Dashew fpb 64

[David Ess]

RSLifkin. Right, most dont need the high standards of the fpb boats. We do... high latitudes, rounding the horn, Northwest Passage.

 

[mvweebles]

RSLifkin. Right, most dont need the high standards of the fpb boats. We do... high latitudes, rounding the horn, Northwest Passage.

Curious - what is your prior boat ownership experience?

 

[Simi 60]

They sound expensive. I just purchased 3/8" tempered glass in bronze. 30"x18" was about $300 just for the glass - times 8 for all my windows. No lamination, no mounting, nothing. Just the glass. Plenty rich for my blood.

I personally believe such equipment makes sense on vessels who are either at-risk of impact due to stuff like boom cranes swinging around deck; or have no choice in their scheduled sailings. If you plan to schedule passages for known seasonal weather windows, stuff like this adds an enormous amount of cost with no real benefit.

Just depends on what your plans are. There is no way I could get my wife to accompany me anywhere where something like this might be even remotely needed. I can't say as I blame her/

Peter

I remember a guy near where I am building a "super safe" yacht so as to withstand the 100 ft rogue waves and ice and as he was going to remote areas an impenetrable fortress
Many years, many workers, spent a motza and finally launched it

Sailed like a pig put probably great in 40+ knots
Hot as hades as it had little ventilation, got to keep the waves and zombies out
Wife left him, couldn't sail it himself, no one wanted to go out on it with him
Left languishing in a marina, to hot to live on bleeding him dry.
Couldn't sell it, totally unsuitable for weather here or the tropics

Not sure what happened to him, suspect he died as last I saw of her she was on the hard getting chopped up.

Point I'm making is its pretty bloody pointless having the safest boat out there capable of withstanding 100ft rogue waves, ice and zombie appocolyse unless of course you actually play in those places.
99.9% of us never will

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

I think in a 100'rogue wave, your windows aren't going to matter much.. I saw a cruise ship in drydock at Grand Bahama Shipyard several years ago. She had encountered a 100' rogue wave in the southern ocean. Piothouse windows were 80' plus above waterline and at least 200'aft of bow.. Blown out, bow steel stove in for about 50'.

 

[David Ess]

Curious - what is your prior boat ownership experience?

Irrelevant to wanting higher standards instead of lower ones. But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards.

 

[mvweebles]

Irrelevant to wanting higher standards instead of lower ones. But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards.

Perhaps. I see experience as providing context. Knowing when something is fit-for-purpose. For example, the glass you suggest is likely extremely heavy and requires specialized installation and carries enormous cost. Yet except for bragging rights, offers no discernable benefits to a well made off shelf port/light.

Example. I need new tires. Unconstrained book knowledge without benefit of experience or practical design parameters would lead me to install the same tires that the winning Indy 500 car had, an awful choice for a daily driver. Often exotic materials do one thing extremely well. A boat is a system and does not tolerate highly specialized exotic solutions well. There needs to be a practical vector to equipment selection. Experience is helpful, thus my question on your practical boating background

There's an old saying. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is actually a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.

Peter

 

[FF]

"But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards."


Realistic folks that realize there is a small chance of extreme conditions can create Lexan storm covers that work well as winter insulation , a far more common need.


Folks that like mental contemplation can locate the sea state conditions world wide on their computer.

 

[David Ess]

Perhaps. I see experience as providing context. Knowing when something is fit-for-purpose. For example, the glass you suggest is likely extremely heavy and requires specialized installation and carries enormous cost. Yet except for bragging rights, offers no discernable benefits to a well made off shelf port/light.

Example. I need new tires. Unconstrained book knowledge without benefit of experience or practical design parameters would lead me to install the same tires that the winning Indy 500 car had, an awful choice for a daily driver. Often exotic materials do one thing extremely well. A boat is a system and does not tolerate highly specialized exotic solutions well. There needs to be a practical vector to equipment selection. Experience is helpful, thus my question on your practical boating background

There's an old saying. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is actually a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.

Peter

I gave the example of the Dutch builder , Damen, and their really high standard windows they use. I'll bet they know about 'context'. And sure, quality costs more, but i never even mentioned cost.

 

[David Ess]

"But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards."


Realistic folks that realize there is a small chance of extreme conditions can create Lexan storm covers that work well as winter insulation , a far more common need.


Folks that like mental contemplation can locate the sea state conditions world wide on their computer.

No problem if anybody else wants to round the horn, and do the NorthWest passage with their plastic day boat...ill go for one like thecDashew , with its 19mm or that Mobius boat with the 26mm windows.

 

[mvweebles]

So when do you plan to start your voyage around the horns and through the Southern Ocean. Any thoughts on the Vendee Globe race? Lessons learned?

 

[Hippocampus]

Agree with the old saw”you can’t buy safety”. And agree average cruising conditions aren’t anything like the southern ocean. But there are some conditions you can pretty much expect and be quite concerned about risk of down flooding from failure of a light.

Crossing a bar. Interesting report of a small nordie surviving a knockdown without damage in that setting.
Line squalls. Have yet to go down Newport to leewards without being caught at least once.
Local T storms.
Bad routing.

So yes if your doing extended cruising think that’s a weak spot. Sure you can put up your storm boards before you leave but reality is the one time it matters you may not have done so. Personally think a cruising boat should be able to survive sustained force 8+ and a knockdown. Think CE A is a minimum. Personally don’t like lexan as it scratches. So think strong glass is worth it. Think what it is depends on the size of the opening, where it is and how it’s mounted.

 

[David Ess]

If I were crossing oceans and had $2m+ to spend I'd also like the vessel to be aesthetically pleasing on the outside. Those options look like research vessels for the study of the reproduction life cycles of jelly fish. Lol

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that goes for boats as well as women. Forc me , the Dashew boats are more beariful than the one in ypur profile foto. On the other hand, for many guys function follows form, so safety comes before beauty.

 

[David Ess]

So when do you plan to start your voyage around the horns and through the Southern Ocean. Any thoughts on the Vendee Globe race? Lessons learned?

We dont care about the Vendee or any other races. We prefer slow. And we'll start as soon as we get a boat, which will be something like the fpb ones, or say, a Cape Horn Trawler(love those 3" thick steel skeg shoes, and 1" windows.).

 

[mvweebles]

. Personally think a cruising boat should be able to survive sustained force 8+ and a knockdown. Think CE A is a minimum. Personally don’t like lexan as it scratches. So think strong glass is worth it. Think what it is depends on the size of the opening, where it is and how it’s mounted.

Force 8 (up to 40 kts; seas to 20-feet) is probably about right. But surviving a knockdown would exclude >90% of the sailboats crossing oceans, either by their design (e.g. Catalinas, Hunters, most Beneateus, etc.) or condition (e.g. aging rigging and spars). But if your cruising plans warrant, you can afford it, and it gives you peace of mind, great.

A good read is Steve Dashew's dissection of the 1994 Queen's Birthday Storm. He has a good quote in it:

The difference between a survival situation and an
uncomfortable couple of days was probably less
than 150 miles in position along the east-west axis.​

Now, he clearly states that Monday Morning QB'ing is not fair, but still, he goes into detail on what weather ques were missed. Events like these have become rarer and rarer as weather forecasting and communications get better and better. Also, the fleet who got caught in the QB Storm left very late.

But you have to ask yourself: What risk am I really mitigating? Consider this - at best, an active cruising boat spends 5% of their time underway - around 450 engine hours for a powerboat. Probably less than 10% of that time is outside of a 3-day weather forecast window (e.g. a crossing). So we're dealing with mitigating risk of 0.5% of the time (that's 44-hours per year folks) exposed to events that happen every 25-30 years or so.

Meteorite Insurance comes to mind. But hey, if you've worked through all the other risks and this is the one left that keeps you from cutting docklines and shoving off, great.

Peter

 

[mvweebles]

We dont care about the Vendee or any other races. We prefer slow. And we'll start as soon as we get a boat, which will be something like the fpb ones, or say, a Cape Horn Trawler(love those 3" thick steel skeg shoes, and 1" windows.).

So how will you prepare? How do you research? Racers are about the only ones who venture into the Southern Ocean. If you ignore them, then you've pretty well relegated yourself to reinventing the wheel, no?

You see, my strong hunch is a wave doesn't come out of nowhere and smash against your window. Something has happened. For example, my guess is the most common equipment failure in the Southern Ocean is steering loss either by rudder damage or A/P failure, which would be catastrophic.

How would you come to know things like this unless you study those who came before you, even racers? How are you preparing besides specifying a boat? What are you doing to prepare yourself, meaning what is your body of experience from which you are building upon? Sort of sounds like a lot of book reading and not much practical experience which is fine, but just wondering your approach.

Peter

 

[David Ess]

We would have no problem cutting the lines with those Dashew boats, but wont with any flimsy ones flimsy ones.

 

[David Ess]

So how will you prepare? How do you research? Racers are about the only ones who venture into the Southern Ocean. If you ignore them, then you've pretty well relegated yourself to reinventing the wheel, no?

You see, my strong hunch is a wave doesn't come out of nowhere and smash against your window. Something has happened. For example, my guess is the most common equipment failure in the Southern Ocean is steering loss either by rudder damage or A/P failure, which would be catastrophic.

How would you come to know things like this unless you study those who came before you, even racers? How are you preparing besides specifying a boat? What are you doing to prepare yourself, meaning what is your body of experience from which you are building upon? Sort of sounds like a lot of book reading and not much practical experience which is fine, but just wondering your approach.

Peter

Here's an example...you mentioned sterering. The Dashew fpb boats have 4 seperate steering systems. Many other boats also have redundant systems.

 

[David Ess]

MWWeebles. Re your comment that " waves dont cone out of nowhere". Yet we know that rogue waves actual do. Thus the name 'rogue waves'. So when in high latitudes especially, we would prefer a boat that is way moreclikelybto handle them. But if others are unconcerned, no problem.

 

[mvweebles]

We would have no problem cutting the lines with those Dashew boats, but wont with any flimsy ones flimsy ones.

Agreed - they are an amazing boat designed by perhaps the most knowledgeable ocean cruiser on the planet.

But the challenge is there's always a reason not to leave - "If only I had a XXX, then I could go." The most difficult part of a passage is the first boat length - just getting out of the slip.

There are at least two FPBs for sale right now. What's holding you back?

 

[rslifkin]

Here's an example...you mentioned sterering. The Dashew fpb boats have 4 seperate steering systems. Many other boats also have redundant systems.

Redundant steering is one of those things at the "more useful / important" end of the safety spectrum. Losing the ability to steer can easily put you in a situation where you need more of the other safety features (by not being able to control how the seas are hitting you in bad weather, or by being stuck out there longer and having the weather turn when you expected to be out of that area already).



That's one of the big safety items that I wish my boat had. But design wise, it would be hard to implement on my boat in any usable way. So I go with keeping the steering hydraulics in good condition and knowing that as long as I'm not in really ugly weather, I can get myself somewhere with a steering failure provided I can get the rudders close to centered and nothing takes out one of my engines.

 

[mvweebles]

MWWeebles. Re your comment that " waves dont cone out of nowhere". Yet we know that rogue waves actual do. Thus the name 'rogue waves'. So when in high latitudes especially, we would prefer a boat that is way moreclikelybto handle them. But if others are unconcerned, no problem.

Steve Dashew disagrees with you. He literally says they don't exist. They may seem like they come from nowhere if you are not knowledgeable about weather, forecasting, and interactions. But Dashew's treatise is that a Rogue Wave is an incredible amount of stored energy that must come from somewhere (which is supported by the Laws of Thermodynamics).

From Dashew, page 241:

WAVE SIZE PROBABILITY
There really is no such thing as a rogue wave. These larger-than-normal seas are the result of two wave trains coinciding at just the right moment for their energy to combine.

When this happens the higher-than-normal crest is exposed to more wind
force, and absorbs additional energy.

And if the wave happens to be unstable and breaks—because the rotating
particles within the wave can no longer make it over the top—there will be
a large mass of water falling downhill.​

 

[mvweebles]

Redundant steering is one of those things at the "more useful / important" end of the safety spectrum. Losing the ability to steer can easily put you in a situation where you need more of the other safety features.

I 100% agree with you rslifkin. Dashew has an interesting setup - he has dual A/P pumps that he can operate individually or combine the two so they have twice the response rate in big seas. It's a cool setup.

I ended up with redundant A/P pump as part of my refit. I decided to have it plumbed in as a warm standby. In the event the main pump fails, I can switch a couple valves, and swing the 2-wire leads from the old to new pump. I realize I don't have electronic redundancy, but this seemed like an easy upgrade for me.

Peter

 

[rslifkin]

I 100% agree with you rslifkin. Dashew has an interesting setup - he has dual A/P pumps that he can operate individually or combine the two so they have twice the response rate in big seas. It's a cool setup.

I ended up with redundant A/P pump as part of my refit. I decided to have it plumbed in as a warm standby. In the event the main pump fails, I can switch a couple valves, and swing the 2-wire leads from the old to new pump. I realize I don't have electronic redundancy, but this seemed like an easy upgrade for me.

Peter

I haven't put A/P on my boat yet, but when I do, I figure that gives me some redundancy. I've wondered what it would take to put a linear A/P drive or 2 in as a backup in case the steering ram fails or something. I don't know how well they'd be able to shove the rudders around against the hydraulics or what it would take to make that work, however. In my case, I don't think A/P redundancy is needed, just some kind of steering redundancy, as I don't boat anywhere that hand steering becomes a non-option. It sucks for long periods of time in rough seas, but I try to avoid that. And in good conditions, hand steering for a 10 or 12 hour day isn't that bad.

 

[mvweebles]

On my way down from San Francisco to Ensenada, I lost the A/P as I crossed the Santa Barbara Channel. Of course it was 0200, the bewitching hour for all underway failures of any sort. Hand-steering in low/no visibility conditions is tough, at least for me. Maybe after a while you get used to it, but >20-degree swings in each direction were the norm. And Weebles' long full keel tracks pretty well.

I did manage to fix the A/P a few hours later. It was the original A/P pump which consisted of a reversible motor belt-drive to a small hydraulic pump. The set screw on the sheave to the pump had backed-off so was disconnected from the pump shaft and was lost to the bilge gods. Amazingly, I was able to scavenge a set screw from somewhere in my toolbox.

Peter

 

[David Ess]

Weebles...yes Dershew likes to use a euphemism..."larger than normal seas", instead of what everybody else calls them....rogue waves. And i would prefer to be in one of his boats when one hits.

 

[mvweebles]

Weebles...yes Dershew likes to use a euphemism..."larger than normal seas", instead of what everybody else calls them....rogue waves. And i would prefer to be in one of his boats when one hits.

This is going to sound arrogant but I am going to say it anyway. Very, very few boaters - even those on this otherwise knowledgeable list - bother to learn much about weather and the effect on seas. Instead of learning and understanding, aspiring cruisers prefer to purchase a tank of a boat 'just in case.'

There are only two reasons more people don't make significant passages on their boat: They are either uninspired to do so (I fall into this category - Alaska to Maine are perfectly acceptable for me), or they are in a do-loop of preparation that never ends so there's always an excuse not go tomorrow (or an affordability factor).

David, you are not alone in your thinking, just a bit more brazen in speaking. The risk you are trying to minimize is infinitesimal and can be almost entirely mitigated by knowledge and planning. The Dashew link I sent a few posts above this was for "Surviving the Storm." It's almost 700 pages long. My advice to you and others like yourself would be to devour information such as this, then decide what type of windows you need. You may be closer to leaving on your dream cruise than you know.....

Peter

 

[David Ess]

This is going to sound arrogant but I am going to say it anyway. Very, very few boaters - even those on this otherwise knowledgeable list - bother to learn much about weather and the effect on seas. Instead of learning and understanding, aspiring cruisers prefer to purchase a tank of a boat 'just in case.'

There are only two reasons more people don't make significant passages on their boat: They are either uninspired to do so (I fall into this category - Alaska to Maine are perfectly acceptable for me), or they are in a do-loop of preparation that never ends so there's always an excuse not go tomorrow (or an affordability factor).

David, you are not alone in your thinking, just a bit more brazen in speaking. The risk you are trying to minimize is infinitesimal and can be almost entirely mitigated by knowledge and planning. The Dashew link I sent a few posts above this was for "Surviving the Storm." It's almost 700 pages long. My advice to you and others like yourself would be to devour information such as this, then decide what type of windows you need. You may be closer to leaving on your dream cruise than you know.....

Peter

I already said we're fine with the high standards of the Dershew boats, and would take them anywhere. He decided on those 19mm windows, and well trust him. We love...knowledge and planning, and sailing out with a sturdy boat like the FPBs, Cape Horn Trawlers, etc. But if others, even with knowledge and planning, want to sail out with lesser boats, no problem.

 

[sunchaser]

I already said we're fine with the high standards of the Dershew boats, and would take them anywhere. .

Dashew is a proponent of avoiding bad weather no matter how "stout" the vessel. The book Weebles mentioned is a tome for serious blue water cruisers. As stated in this book (and his others) and by virtue of his various design's speed and the last few decades of en-route weather routing success, avoiding the storm is job one.

 

[David Ess]

Dashew is a proponent of avoiding bad weather no matter how "stout" the vessel. The book Weebles mentioned is a tome for serious blue water cruisers. As stated in this book (and his others) and by virtue of his various design's speed and the last few decades of en-route weather routing success, avoiding the storm is job one.

We're just like him. And like him we know that IF youre going to sea, THEN, theres a good chance of being caught in storms. We see such testimony every day. And like him, we prefer boats.....just like his. And who would have ever though we'd take so much flak for that! Its amazing.

 

[mvweebles]

We're just like him. And like him we know that IF youre going to sea, THEN, theres a good chance of being caught in storms. We see such testimony every day. And like him, we prefer boats.....just like his. And who would have ever though we'd take so much flak for that! Its amazing.

David Ess & Steve Dashew - two peas in a pod! Twin brothers from different parents!

Curious about your comment on there being a good chance of being caught in a storm. Sailing magazines love to interview circumnavigators. Invariably, they ask the worst weather they encountered.

Here's an example from Sail Magazine

"Were you caught in many storms?
This is the number one 1 question, and the answer is, no. We paid attention to the seasons and made our big passages when the weather was apt to be most favorable. Most of our sailing was off the wind in good tradewind conditions. We experienced plenty of squalls over the years, but those passed quickly and were easily dealt with. ​

I'm not saying there are no storms, but am saying if you have knowledge and patience, you can dramatically reduce your exposure.

Peter