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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.
 
#2,193 ·
I can not believe it....I found the quinsential BS boat, in a post here in sailnet! wow....unbelievable.....I must be on a role tonight!......just amazing...........

I photo-shopped the registration number to protect the innocent.



Work in progress...Wait for it!



Wait for it!



Introducing "Shingle Boat" :confused::eek:



If you can reno a house, you ran reno a boat!











THE END...:puke :puke :puke
 
#2,196 ·
When I was doing some work on Crane Island, I noticed A LOT of the folks that lived on the islands that did not have ferry service, had a boat that could do as the Munson 40-8. All were aluminum for the most part. A steel one or two here and there. but aluminum was the main one. There is another style or two of ALum boat used too, along with a few fiberglass ones. But would suspect aluminum is used as that is how you had to get things to the land, ie land the boat on the rock, unload,quickly and head back out, or if the tide was going out, you were stuck on the shore, or only land during flood tides!

I do agree the fronts on boats like the 40-8 were ugly if you will, but from a practical use standpoint, VERY functional and useful!

Marty
 
#2,200 · (Edited)
Classic:
I haven't given any thought to running lights. I imagine we'll put the on the pulpits as usual.

A note on 3D renderings:
Paulo is correct. Most designers have someone working with them who takes care of the 3D work. The 3D work takes shape from my 2D drawings that I produce in the normal design sequence. 3D renderings are very useful to help the client get a feel for the new boat. They also allow us to explore in depth different aesthetic options. I woud not be giving my clients "full design services" if I did not offer 3D modelling as part of the package. But it is not cheap. A design from me is going to cost the client betwee 8.5% and 10% of the build cost. I tell my clients up front that I was the design budget that gives me the freedom to do my very best work. I am not interested at all in producing a cheap design.

But 3D work is not about just producing pretty pictures. We can take our 3D files an send the to a CNC shop where they can carve molds or plugs out of foam full sixe. These
tools" will be used to produce the hull, keel, rudder and deck for the boat down to the last detail. This puts a huge burden on the design today to produce design documents that take the place of many hours of hand lofting on the shop floor in order to produce full size patterns and templates for the boat. But it also unsures that a good designer today can exersize far more control over the finished product.

I'm proud of what I do. I know I do it well. I am happy to show off my design work.
Here are some pics showing howthe pilot house/hard dodger came together for the 62' build at PSC right now. The last pic shows the foam mold after being CNC cut from the 3D file. This will be a 2.5 million dollar boat. No room for BS here.

If you look carefully at the 3D models you will see the drip groove running accross the back end of the pilot house. This is there to prevent water from dripping down into the cockpit. I can't think of everything but I can try.



 
#2,209 ·
Classic:
I haven't given any thought to running lights. I imagine we'll put the on the pulpits as usual.

A note on 3D renderings:
Paulo is correct. Most designers have someone working with them who takes care of the 3D work. The 3D work takes shape from my 2D drawings that I produce in the normal design sequence....

But 3D work is not about just producing pretty pictures. We can take our 3D files an send the to a CNC shop where they can carve molds or plugs out of foam full sixe. These
tools" will be used to produce the hull, keel, rudder and deck for the boat down to the last detail. This puts a huge burden on the design today to produce design documents that take the place of many hours of hand lofting on the shop floor in order to produce full size patterns and templates for the boat. But it also unsures that a good designer today can exersize far more control over the finished product.
....
Bob, I did not said that NA or Architects, for that matter don't work in 3D programs and that those are not useful even if it is possible to get very good work working only in 2D if the one doing that has a capacity to see in the brain those designs in 3D, a kind of a lost science for new Architects that have been trained working directly in 3D. I think you call that : having a good eye:D

I was talking about nice renderings and for the ones that don't know much about CAD, it is the designs with the water, colors, land, kind of photorealistic images.

Architects that work in 3D use that kind of wire frames you are talking about and if needed, just to get a better feeling they use a very simple rendering to give a better idea of the shapes. Of course you know this, I am just trying to make it clear to all.

What I was saying is that those nice photo-realistic effects (with a landscape) are normally not made by architects but by specialists and serve mainly to have a feedback from the client or to promote the work, not for design purposes.

Regards

Paulo
 
#2,202 ·
I have found when one does some of the 3d work, or when an architect does a bit more on the plans than a basic line drawing or two or three, one is able to many times see the project better up front. Some folks have no way to picture things like this in their brains from a 2d paper plan.

Then one can also from a 3d rendering, figure out empty places with in the plan that can be better utilized etc too.

Granted I am coming at this from a landscape plan as I have been a contractor for 30 some years, and do have a design degree. BUT, one can see more from a Architect that does 20-30 pages of plans views etc vs a 1-3 page simple plan as I typically did. Probably because I prefered to be getting my hands dirty in the soil, cutting the concrete wall blocks or pavers, etc to spending my day at a desk drwaing the plans.

Marty
 
#2,205 ·
I think many boats have an 'awkward' angle of view.. ie some aspect that looks off, an angle or a line that doesn't please the eye, but move up/down/over a few feet and it's gone. (with our boat it's from dead astern)

The ability to render in 3D before the finalized build plans must make it possible to recognize and perhaps address such an issue before its too late.
 
#2,223 ·
I think many boats have an 'awkward' angle of view.. ie some aspect that looks off, an angle or a line that doesn't please the eye, but move up/down/over a few feet and it's gone. (with our boat it's from dead astern)

The ability to render in 3D before the finalized build plans must make it possible to recognize and perhaps address such an issue before its too late.
Looking at a boat with as sheer form the stern quarter makes the sheer look shortened and ugly sometimes.
 
#2,210 ·
Bob,

Those are some beautiful designs, but may I make a suggestion?

You were talking about casting some of the fittings on the boat by printing 3d molds. I would really recommend against this. Casting is great where strength and porosity aren't concerns, but in structural applications it is a little questionable.

When I was working for a titanium fabrication company we did a lot of custom work with 3d printed molds, but instead of casting we used a process called sintering. It is similar to casting in that a mold is made then material is poured in, but unlike casting it uses powdered metal which is then heated and held under high pressure. The heat/pressure causes the powder to fuse into a solid mass, but without the voids typical of a cast part.

Basically you get the formability of a cast part with the strength of a machined part. Once you make the decision to make custom parts, the cost between the two is pretty minimal. Sintered parts are more expensive, but not terribly so.
 
#2,212 ·
Bob,

I looked it up, and there is now a new sintering technique that has come along since I left. It's called laser sintering, and actually doesn't require a mold to be made. Instead of using the CAD drawing to make molds, they use a 3d printer to directly make the part from titanium, which reduces the cost even more, and makes prototyping even faster.

I know in titanium it can match the strength of a machined part (+\- 2%) versus a cast part, and I assume the same would be true for stainless.

See Benefits of laser sintered titanium - AMD ? Aerospace Manufacturing and Design for a brief primer on the process.
 
#2,214 ·
Okay, after a very long absence, ( I think I had withdrawals and everything LOL) I got a chance to get on here and check in you guys...

Beautiful boats from Bob, good comments from many others, pointed sarcasm and some great wise cracks from Smackers, and of course BS from BS...

I have been out in the wild world of work trying to stack up a little cash to be able to meet my own goals on purchasing a nice boat, and I have done fairly well, so hopefully sometime next year. The K43 Kettenburg I want is still available, and I think it will still be by the time I get all my money together and can take a few months off to get her and move her up further into the PNW to ado a little more work on her.

I was actually up in Astoria, Oregon the other day and man, I really miss the ocean. It was cool, and rainy, and just awesome. Unfortunately I was incredibly ill and I just could not go out and do anything, seems the flu or possibly a mild ( if that was mild I would hate to have seen harsh) case of food poisoning. I wanted to go do some stuff but all I could do was get a room at the hotel and hibernate in between trips to the head.

You guys have fun, and enjoy your discussions, I am up in New Jersey today and hopefully on the way back to Texas tonight, so I won't have time to do much here either. It is too bad that my work is a lot like work, not like Bob's work which is a lot like a love affair...

Mark
 
#2,222 ·
I've heard some have greatly improved those Kettenburgs by pulling the keel hung rudder off and replacing it with a separate rudder much further aft, hung on a skeg. I did that on my first boat and the improvement was huge. The hull was still unbalanced , but at least I could control her her downwind.
 
#2,216 ·
I was on board a K43 for the first time a few years ago, and it was just truly a classic sailing vessel.

I know of several that are for sale and all are within my price range, of course the purchase is only the beginning on these boats because of the age a full update on electrical and other systems is prudent. I have factored this cost in and still will have the money to do it, and since I will live on this boat until I die it is not a hard decision. I am just working for this one last little bit before I get on the boat to be able to do it right. Lord willing I will be able to make the move sometime mid year 2014 and that will be fine.

I am NOT posting photos because that is a sure fire way to see the one I want go to someone else LOL.

Mark
 
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