interior spaces on trawler types

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AusCan said:
What I do like about flybridges is being outside and in touch with the elements. What I don't like is the added windage of most flybridges.
In my opinion, a totally enclosed "oxygen tent" as FF puts it, minimizes the advantage and maximizes the disadvantage.

The 'Gikumi' which Marin posted, is one flybridge model that I would love to own.
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You might like my flybridge then. It's very minimalist - really only room for the skipper tucked into the "false stack". No extra windage. No room for guests (maybe one if they're a close friend.) I do feel like I'm on top of the world up there though :)
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angus99 said:
Yes, I don't have to understand . . . but I'd like to. (And I don't require anyone to explain.) Understanding is why most of us frequent forums like this, no? I would think someone as intellectually curious as you seem to be would agree.
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Ok,well I'll have a go at helping your understanding in this matter, just for the 'fun' of it Angus.

1. My boat has a flybridge, but even here in the Queensland, subtropical weather we find it either too hot up there in summer, or not that great in winter sailing. Certainly horrible in a seaway of any sort.

2. The lines of a boat are usually not improved by them. Some might, but most effective feature for better visibility in all weathers, in my view & many others I suspect, is when there is a raised pilot house. In which case, I feel the flybridge stuck up above is rendered superfluous, as long as the P/H has a door each side, and preferably (in a larger vessel), a Portuguese bridge around it.

3. It is costly having to duplicate each and every instrument and nav aid up there, but if you don't, then you are at a disadvantage. And Marin's suspicions re warning devices have some validity.

4. The heat encountered up there if said instruments are protected from the weather by enclosures, is so hot and steamy it shortens their life anyway. Believe me, I know this...

5. The said enclosures cause added height (bridges etc), weight, and windage, so even if you just leave them closed and ignore them if you don't like them, (as you suggested in one post), they are still there, causing the above...and one more negative as below...

6. they are a common cause of water ingress - how do I know - because I'm currently (with the boat up for sale), having a devil of a job finding how and where water is getting in somewhere on the bridge deck, and for the first time ever, (Murphy's Law), sometimes actually leaking inside - something never experienced before this year. Without the damn flybridge the upper deck would just be an uncluttered, and easily water (re)- proofed rooftop..., oh, and ...

7. therefore supplying lots of nice extra space for solar panels...

The only time we have found it quite useful in fact, was watching the fireworks at New Year, and how often does that come around?

Does that help in your understanding at all..? :)

PS. Hey Heals, if you're there and see this, would you have a go at taking my flybridge off. Then I'd have one with wannabe windows and one sans flybridge...
 

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Peter B said:
5. The said enclosures cause added height (bridges etc), weight, and windage, so even if you just leave them closed and ignore them if you don't like them, (as you suggested in one post), they are still there, causing the above...and one more negative as below...
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We keep ours under a full upper deck cover 99 percent of the time but it's still a negative for all the reasons you list plus the fact it still needs maintenance. There's wood trim that needs periodic care, the canvas cover itself needs mending and seam work as well as cleaning, the fiberglass needs washing and waxing, the upper steering needs lubing and so on. From an operational standpoint the flying bridge has exactly one benefit as far as we're concerned: it's a great place for the propane locker.

6. they are a common cause of water ingress -
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Yes, they certainly can be. Our PNW boat has a couple of leaks through something on the upper deck but the only way to locate them is to remove the entire fabric headliner in the main cabin so we can see the underside of the overhead itself. That's a major undertaking.

A project for when we have more time is to replace the main cabin headliner with a solid panel headliner so we're hoping that when we do this we'll be able to figure out the causes of the leaks and fix them.
 
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All the arguments for and against flying bridges, as stated above, have merit. However, if the boat is originally designed, like mine to have one, it is often the case that from the pilothouse, the view rearwards, is very limited (or in my case non existent). I therefore always go topsides for docking, locking or close maneuvering.


Having both, I can say that 80% of the time, we are operating from the flying bridge but at night and in inclement weather, we normally stay in the pilothouse.


Having said that, I would consider purchasing the right boat, with the right layout, even if it had no flying bridge. I would not consider a boat with only flying bridge controls. Having both, even with the negatives in the posts above, to me, is having the best of both worlds.


Another point is we have a very small back deck, so most of the time at anchor, or when there is more than just the two of us aboard, we congregate upstairs, especially at sunset and for that special sunrise with morning coffee.


As they say, whatever floats your boat.:thumb:
 
dimer2 said:
........Another point is we have a very small back deck, so most of the time at anchor, or when there is more than just the two of us aboard, we congregate upstairs, especially at sunset and for that special sunrise with morning coffee.
As they say, whatever floats your boat.:thumb:
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As you say, I readily admit that if you only have a fairly small exterior rear deck because of the tri-cabin layout, then yes...the flybridge can end up being the only shaded outdoor area to relax in - the major reason why we looked and looked until we found a Clipper 34 with a sedan layout.
 
Marin said:
The second photo is our PNW boat and the awkward clunkiness and bulk of it's "stuck on" flying bridge is very obviously different from the beautifully aesthetic (in my opinion) lines of the Gikumi's
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Have to admit, if the blue bimini and aft enclosure panels were removed from yours... I wouldn't be able to see much difference between the two implementations. I understand the curves versus the more angular lines, of course, but neither particularly looks better -- to me -- than the other.

Just MO.

-Chris
 
Peter B said:
Ok,well I'll have a go at helping your understanding in this matter, just for the 'fun' of it Angus.

Does that help in your understanding at all..? :)
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Sure does, Peter, thanks. If we had all those issues/concerns we probably wouldn't want a flybridge either. The only Defever 44 I've seen without one was an eyesore IMHO, but I've certainly seen other boats where having an FB hurt their appearance. Our boat came from Florida where they're pretty common and being inside in that heat was intolerable for us. The delivery skipper I had to hire and my son only left the flybridge to sleep, eat and "take care of business" during a 700-mile delivery trip. I can't imagine better sight lines than we currently have from aloft, but the big takeaway for me is that if you've seen one flybridge, you've seen one flybridge. They work for some boats . . . and owners . . . and not so much for others. Different strokes . . .
 
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In good weather the FB is the place to be. In bad weather the FB is the place I need to be for best visibility.
I cant imagine not being on the FB in the busy ICW.


Unless the boat is 50 or more inside steering takes up too much room better used for living space.


I generally don't favor trunk cabin boats because they sacrifice too much salon area for looks.


My last boat had wide side deck plus a full 15' wide salon space because seatbacks etc were under the side decks by a few inches.


For long open water passages inside down low steering out of sea lanes may be desirable but that isn't what most of us do. I commercial traffic lanes a ship overtaking at 22 knots comes on you very quickly.
 
ranger42c said:
I wouldn't be able to see much difference between the two implementations.
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Design aesthetics are like music; they are totally subjective. To me, the differences between the Gikumi's flying bridge design aesthetics and the those of our boat's flying bridge are as glaring in my perception as the aesthetic differences between an Aston Martin and a Chevy Suburban.

To someone else the design aesthetics of both may be similar. And to yet another person the design aesthetics of both may be perceived as negatives.
 
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Marin said:
Design aesthetics are like music; they are totally subjective. To me, the differences between the Gikumi's flying bridge design aesthetics and the those of our boat's flying bridge are as glaring in my perception as the aesthetic differences between an Aston Martin and a Chevy Suburban.

To someone else the design aesthetics of both may be similar. And to yet another person the design aesthetics of both may be perceived as negatives.
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OK, I can tell the difference between an Aston Martin and a Suburban. :)

Agree about subjectivity.

Happens I would never choose an AM, although some seem OK to look at from a polite distance.

I drive a Suburban. More subjectivity. :)

-Chris
 
My own take from experience is that a fly bridge is great for docking and night navigation, or, in port for a G&T and watch the world go by
For longer voyages the lower helm is excellent, the centre of gravity is lower so you don't get thrown around and injured in heavy seas, skipper/crew can share duties, take turns at the wheel while the other grabs 40 winks, updates any navigation info, get food an drinks along the way and generally enjoy the cruise.
It really depends on your chosen cruising area as to what suits you best.
The secret of it all is to be friendly to everyone you meet along the way and enjoy every moment.
 
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healhustler said:
I had to look back in the archives to find the GB36 sans the flying bridge Marin talked about. Hard to argue that it really is a good looking vessel, especially if the roof was done right.
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Aside from the other pros and cons of a FB the consideration of overall boat height Vs. length is usually a big factor in how eye pleasing a boat is in profile. A FB on a long boat with a basically low profile is not as disrupting to the eye as a short boat with a FB slapped on a high house. Boats under 45 ft LOA with even moderate house height take some architectural skill to add a FB without detracting from its looks. Add to the FB the typical full canvas enclosure and its not a pretty picture. Yes I understand most FB with enclosures are not there for beauty but for the owners comfort. Most stubby high profile trawler types with FB enclosures could look better with the application of a big chain saw applied about 6 feet above the waterline, unfortunately that works against the comfort cottage trend in this type of boat..
 
Pilothouse Boats

This turned out to be another great post with valuable input from everyone so why not one more "opinion". After living aboard (part time) and coastal cruising on two smaller pilothouse trawlers (40') we found the pilothouse house to our favorite part of the boat. The views were the best anytime of the day or night (tied to the dock or at sea) and having a dedicated place to navigate from was something we enjoyed. The only downside (if there was one) was the PH being a little smaller than our dream PH. After the two PH boats we tried the express style or open salon / steering station on a 35' and while that design worked nice for this size boat we missed the PH. This is why for us we searched high and low for a boat that blended the open, one level feel with the privacy of a large PH under 40'. While a few builders in semi-displacement trawler market have done a good job designing this balance we settled on what we believe was the closet possible design (Helmsman 38). When you look at this boats design you have the open or Europa style salon / galley (good size) with only one bulkhead to port separating the large pilothouse that is only two steps up. A very nice and unique design providing a great balance of openness and separation (if there is such a thing). Hats off to all boat designers who try to come up with the perfect balance of space, functionality and ergonomics in todays fast changing world of styles.

John T
Nordhavn 4050, 4061, 3522 - Former Oowners
Helmsman 38PH - Under construction
 
I single hand quite a bit while fishing and have a lower helm with excellent near-360* visibility. I also have all my electronics at the lower helm including radar, but can place a small Garmin chartplotter and a depth sounder at the FB helm. I find the lower helm useful for accessing food, drink and gear while underway. If I want to make lunch, no problem. Got a terrible thirst? No worries. Need to set up the fishing gear so I'm ready at my fishing hole? Easily done on AP while underway.

I like the FB for its enhanced visibility over our levees in the delta, but it doesn't help much on our trips in the big bays here. When it's cool and wet, I love the warmth and protection of the lower helm. When it's very bright and sunny, I love the sun protection. I do find the FB useful as a storage area for my portable generator, a spare deck chair and my gasoline and propane supplies.
 
Thread drift here, sorry, but I find design aesthetics to be a fascinating thing. We provided a lot of marketing support to the airplane concept we originally called 7E7. As designed, the 7E7 was gorgeous. The first illustration is the best I could find of the design on the web but it was actually even more organic and curvy than this. The curving profile was also functional: the crew rest compartment was to be in the "hump" in the foward part of the fuselage.

Everyone, particularly the airlines, loved the aesthetics of the design, the airlines because the 7E7 would be as distinctive a branding image for them as the 747 had become. Most jetliners are, of course, just straight tubes with wings.

I produced a marketing video that had kids in different parts of the world working together in real time with a then-new-concept called a tablet to design a plane based on things they saw around them in nature. So a boy says as he draws on his tablet, "I'll make the body look like a dolphin," and then a girl watches a shark swim past her in the underwater environment she's in and says as she adds on her tablet to what the boy just drew, "And the tail can look like a shark." And so on.

And then..... the manufacturing engineers and finance folks got into the game and design aesthetics went right out the window. The dolphin-like body was too expensive to manufacture, they said, but more important it would be a bitch to stretch. So it was replaced with a straight tube.

Likewise the shark-like tail was replaced with a conventional straight-line tail except for the upper end of the leading edge which they left curved as a sop to the original design engineers.

The end result, which we named 787, is the second illustration. To almost everyone who'd seen the 7E7 design, the 787 was--and is-- a giant yawn from an aesthetic aspect. The wings are very cool but that's thanks to aerodynamic design and what they're made of. Sort of an aesthetic "happy accident" if you will.

Now, all the reasons behind the design changes to the 7E7 were 100% valid. Nobody argued against them other than our and the airlines' marketing departments and even they understood the validity of the changes.

But it's the best example of aesthetics vs. reality I've ever been party to.

The same situation exists in boats, too, of course, and there are tons of examples--some subtle and some extreme-- where reality (function, manufacturing cost, customer demand, etc.) took priority over aesthetic design. Flying bridges are an example of this.

So it's always nice to come across instances where the designers were able to meet the reality requirements while satisfying the more gut-level desire for an aesthetic appearance. It doesn't happen a lot, but everyone will have their favorite--- and different, of course--- examples. For me it's boats like the Gikumi.

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Greetings,
Thread drift ONLY in the fact that design/aesthetics-boats is being replaced with design/aesthetics-aircraft. One and the same IMO once engineers get involved as noted. I "somehow" picked up on that right away...

A lot cheaper (better profit margins) to build an item with straight lines as opposed to curvy in spite of the fact curvy may be more pleasing to the eye...

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While I find the curves RTF mentions to be most interesting and worthy of considerable time examining closely, and curves which I'm very fond of, I have never once thought of or had any interest in the curves, or lack thereof, of a commercial passenger plane. I never ask for a pretty plane when making reservations nor do I look out while waiting, hoping that the plane I'm going to be on has some type of curves that I think are pretty. The appearance of the plane I'm about to fly in is so far down the scale of importance to me. In fact, I've never even thought of the aesthetics of large planes.
 
So back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I posted a photo of Gikumi earlier. I had the good fortune to be invited on a cruise on Gikumi a few years ago in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Telegraph Cove. While on board I took a few photos of her interior. She had recently been modified from whale watching to charter cruising and the space below the aft deck had been reworked into two small staterooms and a head. Another small stateroom had been worked into the boat up forward.

I've posted some of these photos in the past but here is what I consider the best boat interior I have ever seen to date bar none

The photos are self-titled. The fellow in the folding helm seat is the person who bought Gikumi from the mill, turned it into a whale watch boat and founded Stubbs Island Whale Watching. At the time these photos were taken he had recently sold Stubbs Island and he and his wife were concentrating on one week charter tours using Gikumi.
 

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Okay, back to stuff that's actually relevant.

As I had speculated earlier, turns out the Gikumi was not constructed with a flying bridge. Here are some shots of her as-built. So Jim added the flying bridge after he started using her in his whale watching venture. Don't know if he designed it or had someone design it for him. It wouldn't surprise me if he built it, however.
 

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stubones99 said:
The one thing I have noticed is you northern boys get all antsy when you can't get out on the boats, so I am hoping for clear weather soon so we can get back to people helping people in this forum.
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You got that right, I think.:) It's been particularly frustrating for us because we normally use the boat all winter. But it's been laid up and in and out of the yard dealing with a couple of very frustrating and complex problems since the end of August and we only just this last week got it back after the resolution of what we hope is the final issue.
 
Peter B said:
PS. Hey Heals, if you're there and see this, would you have a go at taking my flybridge off. Then I'd have one with wannabe windows and one sans flybridge...
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Got 'em ready. Sent you PM.
 
Having boated many years on the East Coast and now 18 years in the PNW I see more use for the East Coast FB except maybe the ICW where the bugs were so thick screens were needed for the pilot house. In the PNW most of the year its wet and cool thus the ugly high wind age full enclosure. I am not a great fan of the high pilot house but I think it a much better solution than the pilot house and an enclosed FB on top.
 
Yes, coming back to Gikumi, although the addition of the rudimentary flybridge did add a lot to its functionality as a whale-watching boat, so the skipper had a higher vantage point to spot them from, it does not offend, precisely because of its rudimentary nature. That is, clearly just an outside elevated conning position. However, compared to the original (we are lucky to have to compare with), it did not enhance its lines in my view. I loved the interior layout though. Just reeks of real boat. Makes me want to get aboard.
 
healhustler said:
Got 'em ready. Sent you PM.
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Wow, thanks Larry (Healhustler). Those are just too good not to share. I don't mind if folk pass judgement either way, because we are clearly just flying kites here. But boy would that set-up be so much easier to chase down leaks and lay out extra solar panels. Hey, like that, without F/B, I even think the wannabe window version might have the edge, what do others think..?

PS, I'm hoping what I did this morning might have solved my leak issue - fingers crossed...
 

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BandB said:
Yes, understanding is a large part of being here. I try to understand. Some things then I just have to accept. Sometimes I can hear the words and intellectually understand but I can't feel what the other person is feeling, I can't put myself in their place, I can't empathize. So, different levels of understanding.
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I understand that I feel more mentally accomplished when I can expand my understand-quotient by perceiving another person's different understanding than mine. To understand via vicariously being able to set oneself into another's "position" of understanding, without actually being in that person's understanding's actual physical or mental place, enables capability to gain more capabilities to understand life outside of one's own domain.

With each success in understanding others' position on topics there comes greater freedom for further successes toward ongoing outside-oneself understandings.

Understand?
 
Peter B said:
However, compared to the original (we are lucky to have to compare with), it did not enhance its lines in my view.
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A lot of major changes were made to Gikumi in its conversion. The piothouse was extended aft and an entire new cabin was added behind it. I think the flying bridge adds to the aesthetics of the "new" boat.

In it's original workboat form I think Gikumi looks a little awkward. Obviously a flying bridge stuck on top of the pilothouse in its original configuration would have looked bizarre. But I think it's a nice design element for the boat as it is today even if one had little reason to use it.

And as I've said many times before, I'm not anti-flying bridge. I just won't drive a boat from one. But as a place to relax and enjoy one's surroundings I think they're great regardless of their aesthetics.
 
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Peter B said:
Wow, thanks Larry (Healhustler). Those are just too good not to share. I don't mind if folk pass judgement either way, because we are clearly just flying kites here. But boy would that set-up be so much easier to chase down leaks and lay out extra solar panels. Hey, like that, without F/B, I even think the wannabe window version might have the edge, what do others think..?

PS, I'm hoping what I did this morning might have solved my leak issue - fingers crossed...
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I like it with the wannabe windows. Although I would prefer the brim (front roof line) extending further forward. While it may not be as astetically pleasing, it very functional for rain and as a sun visor.

Ted
 
Marin said:
BandB-- At the risk of upsetting Al again, I can tell you that the design of a plane plays a huge role in the marketing of an airline. A number of airline CEOs and marketing managers have told me in the course of interviews how passengers are blown away by the shape and look of the 787's wings and what they do during flight. It's one of the most positively commented upon features of the plane in passenger surveys the world over. Passengers have commented that they select window seats just so they can watch them.
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I'm with B on this one: couldn't care less, can't (and don't want to) see it from the inside, don't even know what model of aircraft I'm flying in at any given time (other than when learning the safety precautions). Safety, on-time-ness (?), decent terminal operations, etc. If they can make a tin can fly, works for me.

Different for boats. Looks matter somewhat more there, for me. I'm not attracted to anything that looks Italian -- nor even anything that sounds like it was probably named by an Italian ("Fly" for example). I think I have an Italian stomach :) and Italian wines are usually highest on our list, I loved Italy and the people I met there, but when it comes to boats and when given a choice I prefer "Down East" or similar.

More "different strokes."

-Chris
 
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