Switching from sail cruising to power passagemaker

[BruceK]

There is/are reasons(s) for conventional boat design. It could be sheep following one another, or it could be because long experience shows that is how it is best done.
Then something novel comes along. Is it "different" for the sake of being different, or is it a great advance in boat design?
If you plan to invest a large number of boat dollars in a new boat, especially a novel design not generally constructed by mainstream builders, be sure it is what you want it to be, and does what you want it to do.

[Nomad Willy]

I agree w Bruce,
I'm afraid a lot of trendy boats sell because they are cool. Cool in the middle of the Pacific dosn't hold much water.

I flew ultralight aircraft for years and after flying one high performance brand for a long time I bought an UL with a very low climb rate and was worried I would'nt like it. A friend told me you just adjust and fly differently. I did and flying the low climb rate UL was a great and fully satisfying experience.

One drives any vehicle within it's limits. My present 6 knot boat included. Trying to cruise in SE Alaska in the winter was not practical .. no problem in the summer but in the winter there just wasn't enough daylight hours to get to where we needed to be because of tides and other limitations. But otherwise the 6knots hasn't been an issue.

[ChristineKling]

Originally Posted by BruceK

There is/are reasons(s) for conventional boat design. It could be sheep following one another, or it could be because long experience shows that is how it is best done.
Then something novel comes along. Is it "different" for the sake of being different, or is it a great advance in boat design?
If you plan to invest a large number of boat dollars in a new boat, especially a novel design not generally constructed by mainstream builders, be sure it is what you want it to be, and does what you want it to do.

Hey Bruce,

Thanks for the warning. And you are right, we are really taking a huge risk here and investing lots of boat dollars in a design that is not generally constructed by the mainstream builders. It could all go pear-shaped, but we are trying to be smart about it. And change never happens if everybody always plays it safe.

When Wayne first started talking to me about building a powerboat, he had me read the classic, Voyaging Under Power by Beebe. Now I am a lifelong sailor. I did my first 1000 mile delivery in 1974. And I've done lots of miles on different boats throughout a lifetime of sailing, including 9 years as a singlehander. The thing that most struck me about that book was that real long distance voyaging under power is in its infancy. Folks have been crossing oceans on small sailboats for centuries, but only a handful of "small" boats have crossed oceans or circumnavigated under power and it has been a very recent phenomenon. And when I read the Ken Williams book about the Nordhaven rally that crossed the Atlantic, it was crazy the amount of support they thought they needed to take their boats across an ocean.

To me, this is a whole new and exciting challenge. I'm having to challenge my own biases and open my mind in ways that are thrilling. Many years ago, together with my first husband we built a 55-ft. fiberglass sailboat in CA and sailed it down through the canal and chartered in the Caribbean. At the time of launch, I swore, never again will I build a boat. I know first hand how we started with the best of intentions to build the boat of our dreams and in many cases all we did was learn another way that didn't work. That's the nature of innovation. But this challenge of crossing oceans under power has hooked me. I'm ready to jump in there and try it again. Eyes wide open.

Christine

[Rustybarge]

Re. The difficulty of welding aluminium, here's a recent short post on the boat design forum: welded and unwelded strength of Aluminum? - Boat Design Forums

The actual heat of welding reduces the strength of 5083 marines grade alloy by nearly half!

Could you get a professional job done in Turkey? What controls do they have on who can weld up your boat ( trainees )? Where do they buy their marine alloy from ( Russia)? How clean is the environment where the welding is done?

Imo aluminium is a very high tech product requiring very carefully controlled manufacturing processes , and I would only consider alloy made in a first world country like Europe or the States.

Summary: Aluminium welding should take place under laboratory conditions. (Not quite, but nearly!)

[Jeffrey S]

Originally Posted by ChristineKling

He'd covered more like 4000 miles. We want to be able to do that.

That's an important spec right there. It generally causes a jump to something like a Nordhavn or lately these Dashew types of boats. You'll find other trawlers that have made long passages but they are the exception, especially with 4,000 miles of range. Just for fun, you should examine a Nordhavn 46 as a possible off-the-shelf alternative to challenge your thinking about the Dashew type.

I came across the Dashews themselves in Maine a few years ago with their 60-something foot version. It definitely caught my attention. It's a very beautiful design with a lot of open space above the water line making it a wonderful liveaboard environment.

Christine, sure, I knew it was you!

[Peter B]

Originally Posted by Rustybarge

Re. The difficulty of welding aluminium, here's a recent short post on the boat design forum: welded and unwelded strength of Aluminum? - Boat Design Forums

The actual heat of welding reduces the strength of 5083 marines grade alloy by nearly half!

Could you get a professional job done in Turkey? What controls do they have on who can weld up your boat ( trainees )? Where do they buy their marine alloy from ( Russia)? How clean is the environment where the welding is done?

Imo aluminium is a very high tech product requiring very carefully controlled manufacturing processes , and I would only consider alloy made in a first world country like Europe or the States.

Summary: Aluminium welding should take place under laboratory conditions. (Not quite, but nearly!)

Or Australia, or New Zealand, where in fact, where the Dashew's Windhorse was made..?

SetSail » Blog Archive » FPB 83 – Wind Horse

[ChristineKling]

Originally Posted by Rustybarge

Re. The difficulty of welding aluminium, here's a recent short post on the boat design forum: welded and unwelded strength of Aluminum? - Boat Design Forums

The actual heat of welding reduces the strength of 5083 marines grade alloy by nearly half!

Could you get a professional job done in Turkey? What controls do they have on who can weld up your boat ( trainees )? Where do they buy their marine alloy from ( Russia)? How clean is the environment where the welding is done?

Imo aluminium is a very high tech product requiring very carefully controlled manufacturing processes , and I would only consider alloy made in a first world country like Europe or the States.

Summary: Aluminium welding should take place under laboratory conditions. (Not quite, but nearly!)

Thanks for that great reference to the Boatdesign.net discussion. Good stuff there. I admit that much of it is beyond my limited knowledge. Wayne will understand it far better than I do.

But the important question there is can we get a good professional welding job done in Turkey? That's very relevant because we don't intend to do the aluminum work ourselves and we are looking for a yard to get it to the "float away" stage where all the aluminum hull and superstructure is complete and then we will install the systems and build the interior.

We were stunned when we visited Turkey in 2014 and visited the many marinas and boatyards. Lots of super yachts are being built there. Check out Sunrise Yachts and Vicem Yachts. Both of those have yards in Antalya where they have a duty free zone for boat building. The super yachts are usually steel with aluminum super structure, so we looked for a yard that does all aluminum. We have contacted a yard that specializes in building aluminum sailboats, and we are talking with them. We want to keep our hull unpainted, and have it certified, so we need to have not only structural integrity and strength, but also beautiful welds that don't need pounds of filler to make them look good.

Peter asks why don't we have this boat built in NZ or Oz. Well, the honest answer is that we don't have the budget for that. In spite of the fact that their currency is down against the dollar at the moment, both countries costs of labor and standard of living (we will be living there for at least 3 years) are too high for our budget. Turkey has a highly skilled labor force. There is a great site for comparing the cost of living between two countries.

Yeah, but didn't Turkey just ave an attempted coup? This worries us lots. Wayne is flying to Turkey in 10 days to have a look around and to talk to various boatbuilders and cruisers and to try to gauge the environment. He will be asking questions like where do they get their aluminum and are big companies like Sunrise and Vicem pulling out because of the political climate. On the one hand, they are very hungry there at the moment because their tourism has tanked and their currency has dropped. We could take advantage of the situation to get very cheap labor. Then again, it could be a disaster. We're weighing the risk/reward situation. We have contacted another yard in Tunisia that is run by Frenchmen and using it as our current plan B. We were considering Thailand too, but it seems the yard where one of Kasten's boats was being built has gone belly up. At least their website dead ends now which is not a good sign.

I really appreciate all the interest here. Having to write things out helps me to clarify my own thinking, and I'm learning lots. Thanks.

Christine

[Rustybarge]

Originally Posted by Peter B

Or Australia, or New Zealand, where in fact, where the Dashew's Windhorse was made..?

SetSail » Blog Archive » FPB 83 – Wind Horse

Yes indeed!

My fear would be that a shipyard in the third world would substitute low quality materials and use unqualified welders to fabricate the hull. I suppose the OP could supply the materials for the build , and get a reputable surveyor to supervise the build.

Sueing Turkish yard for bad workmanship could be an interesting process ,unless you're a personal friend of President Erdogen!

A steel boat could be successfully built absolutely anywhere; not so sure about aluminium?