shape. I would say that we saved at least a couple million dollars in tooling over the span of the four boats, not chump change! Additionally the 47 was basically designed at the same time as the 37. The original tooling was simply stretched at the appropriate points by 10 feet. It was not added to the transom but instead in a very particular curve in the hull that makes it work.


We have extensive experience in high performance sailboats, sportfishing boats and high performance, all composite aircraft. We understand the engineering of structures very well. We also recognize that design can be very polarizing and to make things worse I grew up sweeping chips out of wooden commercial fishing boats in the 50's. Those guys were all about function over looks and it has always been hard for me to shake that attitude. While looking at our (Mirage Manufacturing) 40 plus years of product we built, there are somethings that nearly everybody says are really great looking, others like the Great Harbours might have to grow on you! Best regards to all, Ken Fickett
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Old 08-12-2013, 08:36 PM   #90
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I appreciate Joe's earthy description of the boats handling. It's so difficult to get and give objective testimony when it's one's own boat and often one's pride and joy. Like others here on this thread, I get more from such descriptions than I do from math, even being an engineer. Ken's comments sure clear up a lot of "whys" that have buzzed around in my head since I first saw my first GH 37 years ago. I was looking at Hemisphere Dancer, an older GH 37 but I was a bit worried about its twin 38HP diesels vs. the 54s. It had all the live-aboard amenities anyone could want It's engine space was the still roomy, but only half-height ER available in the GH vs. the full height ER I fell in love with on the N-series. It's a heck of a thing to reject a good boat over an engine space, but with the cost of these boats, I'd have to have an "N". I've spent enough time in tight spaces....I deserve my stand-up engine room and my Admiral agrees.
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Old 08-12-2013, 09:08 PM   #91
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I really appreciate the input Ken / Joe / Henry. Thanks a bunch.

Ken -I admire anyone who is willing to take a risk and deviate from the status quo to come up with a good looking functional product, although the path is fraught with danger.
IMO - you have done something extrordinanary, by breaking the mold and still producing a product a traditionalist would love.

Congratulations!
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Old 08-13-2013, 08:16 AM   #92
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I have never gotten involved in internet discussions, but given how much I’ve been referred to here, perhaps it’s time.

The GH and N boats sprang from a long running discussion that Ken and I had about economical cruising boats. We had been passing sketches back and forth of long, narrow cruising boats when it dawned on us that fuel costs are not a very significant expense at true displacement speeds. But you pay for everything else by the foot. What were the tradeoffs of making the boat as short as possible?

As Ken mentioned, the hull was designed for flat panel glass construction to minimize tooling costs. Anyone who finds the hull particularly unique should google for images of work and fishing boats in drydock. Also look at some of the work of Jay Benford and Phil Bolger. I do ok with curves, check out some of my other designs, but there is not much of a performance sacrifice with flat panels in this application.

And while you are at it, go to Ken’s very informative web site and look up the Trawler Truths section. Lots of words and pictures there, no reason to trust faulty memories.

Let’s talk about the seakeeping characteristics.

First, don’t take my word for it. Everyone, and I mean everyone, who has run a GH/N will tell about some occasion when they were running alongside a similar size or even larger boat that was rolling the fillings out of the crews’ teeth while they were having an uneventful passage. The bottom line, so to speak, is that the design works. This is not marketing hype from the ad department, listen to the owners.

Why does it work? The short version is this – seakeeping, and rolling in particular, can be described as a spring/mass/damper system. Compared to other boats, the GH/Ns are a very stiff spring, with a high mass and massive damping. As most of you have probably observed, a boat rolls most when its roll period aligns with the frequency of the waves. The GH/N roll period corresponds to that of very small waves that have very little energy, so it is difficult to get it rolling in the first place. (Picture pushing a child on a swing set. If you push in synch with the natural frequency, very little force is needed to get a large motion. Push out of synch, as hard as you might, and you get very little motion.) The boat is heavy, so it takes a lot of energy to get it to roll. (To continue the analogy, it takes a lot more effort to get an older, larger, child moving than a younger one.) Finally, the hard chines and deep skegs provide a lot of damping to what motion does occur. No swing set analogy here, but there’s a reason why log rolling competitions are done on logs rather than 12x12s.

How do they differ from cats, also very stiff boats but sometimes criticized for a short, jerky motion? Cats typically have very little mass and almost no damping. Think for a moment about how the hulls move through the water. Up and down, essentially bobbing like a cork.

Here’s the key that even some so-called professionals don’t get: a boat in a seaway does not roll at the boat’s natural frequency. It rolls at the frequency of the waves that it’s encountering. A pundit saying that a stiff boat rolls too much really does not understand the physics. Or he’s extrapolating big ship thinking to smaller boats without thinking enough.

Enough for now. Thanks for listening.

Lou Codega
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Old 08-13-2013, 08:53 AM   #93
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Form Stability and Rolling

Hi Lou,
I wanted to let you know I found your discussion/method of explanation of the From Stability rather interesting. I need to re-read it again to fully grasp the explanation. I'm looking to understand these powerboat motions more thoroughly while I plan a new bottom for another project.

I suspect that those rather large 'flat plate' skegs are also contributing to dampening the roll.



Back in postings #29 & #28 I mentioned it
Quote:
Originally Posted by brian eiland
....I thought that somewhere else on their website there was more reference to the advantages of keeping weight out of the structures of the vessel above the waterline, PARTICULARLY at greater heights, but I did not find it. However here is an interesting point of view on stability of these style vessels.
Form Stability vs. Ballast and Stabilizers



Quote:
Originally Posted by website
The angle to which a boat rolls in response to an upsetting force is a function of the shape of the watertight boundary of the hull, deck and topsides, the weight, and the center of gravity. On our trawlers, we have maximized stability by many design characteristics. These include a wide beam, not just in the hull but in the deckhouse; hard chines, a low center of gravity resulting from the heavily laid up solid hull construction combined with a light weight, high strength cored construction for the topsides, liquids located low in hull through the use of narrow, integral tanks,
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Old 08-13-2013, 09:11 AM   #94
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Great Harbor 74'

BTW, did you guys ever build that 74 footer you guys were contemplating?
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Old 08-13-2013, 09:41 AM   #95
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Welcome to the forum LouCodega,

I generally lean toward the long and narrow but at times I wish my 30' Willard was 12' wide instead of 10.5'. The boat is a tad bit overpowered at 5hp per ton so should do fine w it's present power and I'd gain a great deal of space. It may turn what most think is a very shapely boat into a little tub. With that much beam 2 tons of ballast wouldn't be necessary and I just can't help thinking it could be a better boat.

Another observation I've made about the GH is that the bow is very wedge shaped. The WL fwd should (judging from the photos) be a relatively straight line for the 1st quarter of the boat. When this line is parallel to fwd quartering head seas some slamming should result. Changing course of course even a fairly small amount should change things to the better .. of course. And of course most boats with their constantly curved fwd sides would always present a portion of the bow that that is parallel to seas at a wide range of angles of head seas. But when the GH changes course a bit I see the potential for smoother going than most boats most of the time so this feature of the GH (if it exists) could be a good thing.

I consider my Willard (in Avatar) to be a short boat and since I've been fond of long boats for so long I was surprised to observe what I think is a very good seaworthyness feature of short boats. The stern isn't way back there driving the bow down into the next sea. The Willard's bow rises up even to sharp seas of about 8' smartly enough that I've never had much of anything but some spray on the foredeck. A nice feature I'd say and the GH shouldn't be burying her bow either. Hard to imagine.

LouCodega wrote;
"The GH and N boats sprang from a long running discussion that Ken and I had about economical cruising boats. We had been passing sketches back and forth of long, narrow cruising boats when it dawned on us that fuel costs are not a very significant expense at true displacement speeds. But you pay for everything else by the foot. What were the tradeoffs of making the boat as short as possible?"

I agree and that's the basis for my "wide Willard" thoughts I mentioned first. Cost per cu ft or size of a boat goes down as it's aspect ratio does. But whatever happened to "economical cruising boats"? I hear the GH is very expensive. Perhaps I'm just misinformed or the informer was thinking of cost per lineal foot.
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Old 08-13-2013, 12:15 PM   #96
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Great Harbour Secrets

I guess Lou and I are letting the cat out of the bag maybe too much. Everyone should be starting to get the idea that when the design team goes to work, which also includes the marketing department and the accounting department, that issues and solutions start to potentially diverge from what might be a perfect design for strict "seaworthiness". The key is to put together the best set of compromises for the expected use of the boat. If Lou and I were to discuss a boat that would go continuously around the world it most definitely would not look like any of the Great Harbours and we would be lucky to sell one. The trick is to design stuff that works best in a series of ways, from cruising capabilities to maintenance cost to sales price. Hopefully we make the right choices and have a successful product. The beam of the Great Harbours? Easy, 15'10" because over 16' becomes a very expensive slip and the shipping costs by truck double! And you all thought it was a carefully derived number for stability!
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Old 08-14-2013, 12:29 AM   #97
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Thanks Lou, Ken, Joe & Henry for heading off another thread on Great Harbours that would ultimately leave most of us in the "Duh" state. For some of us that may aspire to GH's, it's really, REALLY important that you have shared some of the practical thinking behind your unique product line. The influences on hull form in the process of designing and building a sale-able product never came up in the various discussions I've read on GH's. It was great timing, and greatly appreciated.
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Old 08-14-2013, 05:32 AM   #98
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Thanks Lou, Ken, Joe & Henry for heading off another thread on Great Harbours that would ultimately leave most of us in the "Duh" state. For some of us that may aspire to GH's, it's really, REALLY important that you have shared some of the practical thinking behind your unique product line. The influences on hull form in the process of designing and building a sale-able product never came up in the various discussions I've read on GH's. It was great timing, and greatly appreciated.
. Concur! Thanks for your time!
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Old 08-14-2013, 11:12 PM   #99
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Early this year while working on my boat on the Okeechobee Waterway in Florida, my favorite GH 37 went by. I've admired this paint job ever since I first saw it in Yachtworld, and I've been fooling around with the colors, trying to come up with a design using the same colors on my Manatee. Sorry to say that I missed capturing it from the front, cuz it looks even better from that angle. The nearly 16 ft. beam of the boat is evident in this shot.

Another thing I've come to admire about the GH's are the unapologetic approach to the swim platform. It's there, it's big, and you can put a half dozen people on it, a couple of chairs on it, a plethora of diving equipment, and it's got a big ass dock ladder that one can actually climb bare footed with heavy diving equipment. My Admiral and I supposed that if we had gone ahead with a similar platform on our boat, our usage would have probably doubled or tippled to include our swimming routines. We've got one on the drawling board now. The way we use a boat it makes sense.
Attached Thumbnails
Great Harbour GH37.jpg   N-series swim platform.jpg  
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Old 08-15-2013, 06:38 AM   #100
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I just want to make sure no one is confused by those photos. The picture of the boat underway is a GH-37 the swim platform shown is one on a Great Harbour N series with flybridge because there is a ladder which accesses the fly bridge from the after deck...although all have the same swim platform.

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