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Pros and cons of steel sailboats

909K views 5K replies 127 participants last post by  Faster 
#1 ·
I'm thinking about making the leap from fiberglass to steel for our next sailboat. We want to do some far flung cruising - maybe even circumnavigate. Our present boat is a 1977 Tartan 37 and while we love it - since we've had a child and possibly will have another one on the way it might get a bit small for a liveaboard situation.
This summer I drove a big, old steel tour boat around the finger lakes and started thinking that steel might be a good way to get my family around the big marble.
I've spent a week in the Caribbean on a glorious aluminium boat but have never sailed a steel one, so I have lots of questions about their performance as cruising boats?
What are some of the better designers to keep and eye out for?
How good are they in the hot climates?
Are there any extra dangers in lightning?
Thanks for any and all advice you can give.
 
#430 ·
My dad and I read 'By The Wind' when my dad and I were learning to sail and I was a kid. It shaped my whole view of sailing and voyaging under sail. To this day I think of Baum's stories pretty often. Around 10 years ago I reread the book again and happened to notice that Baum mentioned where he lived in the foreword to the book. On a whim I looked him up on line and called the phone number. His daughter answered the phone. Richard Baum had died shortly before and they had sold the house and were cleaning out. The marriage to Lucy did not last but he sailed for most of his life. Little Dipper was owned by a curator at Mystic Seaport for a while and I spoke to him for a bit when she was for sale. By then she had an engine again.

Jeff
 
#435 · (Edited)
Bob,

Thank you for the generous offer. H.A. is always a great read. I do have a copy of 'Learning to Cruise', which is also included in "A Yachtsman's Omnibus" that I also have in my collection.

You have to love that picture of Calahan in his 'foul weather gear' with the scubbing pads tied on with twine, and his 'body and soul' strings. The other picture that I have always got a kick out of is the picture of H.A.'s outboard carrying rack hung on his spare tire. Great stuff!

I actually briefly met Calahan as a kid. He was a chemist, who developed a range marine products included "chiltered" (chilled and filtered) varnish. His business was on the Post Road in Manaroneck, N.Y., which was just down the road from the first yard where my family kept our first boat the first winter. Dad and I went in there to buy supplies and there he was. I felt like I had just met a movie star.

My favorite story of Calahan's(which I think is in that book) was when he bought his NY30 (or was it a NY40), and climbed up on deck for the first time while she was still sitting in a shed. I have always sympathized with his description of looking down the length of the deck, which seemed to stretch to the horizon, and humbly asking himself, 'How is possible that I will be able to handle a boat this big?"

Jeff:
I'm just jealous that you got to hang with those old guys. It must have been amazing. How old are you? 244? You don't look a day over 67.
That's funny....I'm only 63. I must admit that from the time I was a young kid, I have always been a yacht designer groupie. As a kid I was like the young fans who would stand for hours at the stadium door hoping to get a famous player to autograph his ball card. Instead of ball cards I collected old sailing magazines and went anywhere that I thought I might meet a yacht designer.

For example, I would work for free at the New York Boat show just to be there and get to meet designers. That was where I met Jack Holt, Ian Proctor, Hinterhoeler, both of the C's in C&C, and Carl Alberg (who was not at all talkative).

My pilgramadges to meet designers did not always go all that well. When I was 12-13 or so, I rode my bike over to meet Bill Tripp. I waltzed into his office back to his drafting table and introduced myself saying, "I am a big fan of your work and I want to be a yacht designer when I grow up." He glanced up from his drafting table and sized me up me for a second and said words to the effect of, "I am grown up, and I am a yacht designer, and I have work to do." and then motioned towards the door I came in through.

My time with Charlie Wittholz gave me a first hand glimpse into the various personalities in Rhodes and Alden offices of the late 1930's through the early 1950's. Charlie told his own stories about making pilgramages to meet designers including one of taking a train, and then walking miles to meet L. Francis Herreshoff, only to be sent packing in much the same way as Bill Tripp sent me on my way. Charlie also had great stories about guys like William Albert Robinson and the Colman's who built the Rhodes Bounty's.

I made a pilgramage to meet Gilmer and had a nice afternoon chat in which we agreed on almost nothing. I have met most of the Annapolis based designers.

I met a lot of designers in odd ways. I worked on "Improbable" at Direcktors Florida yard getting her ready for the Admiral's Cup. A very young Ron Holland was Gary Mull's on site representative. (I've told him this story a few years back.) The yard workers saw him as a pain in the butt. This was the first time that the yard has sprayed Awlgrip and something had gone badly wrong. We had spent a hectic week and a half cleaning up the mess and it was decided that we would spray the final coat on a Saturday when the yard was closed. To keep the dust down, all the shed doors were kept close. This was Florida in July. It was miserably hot.

We had gotten everything set up and ready to go, when Ron Holland walked into the shed. It was just me, the paint foreman and Ron, and I could tell the paint foreman was not happy to see Ron. The paint foreman told Ron that we would be another hour setting up and sent him to buy beer, giving him a **** and bull story about beer stores being closed on Saturday in that town and giving him bad directions to a place to buy beer in the next town. Ron went off in search of beer and by the time he got back we had finished most of the paint job.

I doubt you would recall this since I was but one of the large crowd who you would have met aboard that Valiant 42, but you and I met at an Annapolis Boat Show. I had asked Bernie Jakits if he knew when you would be at the show and made a point of being there at that time.

But of all the designers of all time, growing up Starling Burgess stood out as a bigger than life hero. The sheer inventiveness and multidiscipline nature of Burgess's creativity was inspriational to me. To me he was Leonardo Da Vinci who had died only 3 years before I was born. To me, Burgess was a giant with one foot standing on science and the other in art. I once bought a book on Glenn Curtiss only because it talked about Burgess.

I also was a huge fan of Nat Herreshoff for similar reasons.

I was a huge fan of Marchaj, for his ability to explain the science in a way that even I could understand, and Chappelle, for pioneering the preservation of sailing history. As an adult, I talked to him a few weeks before he died, and to George Stadel on that same landmark day.

As I type this, I have a renewed sympathy for my parents. I was a pretty strange kid. I guess I still am at 63.....

Jeff
 
#432 ·
Bob, can you help me out with that math problem a little, I have had a huge headache all day and I just cannot concentrate, hopefully it is not showing too much in my posts LOL.

The equation has to figure in the downward motion of the boat, with the gravity factored in, plus the Impulse of Force, which is getting my head to hurting more as I keep screwing it up, along with the application of time duration of the impact. I am sure you have the same formula in one of your books there, I just do not have enough information and I am having to guess on too much of it to get it right. My math background from college was physics, mostly particle physics, ( yes my parents were very disappointed for a while when I left school without getting my masters or doctoral degree, but school was just not working for me at the time), and applied physics and mechanical engineering are sometimes a struggle for me since I have had to learn it all on my own. I am having trouble getting my head around the way the impact calculation has to work with forward velocity and the downward velocity as well as the weight of the water moving with the boat increasing its momentum, as well as the way the deceleration should be calculated.

I am also using a formula appropriate to striking a fixed object which will not work right, because I would have to use the formula on the floating Fukushima debris or submerged container as well, calculating the upward force, the speed, the mass and the force of the water giving that piece momentum as well. I only have a small dry erase board to work with and it is not large enough to do it all without erasing.... erase the board and I am erasing my brain right now :(

Do you have some little program or calculator that you can use to do it if we get the estimated weights and so forth close enough to work?

Thanks
 
#440 · (Edited)
Excellent! Great article. Thanks. It reaffirms my comments about transverse frames making it much easier to punch a hole in a boat. When a BC ferry ran aground in Gunboat Pass, a client dove on her. He said it was creased between the frames, and only holed at each frame. Had the longitudinals been set away from the frames, with no contact between frames and hull plate , he said she would have been creased full length, with no holes in her.
I have read that river boat racers have steel bottoms and aluminium topsides, because steel is far more resistant to holing.
With origami boats you can whack her with a sledge hammer, as hard as you want, away from chines, without denting or damaging her in any way. The plate simply springs back with nothing hard to bend the plate against. It only dents if your whack her near a hard point, such as a chine . That is why my 36 footers have survived pounding on lee shores and coral, in big surf, with no hull dents. Had they been framed, they would have been severely dented between the frames.
A friend, building a fibreglass Endurance 35, wanted to change the interior, eliminating some plywood bulkheads. He asked the hull builders, Dekleer brothers, if they were structurally needed. The long time professional builders said " The most likely place to find cracked fibreglass is at the bulkheads. Eliminating bulkheads reduces the chances of the hull cracking." He later did a Pacific circumnavigation and a world circumnavigation, with no problems . The boat is anchored in Nanaimo BC, off Protection Island.
 
#436 ·
Jeff:
Funny Tripp story.
When I went to work at Carter's I called K. Aage Nielsen. I loved his work and I wanted to meet him. I asked him if I could come to the office. He said something like "only if you plan on spending money". I never called him back. Bill Garden was very generous with his time when I was a kid. He could have blown me off but he was patient with me. Whenever a kid calls me and wants to visit I remember the way Bill treated me and I respond the best I can the same way.

My friend Nathan, started Valiant, made an appointment to meet L. Francis. He arrived at the Castle one snowy night, having driven from New York, and knocked on the door. The famous "housekeeper" opened the door, looked at Nathan, made some comment about his long hair and sent him packing.
 
#441 ·
Long after the money has been spent , the satisfaction of having helped someone fulfill their dreams remains. Making money less relevant in one's life, enables one to do that far more often, without regard for money. Concentrate on helping people realize their dreams, and the money will take care of itself.
Some get it; some don't. The former are much happier people.
Celebrate the successes of others as your own ,and you are always winning.
 
#437 · (Edited)
L. Francis's 'housekeeper' was notorious. Maybe that was part of the job as 'housekeeper'. When I called Howard Chappelle a woman, who I've always assumed was a housekeeper answered the phone. I asked to speak to Mr. Chappelle and explained why I was calling. She tried to shoe me off and said very gravely, "Mr. Chappelle is very sick and is not expected to live." (or words to that affect.)

There was a moment of silence as I let the words sink in and then I heard what sounded like a weak voice from another room saying, "Who is that?". The woman said,"Its a young man who wants to talk about boats." Chappelle replied sharply, "Bring me that phone." Howard Chappelle and I talked for quite a while and eventually he begged off as his energy was fading. He had suggested that I call George Stadel to get my question answered, and when I talked to Stadel to please send Howard's regards.

I called George Stadel that very day and at the end of the call I said, "I was talking to Howard Chappelle earlier today, and Howard sends his regards." I felt terrible, like some kind of insenitive name dropper and quickly explained about Howard's health and the call. Howard Chappelle died a few weeks later.

As a kid I was totally crestfallen by Bill Tripp's reaction. But in hindsight, as an adult, I have long since rationalized it as a busy man perhaps on a deadline.

I guess that designer's personalities vary widely. Charlie told me that Alden was like a Father and like a child to all he met. My Dad spoke with Phil Rhodes who was totally gracious and humble. Olin Stephens seemed to be the same way. Bruce Farr has always kindly answered my questions with great poise and kindness. Jack Holt was a real trip but also very kind with his time. (The second year that I worked at the NY Boat show Jack said, "Aren't you the same kid who polished the bronze here last year? How the hell have you been?" I answered that was me and I wanted to ask him about something he had said the year before... But before I could ask my question, he good naturedly said," I sure hope that you have not been thinking about anything that I might have said for a whole year." )

In my own life, I always try to be accessible to young folks who are considering my profession or learning about boats for that matter. I feel like I am returning the gifts that life have given me. Besides I enjoy it. I once tutored a young man who wanted to be a yacht designer when he was in Jr. High. Over the course of the school year he designed, with me riding shotgun a MORC boat. He ended up studying naval architecture at Kings Point and after a stint in the merchant marine is a naval architect with a company that designs ships.

Oh well, Back to work,
Jeff
 
#438 ·
Just want to thank Jeff for sharing his time on this forum. Sailed over to the Bristol Museum a couple of weeks ago. Even the admiral left in awe. Amazing story how their catamaran won all her races and resulted in cats being banned from racing. Their sail to NY is a good tale as well. Amazing what a blind man and a kid with brains and spirit could end up doing given the age in which they lived. ? Any stories about Schumacher or Frers or gentleman Jim. Could read your posts all day.
Bit- It was a good read and makes me happier about my choice of boat regardless of the BS from BS. Thanks.
 
#445 · (Edited)
So much BS, BS, BS. You'd think he has nothing better to do than type.
I went tri sailing today with my buddy Doug. The tri is an F28R with an F31 rig. This is the boat that won the Race to the Straits overall this year. We reached at over 14 knots and beat up Port Susan at up to 9.3 knots. I had a ball. It's a far cry from the BS here.
We stopped at Langley for lunch. I saw a really ugly boat with a PH in the marina. It reminded me of ,,,,but no.

BS you react like a cornered animal. You project your weaknesses. Why so defensive? Be proud of those boats you create and respect the preferences of others. That's a simple way to approach life in general. I'm not a trimaran kind of guy but I had a blast today. I could easily get used to those speeds.
 

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#446 · (Edited)
Here's another shot showing just how terrified Doug and I were sailing a grp production boat in salmon infested waters. Obviosly neither of us was having a good time. We spent our time pondering the great depths of why one man should impose his way of thinking on other people. We quit that after 3 minutes and just enjoyed the sail. I am happy to say we made it home safely. In fact, after Doug dropped me off at my Walker Bay hanging on my mooring he went back out by himself. The last I saw of him he had a big JUICE PLUS asym up and was rocketing down the bay. Flirting with certain death I suppose. Probably went looking for things to bash into.
 

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#450 · (Edited)
Any day sailing is always a good day!. I went out today to_On an Islander 36 I have been doing alot of work on.Had a blast.Missed the Louis Viton Race but saw the Oracle cats practicing.I am jealous Bob, you seem to have sunshine where you are at.It was a typical San Francisco summer day here,overcast,about 65,15 - 18 knots.Luckily we were able to avoid hitting any Salmon to.Had a tense moment after getting in, We thought a Night Heron was going to land at the masthead,Phew! he flew by.Close call
 

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#449 ·
Brent,

I know you are severely challenged on the math because you just cannot in good conscious be saying that I could exert three million pounds of force on one of your thin skinned little boats and not squish it flat, much less thinking that I could give your hull a three million pound impact and not send the thing to the moon with a GIANT GAPING HOLE IN IT.

Exert a three million PSI impact on the keel and it would probably exit the hull through the deck and land somewhere on Mars.

But, I am happy if you are happy, so if you have people buying your BS boats then go forth be fruitful and multiply.
 
#458 · (Edited)
Brent,

I know you are severely challenged on the math because you just cannot in good conscious be saying that I could exert three million pounds of force on one of your thin skinned little boats and not squish it flat, much less thinking that I could give your hull a three million pound impact and not send the thing to the moon with a GIANT GAPING HOLE IN IT.

Exert a three million PSI impact on the keel and it would probably exit the hull through the deck and land somewhere on Mars.

But, I am happy if you are happy, so if you have people buying your BS boats then go forth be fruitful and multiply.
You are talking about two things here. Million pound forces and impact forces. These are quite different things the way I see it. You are also mixing PSI and forces.

Brent specifically mentions pounding forces from waves, so it might be interesting to determine what these pounding forces might be.

My boat, 20000 lbs, say 10000 kg, drops off a 10 foot wave into a trough. Due to dynamic forces decelerates in about a foot or so. Acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. Deceleration is about 100 m/s^2 when it hit the bottom of the wave. So total force is.. you do the math.. 1,000,000 N or 200,000 pounds.

Now I am sure Catalina has significant design margins.. could be a factor of 5. So it seems, it is not very hard to get to 1,000,000 pounds of force.

However, again I must point out that Brents number of millions of pounds is not incorrect. But your interpretation of it seems to be incorrect.
Bryce
 
#451 ·
Bob,

I have to say I am a bit jealous, you braved those salmon infested waters with only the protection offered by your fine choice in Hawaiian flowerdy shirts to protect you from the vicious salmon. As a fellow Hawaiian flowerdy shirt connoisseur I think the choice of the blue shirt was an excellent choice as it offers superior protection in the case of salmon attack.

I know the sailing must have been great, and even if it was on a strange tri hulled thing it was still a day spent enjoying the thrill of risking your life on the waves of the salmon infested waters of the great PNW. I will have to stop by sometime when I get back on the water next year and perhaps we can compare Hawaiian shirts and swap tales of close calls with the terrifying salmon.
 
#452 ·
I was in Port Townsend today. Behind a building was some "little" wide flat bottomed 4 or 5 spreader ed rig, name of "Glory" or some such name.......in the front was something I envision came from a BS design. Not sure that thing would sail under its sails ina blinken hurricane! The keel, probably of steel like the rest of the boat appeared to be, had a flat 6" plate going forward! Talk about resistance! Mean while the keel on the other boat other than the bulb that was down at least 8-10' will swag, was all of 2-3" thick! Maybe a foot of hull in the water. The hull on the steely was at least 3-4' down, then maybe 3' of keel............

I know which of those boats would be more fun no matter the sailing I did, excepting when trying to sail on a rocky REEF some where!

Marty
 
#455 ·
mark,

I'll have to take a pic of the boat friday if I am up that way. I have to admit, it was not a "BAD" looking boat. This one looked ok overall. It is what I think one of BS's boats should look like in "orgami" construction. It had a pilot house design. which could be good around this area considering how gray it can be.......BUT, that particular design is not what I would have in mind.

On the other hand, in Port Angelas, was an older Fisher pilot house motor sailor. Even when those came out, I liked the look of them! They looked PNW at its best. Not sure how well they sail per say, but have to be better than that steely I saw today! ALong with way the heck better looking! one I could handle being seen in! or having the best women in ones life's name on the rear!

marty
 
#456 ·
Bubb,

Forgot about that incident! A few weeks ago, a member of my YC had there barely 4-5 month old Jeanneau 44DS hit at a dock by a big power boat too. Supposedly only caused 20K in damage.........that is the initial estimate, along with losing ANY warranty they had from Jeanneau! That has to add something to the total in some way shape or form. But the boat motored and made it back from BC into the US to the dealers yard where it is out of the water, either still waiting to get repaired, or being repaired as we speak.

From folks that saw the incident, it was scary, surprising the boat held up. As much as folks like to say Jeanneau's, Beneteau's Even Hunter will fall apart, they are stronger than one thinks.

On other fronts, HERE is a race I am doing in two weekends, if anybody can donate to the cause, please do so! any names added to the donation part, will go on an older main sail I am painting pink! One can see the person we are sailing in memory of on that page.

Marty
 
#462 ·
I have a severe allergy to ugly pilot houses. Designing in grp allows me to come up with exactkly the aesthetics I want without being help hostage by the material. Here is the molded house on the 62'er at PSC placed on the boat for the first time this morning. No question that I am very biased towards my own work but I have to say I think this looks great. I drew inspiration for this shape from the designs of Phil Rhodes. The client is very happy. Congrats to Seve Brodie and his crew at PSC in NC for their great work on this project. How can you not like working with a foreman named "Thumper"?
 

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#464 ·
Thanks guys.
Why is it not called a "hard dodger"?

Simple. Look at the first photo. The agft bulkhead of the cabin trunk wil be extended up to the top of the PH. The oval port will be aft of this bulkhead. The top of the cabin trunk under the PH will be cut away and the PH will be over the aft cabin. There is about 40" over overhang over the cockpit so it is in effect also a hard dodger. The cockpit steps down forward so there is headroom under the overhang. We molded the boat this way so that with future boats we will have the option of having the PH or not having it.
 
#465 · (Edited)
Guess I'm confused. What I thought was my hard dodger extends aft over the cockpit enough to be a great place to perch when on watch and still stay dry and out of the wind. Sit there watching the screen over the companionway with the remote autopilot in my chubby hand and can scan the horizon. Love it. Went back and forth with the builder concerning tinting the glass. It's really two layers with a film between. He wanted it tinted for looks and to prevent a hot house effect in the tropics. I wanted it clear with two hatches over for ventilation and to see the sails. That way we might have a chance to miss the containers ( once saw a car) floating about at night. Like Micky D's got my way. Like the ovals in the back of Bob's-very elegant. ?What are the sight lines like when the pilot house feature is included. Seems just fine left as a hard dodger.Flows beautifully into the rest of deck.
 
#466 ·
Out:
Thanks I try hard.
The site lines were all worked out on the drawings to the ergonomics of the owner and his considerably shorter wife. Then we built a mock up of the entire aft end of the boat and double checked the site lines. None needed to be adjusted. The drawings were good. What we did adjust was the amount of overhang on the ph. I wanted less and the client wanted more. It turns out when the mockup was completed that he was right and I was wrong. But in this case I was happy to be wrong. We have 43" of overhang.
 
#471 · (Edited)
BS:'
I appreciate you trying to lecture me on aesthetics. I should direct you to some of your own boats , which you seem unable to post here. An overhang on a PH is fine if it is done right and the rest of the PH design is right. Your's are a bit hard on the eye, to say the least. Some designers can pull of the "baseball cap" look well.

Phil Rhodes, S&S, K. Aage Nielson, Chuck Paine have done Ph's with out the "baseball cap" knee jerk resolution. Face it BS, you have some issue with aesthetics. You do not have "the eye".

Of course a good Dutch or German steel boat builder could build my shapes. They did it time and again with the designs of Rhodes and S&S. But you can't do it. You have pr oven that time after painful time. Steel is a wonderful material IN THE RIGHT HANDS.
 

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#474 ·
Benefits of aluminium / K&M Yachtbuilders

Brent please take a look at this website. It speaks to what Bob is talking about. These folks are creating drop dead gorgeous boats in metal. They and the Boreal people are building boats for high latitude sailing where collisions and groundings may be unavoidable even with good seamanship. The pilothouses/hard dodgers are functional while still flowing in the design. The K M 50 was so well received it was reproduced in GRP (OMG) and put into series production winning the European yacht of the year.
 
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