From rags to the pot

Hi all
I’m a retired MD. 7 years I had my first new boat built-an Outbound 46. They’re semi custom boats built for blue water. Prior I owned a one off built for the OSTAR, a Tayana, several Cape Dories, a Pacific Seacraft, a Monitor and a multiple small craft both power and sail. I’ve done multiple Bermuda races, transports from New England to the leewards but the most enthralling has been being captain on the boat of my conception sailing back and forth from New England to the islands and living on her in the windwards and leewards.
With the Outbound we snowbirded mostly with the Salty Dawg Rally sailing from Rhode Island to the Leewards in the fall and back in the spring. So overall have tens of thousands of blue water miles and about the same coastal.
Now wife says it’s time to move on so doing the classic transition from sail to trawler. As always it’s more important to know what you don’t know than what you do know. That’s why I’m here. Figure you guys know more than I and I’m ready to learn.
Once the outbound sells I’ll be looking for something for two to cruise. Want a solid vessel, 1500nm range with 10% reserve, prefer fins, prefer grp but aluminum is fine. A good Fe boat is okay depending on coatings. Have been on Puffins (a Dutch sailboat) where there wasn’t a speck of rust a decade out so know it can be done. As will not be full time liveaboards but rather just for months at time don’t want to break the bank this time around. Been sailing and a boat owner for ~35 years so have basic knowledge and skill set of the typical liveaboard. Know naturally aspirated and turbo but clueless on common rail.
So far like Norhavn, KK, Cherubini (range problematic), Seahorse, and some converted commercial craft. If I hit the lottery I’d be on a Artnautica or Arksen but not this time around. Wife wants something in the 40-50’ range. Not too big that docking is a tight sphincter event but adequate LWL for a decent days work. We much prefer living on the hook and don’t like marinas nor living in a slip.
Look forward to your throwing pearls at me. Thanks all.

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

Welcome aboard.

When you say Seahorse do you mean Diesel Ducks?

Welcome aboard.

Welcome to TF, you brainy fellow medic. I think the silence re boat suggestions is because your experience already makes it a bit daunting for us to advise you, as it might be a bit like trying to tell granny how to suck eggs. However, I'm sure some will be forthcoming re recommendations about boat choice once they've had time to digest your post, and mull it over a bit. For mine, you couldn't go far wrong looking at Nordys and Selenes, and maybe also Grand Banks. It sounds like your budget might be up to that..?

Peter B said:

Welcome to TF, you brainy fellow medic. I think the silence re boat suggestions is because your experience already makes it a bit daunting for us to advise you, as it might be a bit like trying to tell granny how to suck eggs. However, I'm sure some will be forthcoming re recommendations about boat choice once they've had time to digest your post, and mull it over a bit. For mine, you couldn't go far wrong looking at Nordys and Selenes, and maybe also Grand Banks. It sounds like your budget might be up to that..?

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Ask what size anchor ball or steaming cone he uses....might as well get baptized early...

Welcome and grab your checkbook
I agree with your 40-50 length. Two staterooms to entertain company in reasonable comfort plus the extra storage space.

Below are the rambling of 'just me' in no particular order.

1. new or used (I suggest a used boat unless you want to wait a couple of years while they build it. You might want to check with some builders to see if they have a 'near completed' boat that the buyer changed their mind.
2. stabilized, for comfort
3. 4-5 ft draft (blue water cruising?)
4. consider some solar panels, just 'incase'
5. generator
6. reverse cycle A/Cs for comfort
7. water maker I suggest 12vt.
8. fridge (12/120vt) and separate 12vt freezer.
9. single or double engines (this subject has been debated 'until the cows come home'
10. number and type engines .... another subject that has been debated.
11. inverter of 'size'
12. 2 battery chargers incase one goes belly up, mid-Atlantic

Personally I would stay away from 8Ds only because of weight if YOU have to move them.
AGM batteries.

I had a nordhavn 46, single engine but, with a 'get home' on a very important separate shaft. If you are going to long distance cruise, pack a get home engine on a separate shaft. You might only get 3 knts but at least, you can maintain headway.

Have learned to carry day signals and use them,Was told a terrible story of a jet skier who ran into a cruiser. Driver died and passenger lived incurring huge medical bills but at admiralty court cruiser paid out a percentage due to the absence of flying an anchor ball. Maybe urban legend. But on a sailboat it takes a second to unfold the black plastic ball and bungy to a jib sheet. Think I bought at island water world. What do you guys do?
There’s alot I don't know. Beebe talks of A/B ratios. Sailors talk about comfort quotients. That doesn’t t bug me much but what I can’t get my mind around is the absence of Gz curves and published angle of vanishing stability for any of the trawlers I’m interested in. We looked at Diesel Ducks and Seahorse (grp). Went as far as talking to the yard. When asked about stability numbers they kindly referred me to a Chinese lady NA who sent along totally incomprehensible numbers
So the question is
What numbers do you guys use to judge stability
AVS?
Time to recover from knockdown.
Righting arm?
How do you get them?

The other questions I have concern comfort. True storms are rare. Now with weather routers giving input by SSB and satphone rarer still but line squalls and Tstorms aren’t that rare and often hard to avoid. Sailboat design has undergone several changes in paradigm. Gone are the days of full keeled boats or splits rigs. There’s pretty much two schools for monohulls. Flat runs in the canoe body with no rocker that decrease wetted surface when on a slant and evolutions of the more traditional balanced hull. Chines are often employed with the first.
Particularly in steel you see hard chines. With the KKs you see a reverse curve particularly aft of the center of gravity. With the small Nordhavns that are in my budget and needs you see soft chines and diagonals. The Norhavns have much more top hamper to my eye.

What I don’t understand is talking to owners the scuttlebutt is the KKs roll more than the Ns. Totally don’t get that. Why? Had occasion to run GBs from Connecticut to Plymouth Ma. They rolled enough to knock out your teeth. Couldn’t use the upper helm comfortably. What do you guys look at to judge comfort and ability to safely move around in a seaway?

Welcome aboard, Doc. You're up when the questions get around to medical and what stuff to carry in the first aid kit. Actually, you can hit the search button to see what has gone on before here. You have plenty of bluewater experience, but does that include the distaff side of the boat and is that your preferred environment?

As I recall..... the A/B ratio is the weight above the water line compared to the weight below the water line. Don't take my word, look it up in your copy of Chapman's.

OD thanks all good thoughts. Have taken to the belt and suspenders approach. Current boat has 2 D400 wind generators.
Solar on top of hard dodger
Oversized alternator with spare
Each charging source has its own charging regulator and functions independently.
Spectra extreme water maker
Frigiboat freezer and frig on separate compressors and circuits
AC with reverse heat and Webasto furnace wit hydraulic heat.
AP and Hydrovane giving emergency rudder
3000 invertor.
Northern Lights 8 kw
etc.
I know on a cruising sailboat to carry one of everything and 3 spares with tools to install. I don’t know what folks consider key spares on a trawler.

It’s the bride that’s driving the conversion to power. Happy wife....happy life.

Is there something like sailboatdata.com for trawlers? Where a good place to look to get the real poop?

Have boards in neurology, stroke, neuro-epidemiology, and sleep medicine. Welcome questions requiring generic answers or knowledge. One of things moving me to power is due to the failure of the current administration and federal government to act in concordance to science we are now unwelcome through much of the world.

GB hard chines are the reason I did little open water transiting in my 42.

If doing long open water transits in your soft-chined trawler, carry about the same sort of spares you did when sailing. For USA ICW work on a single engine boat, less, and for a twin, far less.

Careful about any hint of your political thoughts here - it never ends well. And firearms "discussion" was banned about a decade or more ago here.

No biggie...just a heads up...


One thing strictly adhered to here is no politics in boat threads.... in fact ....pretty much no where on the forum.



The is a separate section for COVID related discussions.

Noted. Didn’t think that was political. Just a statement as to why cruising plans have changed.
I was mostly on GB Europas and have very little experience with them. Any opinions on flopperstoppers versus active fins?.

Hippocampus said:

Noted. Didn’t think that was political. Just a statement as to why cruising plans have changed.
I was mostly on GB Europas and have very little experience with them. Any opinions on flopperstoppers versus active fins?.

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If you are moving away from pulling sheets to turning a key because of your age, then I would suggest you stay away from deploying wired fins rather than hitting a NAID button.

Hippocampus said:

OD thanks all good thoughts. Have taken to the belt and suspenders approach. Current boat has 2 D400 wind generators.
Solar on top of hard dodger
Oversized alternator with spare
Each charging source has its own charging regulator and functions independently.
Spectra extreme water maker
Frigiboat freezer and frig on separate compressors and circuits
AC with reverse heat and Webasto furnace wit hydraulic heat.
AP and Hydrovane giving emergency rudder
3000 invertor.
Northern Lights 8 kw
etc.
I know on a cruising sailboat to carry one of everything and 3 spares with tools to install. I don’t know what folks consider key spares on a trawler.

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Doc, just move all the equipment over to your trawler and you are over 90% finished. LOL
I forgot to suggest, SCUBA equipment and/or a Hooka

Spare part above what you mentioned, LOTS of fuel filters, spare water pumps.
Beyond this, cruise for a year and you will figure it out and add more.
I am not so sure about a spare rudder, on a trawler.

OldDan1943 said:

As I recall..... the A/B ratio is the weight above the water line compared to the weight below the water line. Don't take my word, look it up in your copy of Chapman's.

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Correction - A/B ratio is area above vs below water when viewed from abeam the boat.

To the good Dr. H - When I first read your post, I immediately thought of Dashew's FPB line of ocean-going boats. They are bigger than you're stated desire, but they would likely impress you given Dashew's migration from performance sail to power over 20-years ago. Plus, he is a prolific writer on all things technical - an example of his writing on stability.

I too picked 1500 nm for range. In an earlier phase of life, I was a delivery skipper out of San Francisco who delivered powerboats along the Pacific Coast, occasionally to Florida. It's a good range not because there aren't places to take-on fuel along the way, but it reduces planning and therefore opens options, and allows wholesale purchase of fuel in many places.

If your concern about +50-footer is docking, I'd encourage you to re-think. Many higher-end boats have multiple docking stations and very robust hydraulic bow/stern thrusters. I remember delivering a Nordhavn 57 to Florida and dropped a line handler in Colon. The boat had a stern-station in the cockpit so I simply backed-down a narrow fairway designed and got the stern within a foot of the seawall where the handler stepped off and we headed out and north. It looked impressive, but truth is, I've seen novice drivers do similar without busting a sweat. I only mention this because 40-50 feet gets a little cramped with all the stores, gear, and equipment needed for a full time liveaboard with long range cruising desires.

A cautionary story: While the number of people who convert from Sail to Power are numerous, and the reverse is unusual, it's not rare. I delivered a boat to Cabo for a lifelong sailor (had owned a couple Valiants) who had a new Nordhavn 57 built for him. It was my last delivery before re-entering Corporate America in 2004. A year later, he sold the Nordhavn and had something a Valiant 50 built.

A lot of sailors seem to like twin engine boats for redundancy. So that's an important decision. Speed is another - is 170 nms/day (7-kts) okay, which is what a 45-footer with 1500 nm range will do? The Nordhavn 57 ran close to 220. The Dashew designs run well over 250 in all weather. Makes a big difference as you know from your sailing days. And of course budget comes into play.

Final recommendation is Ken's Blog. I've been reading him for 15+ years. He was some sort of Software guru who retired early and bought a boat (also a Nordhavn) and has been all over the world. He's on his third boat - this one a new Grand Banks that he will do the Loop in. But he's an amazing writer, very prolific, and extremely transparent in his decision making. He had a long series of articles on selecting hydraulic fins vs gyro. Another series on selecting a generator - dual vs single, sizing, etc. He takes a very practical approach.

I've mentioned Nordhavn a lot here and they're good boats, but there are many others. I was based on the West Coast, and PAE was based on West Coast, thus I came to know them pretty well at the time. My tastes run to more simple boats.

Good luck and thanks for finding TF. I'm looking forward to learning from your experience. I'm guessing you have some decent wx/route planning in the Caribbean.

Peter

Welcome Dr. H. Figured neurology based on your user name. I won't ask your opinion on the new bilateral superior field loss on a 74 year old diabetic I saw this morning...


I moved form sail to power. Based on your experience you will find the transition to power an easy one. I don't know the blue water power vessels well enough to offer an opinion but here are a few things to consider...


No power boat will be as comfortable in heavy weather as a sailboat.
No power boat has an adequate rudder compared to a sailboat.

You will get about 25-30% more usable living space in a power boat per foot boat-length vs a sailboat.
If you are very concerned about stability figures you may be thinking about this all wrong. When the weather is going to be rough, don't go. Again, sailboats are much better in bad weather.
If you want a blue water boat and expect to use it as such, get stabilization. I would recommend active if you can afford it.


Again welcome. Your experience on the water gives you lots that you can share with us.

Hi Hippocampus. As an ex-sailor also, who moved to power, I think most comments above sort of sum up the answers to most of your queries.

For a start, forget righting moments/stability tests etc. Just not applicable to power boats unless designed to be self-righting rescue type boats. You don't have the huge high up pressures of a rig, and don't therefore need a heavy deep keel for stability, and without the rig pressure, too much ballast gives a rather nasty snap type roll period. However, some power vessels have more windage than others, so worth considering, especially for close manoeuvring in windy conditions.

You mostly rely on the major contributions to weight being low in the hull, eg engine(s), batteries, tanks, etc, for passive stability, and the form stability from hull shape as well. If going off-shore active stabilisers for sure. Then it's more a matter of choosing weather windows for longer passages.

The advice re taking pretty much the same tools and spares as you have is pretty good. Meet those parameters, and you're good to go. For a list of prospects meeting the above, and assuming price not too critical, I'd suggest viewing the following...
Kadey Krogen 42' and up...
Grand Banks 46 and up...
Nordhavns, 43 and up...
Selene, ditto...
Fleming 55 and up...
and then there are Hampton and Marlow yachts of various sizes, all built for long passages. Yeah, I have probably over-looked some others as well. Plenty to choose from. Best of luck. Please keep us informed re progress and thoughts and preferences as they evolve. Accompanying someone else when buying a boat is almost as much fun as doing it for oneself, and a lot cheaper...

Pituitary adenoma would be my first thought. Get an image and prolactin level.
Love Steve’s boats both power and sail. But like the Artnautica and Arksen everything goes way up on annual budget. A few yards bill by the square ft in response to the increasing number of multi hulls but most still by LOA for monos
Even now with all the computer modeling forecasts are good for 3 days, fair for 5 and a total crapshoot past 7 days. The don’t go is wise advice but unfortunately not always applicable .
Have a question about days work. Our current hull speed is 8.4. In 7 years have maybe two dozen 200+ mile days. All occurred on sporty days with wind abaft the mast and occasional surfing. I know I can count on high sixes/low 7s and provision accordingly. How does it work for power? Do you enjoy surfing or does the drogue come out? Do you run at 2/3 to 3/4 peak rpm and use boat speed at those settings to calculate average days work? How to you go through the exercise of provisioning? Are stated ranges by manufacturers accurate?

Flipping to power as the expected program has changed. Use will be less so can’t justify prior budget. This generates two additional questions.
How old is too old. I’ve taken 30-40 year old Hinckleys, aged Hylas and even Tayana on blue water passage without a thought.
Is it the same for power? Is a good stick built old boat more capable than a new large run production boat? Are decades old Norhavn and KK worth looking at?
Was brought up with KISS( keep it simple stupid) preferring naturally aspirated to turbo. Turbo to common rail. Is this true?

10 year old anything depends on who well it has been maintained.
Bought an 8 year old nordhavn, spent money on everything but the engine.
My n46 hull had a problem with blisters. Peeled the hull once, approx. 8 years later, patched the few bubbles that appeared.
Just when I was getting ready for a cruise to Mexico, the yard dropped it and poked the port stabilizer into the owner's stateroom, constructive loss. BUMMER

OldDan1943 said:

...yard dropped it and poked the port stabilizer into the owner's stateroom, constructive loss. BUMMER

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OUCH!!! Just curious. Did you ever find out what happened to it? Sold as salvage by the insurance company? Repaired??

HC
The first boat I'd recommend, and then serve as a baseline comparison for others is the Nordhavn 52. Check out the MV Dirona website for lots of information on what may likely be the penultimate documented cruising couple and their time aboard an N52.

The Nordhavn website has considerable information to peruse on all their models as well as brokerage listings. I've spent time on several N52s and came close to a new order a few years ago.

ScottC said:

OUCH!!! Just curious. Did you ever find out what happened to it? Sold as salvage by the insurance company? Repaired??

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Yard ape thought he could move a jack without installing a new jack first. Fell over. Sold for salvage, was repaired, cruised for at least 2 more years and put up for sale. This owner spent money repairing the hull but did not reset the windows so a lot of internal teak damage.
Mechanically, perfect boat when I had it...... ready to "fly", exterior.... needed a total paint job. Interior.... some teak damage but, minimal..... It was a sound boat. I spent big bucks rebuilding the fwd stateroom to allow my 'then' wife to bring most of her home closet to the boat .... full length cedar line closet and lots of drawers on starboard side..... raised the berth port side for additional storage. Bow thruster, increased it by a factor or 3. She was READY!!!

Hippocampus said:

Have a question about days work. Our current hull speed is 8.4. In 7 years have maybe two dozen 200+ mile days. All occurred on sporty days with wind abaft the mast and occasional surfing. I know I can count on high sixes/low 7s and provision accordingly. How does it work for power? Do you enjoy surfing or does the drogue come out? Do you run at 2/3 to 3/4 peak rpm and use boat speed at those settings to calculate average days work? How to you go through the exercise of provisioning? Are stated ranges by manufacturers accurate?

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In 2004, I did the Baja Ha Ha aboard a friend's Willard 40 full displacement trawler. We were one of four powerboats in a 160 boat fleet with an average length around 42-feet or so. It's a 800 nms / 3-leg rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, though we continued to La Paz afterwards. Rally start is timed for decent, predictable weather over the stern. We averaged just under 7.5 kts and were one of the first boats to finish each leg, with only the few sleds in the fleet arriving ahead of us (one particularly nice SC52 comes to mind....). The Willard 40 will not see 200 nms in a 24-hour run without a Huey Chopper lift, but it will do 175-180 nm days towards its destination 80% of the time. Frankly, Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Routes are interesting, but not really applicable to Powerboats. Pilot charts are more relevant.

I have never heard of a powerboat using a drogue. The corkscrewing of following seas can be annoying, but with a strong A/P, acceptable. Personally, when I was delivering, vast majority of my runs were 5+ days non-stop, but they didn't start that way - they started with 300-400 nm runs and if the weather wasn't too bad, I'd keep going. After a while I got the hang of running beach-routes to knock-down a good percentage of the junk and could keep going as long as the boat was watertight for spray. Consequently, I have countless +1000 nm runs, though only a handful of >1500 nms.

You may want to re-think how you approach passagemaking under power. I'm guessing that heading to the Caribbean under sail, you head well offshore on long reaches, then south off the Bahamas to the T&C or Jamaica. In a ocean-capable trawler or motoryacht, you could still go outside, but I'd stay within 50 nms of the capes (respecting the shipping lanes and gulf stream) which gives flexibility if weather turns. Somewhere south, break east towards the Bahamas, then south to Jamaica and then you're in familiar waters of the Caribbean. It's easy to keep the legs under 500 nms, well within wx forecast confidence, even if you head to Panama Canal.

Bottom line is that what you're probably doing now at 1000+ nms legs would likely be broken into 300-500 nm legs, and even that's long. I'd guess that except for Nordhavn/Selene/KK/similar owners, the percentage of cruisers who have done +500 nm cruises are pretty low.

Peter

dhays said:

No power boat will be as comfortable in heavy weather as a sailboat.
No power boat has an adequate rudder compared to a sailboat.

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An observation: my n46 had hyd stabilizers, rough weather headed south outside east coast, sheets of green water against the pilot house windows, worried the professional captain, I laughed and told him to go back to bed. It was rather comfortable and exciting for a couple of hours but, we more than survived.... broke the yoke cooking a fried egg.
Autopilot came though like a champ.

Usually leave either Newport or chessie and next stop is BVI or Antigua. Go south of Bermuda but don’t stop there. Straight shot is so much quicker. Don’t need to fight trades or follow the gentleman’s way. Usually takes 8-12 days. Don’t like the leewards as much as the windwards. Like Bequia a lot.
I’ve never cruised the Bahamas. Have 6’6” empty. Been there by boat twice. A delivery from southwest harbor Maine to man of war cay. That was on a Morris done as a straight shot. And once on a sistership to chicken harbor from USVIs.
So the way to go is
Active fins over fish
Hydraulics over electric (thrusters, fins, AP etc.)
A 30 year old N46,47, 50 is okay if kept up.

?opinions about metal? Most high lat sail is Al. Steel Puffins and Waterlines are well thought of. Also looking at some Steve Seaton.