NYCHAB III
Veteran Member
Hello All, I am new to this Forum and this will be my first official question. I have waited until Mon. so you all will be calm, fit and fully rested (and, hopefully, patient).
Our first boat (as mentioned in my intro.) was a 30-ft. Clipper Marine sailboat. It was an odd boat in that while it had an endearing clipper bow, it had a rather chopped-off stern and an 8-ft beam. I've only appreciated that design after watching the America's Cup boats - long, narrow, with slab-like sides and soft chines. Like them, ours seemed to sail equally fast either heeled-over or upright. The wetted perimeter did not change significantly in either position.
Anyway, I digress. While puttering around with it at dock, I noticed I could grab a stanchion and easily walk it out of it's slip. In other words, at walking speed (2 to 3 MPH) I could effortlessly tow that boat along. I also noticed, it took equal effort to push it sideways away from the dock, as I always did to check the spring lines and snubbers. My thought at the time was that at walking speed, it wouldn't really matter if it still had the trailer attached - it just didn't take much effort to move it along.
Now before there begins a clamor for more stringent vetting of new members, let me explain where I'm going with this.
Whilst perusing the Seattle WA Craigslist / boats (my favorite site for boat-porn) I came across a twin-engine trawler that some guy actually had installed a Volvo Penta outdrive on. It was fitted on the stern (of course) and apparently had its own small diesel engine inboard. Since that outdrive only swings about a 14-in. prop I later got to thinking ( and FINALLY my question), does a trawler, at under, say 10-MPH, really need all that much HP.? I know you need a lot of HP to get above some threshold, for instance onto plane - but if you are just "no-waking" along, could you in fact, use the equivalent of a small outboard?
I do not know what happened to the aforementioned trawler, it disappeared from Craigslist - but it seemed an intriguing idea.
D.
Our first boat (as mentioned in my intro.) was a 30-ft. Clipper Marine sailboat. It was an odd boat in that while it had an endearing clipper bow, it had a rather chopped-off stern and an 8-ft beam. I've only appreciated that design after watching the America's Cup boats - long, narrow, with slab-like sides and soft chines. Like them, ours seemed to sail equally fast either heeled-over or upright. The wetted perimeter did not change significantly in either position.
Anyway, I digress. While puttering around with it at dock, I noticed I could grab a stanchion and easily walk it out of it's slip. In other words, at walking speed (2 to 3 MPH) I could effortlessly tow that boat along. I also noticed, it took equal effort to push it sideways away from the dock, as I always did to check the spring lines and snubbers. My thought at the time was that at walking speed, it wouldn't really matter if it still had the trailer attached - it just didn't take much effort to move it along.
Now before there begins a clamor for more stringent vetting of new members, let me explain where I'm going with this.
Whilst perusing the Seattle WA Craigslist / boats (my favorite site for boat-porn) I came across a twin-engine trawler that some guy actually had installed a Volvo Penta outdrive on. It was fitted on the stern (of course) and apparently had its own small diesel engine inboard. Since that outdrive only swings about a 14-in. prop I later got to thinking ( and FINALLY my question), does a trawler, at under, say 10-MPH, really need all that much HP.? I know you need a lot of HP to get above some threshold, for instance onto plane - but if you are just "no-waking" along, could you in fact, use the equivalent of a small outboard?
I do not know what happened to the aforementioned trawler, it disappeared from Craigslist - but it seemed an intriguing idea.
D.