Why are Cement Hulls, Bad ? or Are they ?

[Jeff_H]

More to the point, when you describe Displacement in tons the convention is to use 'long tons' which means that the boat in question weights and absurdly heavy 58,800 lbs. Letting Karl crunch the numbers ( Sail Calculator Pro v3.53 - 2000+ boats ) that translates to a freakishly high L/D over 800.

When you think about a heavy cruiser, say an Atkin's Ingrid or CT 41, they have L/D's in the range of 325 to 350, and frankly these are both seriously weight challenged designs.

800 square feet on a boat that heavy translates to an SA/D in the range of 8.46. I have seen powerboats with greater SA/D's than that, but again compared to the imfamously under canvased Ingrid with an SA/D of 16.5, or so, you quickly can see why people are steering you away from this particular Endurance 41 if you really plan to sail.

Jeff

[Stillraining]

Pickel:
I have seen one or two stunning examples of ferro built boats..they do exist.




Here is the kicker for me...I work hard for my money and have to plan long for my dreams...took me 30 years to get my 40 footer...so I dont have too many chances to screw up..I'm unwilling to take the calculated risk of plunking down 100K for one of those stunning examples when there are so may relatively less riskier options out there..30K may not seem like a lot to you right now but envision putting another 30 into her and then having it all go south on you.

The purchase price of a boat is just the admittance fee to the dance...you still have to spend money on the girl...court one with something going for her with pleasing and desirable charitor traits others desire as well... or you could find yourself in a disillusioned relationship contemplating an expensive divorce quicker then you think.

[KeelHaulin]

Originally Posted by Jeff_H

When you think about a heavy cruiser, say an Atkin's Ingrid or CT 41, they have L/D's in the range of 325 to 350, and frankly these are both seriously weight challenged designs.

Jeff are you quoting L/D for the ferro-hulled Atkin's Ingrid or the wood hulled originals?

[Capt.Fred]

If you are interested in ferro boats and are lucky, you might find the book "HARMONY" by Patrick Cotton. Patrick designed the most beautiful and seaworthy ferro boats imagineable. He assisted in building a fleet of them at Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco in the 70's. (Patrick and his fleet sailed almost the entire South Pacific.) I was fortunate to be moored there for a time. Fishermen would leave a fresh salmon on my deck SEVERAL times a week. At 75 yrs I tend to digress. I have so many memories. I am presently preparing my tiny Rob Roy 23 for extended up Central American rivers and each day, I have noticed against my will, I get a little less done. Anyway, I am not a fan of ferro cement boats for a vast number of reasons. I understand that in the 70's at least 10,000 were under construction along the entire West Coast. Most were embarrasements and some were beautys.
BTW, "HARMONY" is full of photos showing the entire construction phases of ferro boats, pictures under sail, photos of his remote anchorages in the Pacific and route maps. very very interesting.

[Superpickle]

Thank you Very much Capt. Fred
I will have to look for your Posts from now on.. ;-)

I will check it out, But, I think i am in the mind now of NOT wanting a boat so heavy..

To all the rest, THANKS.
So, I think we can let this one Die now ...LOL..LOL

[Jeff_H]

Keel Hauling: I grabbed the displacement shown on Karl's Calculator for the Ingrid and did not research where that number came from. It is my understanding that the Fiberglass versions typically were about the same displacement as the wooden boats, but had less ballast to make up for the heavier hull weights.

Jeff

[KeelHaulin]

The Atkins Ingrid ferro hull is spec'd at 16 tons; the fiberglass hull is 11.6 tons. The only Ingrid I had ever seen was a ferro hull; but looking on yachtworld it was probably either a one-off or the production of it in a ferro hull was limited to just a few.

Here's the ferro boat I was thinking of:

1971 Atkins Ingrid Cutter Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

With 10,000 lbs extra weight in the hull; I'd say the ferro version is probably better suited to motor sailing or as a permanantly moored live-aboard. I had talked with the owner of that ferro hull boat when I was OTH at Napa and he said he was going to sail it to Eureka, CA from SF; but seeing that it is listed on Yachtworld again I suspect that he either lost faith in the boat or it could not sail upwind very well.

[Capt.Fred]

[quote=KeelHaulin;536619]The Atkins Ingrid ferro hull is spec'd at 16 tons; the fiberglass hull is 11.6 tons. The only Ingrid I had ever seen was a ferro hull; but looking on yachtworld it was probably either a one-off or the production of it in a ferro hull was limited to just a few.

KeelHaulin, Hi, PLease understand that my sensibilities were slightly disarranged, when you called that cement floating house trailor an Atkins Ingrid.
I might be somewhat mistaken, but I believe the Atkins, Ingrid, Alajuela and Bluewater were all take offs from the very beautiful. graceful and extremely seaworthy Colin Archer. I respectfully urge you to look at some photos of the original Colin Archer or Atkins etc. Please note that in my 23 ton 50' Double ender "Daedalus" I slugged North Along the West Coast of California motor sailing in any season, always freezing my buns. Until I ran a 1" brass pipe from the engine cooling system to the helm area. That helped keep me warmer. I repeatedly noticed many boats especially fin keel (but not only) hobby horsing like mad on their frenzy dash North and my boat slugged thru the chop without as much movement. My conclusion was that those boats needed to distribute their supplies, gear and anything heavy more fore and aft as much as possible.

[KeelHaulin]

Originally Posted by Capt.Fred

KeelHaulin, Hi, PLease understand that my sensibilities were slightly disarranged, when you called that cement floating house trailor an Atkins Ingrid.
I might be somewhat mistaken, but I believe the Atkins, Ingrid, Alajuela and Bluewater were all take offs from the very beautiful. graceful and extremely seaworthy Colin Archer. I respectfully urge you to look at some photos of the original Colin Archer or Atkins etc.

Yes, you are mistaken; I was referring to a specific "Atkins Ingrid" that was constructed of ferro-cement; not the hull that Superpickle was asking about in this thread.

Look at this link:

1971 Atkins Ingrid Cutter Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

You see, this boat was constructed of ferro-cement; and was formed to the hull design of the Atkins Ingrid. If you look closely you can see that it sits about 4" lower in the water than a fiberglass hull due to the extra weight. My question about the sailing properties of the Ingrid were to determine if what Jeff H was saying about their performance was in regard to the ferro hull like the above listing or for the original wood or fiberglass construction hulls.

Unfortunately; a boat thought to be the first Ingrid hull was lost a few weeks ago here in SF:

Latitude 38 - The West's Premier Sailing & Marine Magazine

[Jeff_H]

Perhaps I can shed some light on the Ingrid discussion by providing a little background. Atkins was a master of taking basic work boat designs and adopting them to be suitable cruising boats. Most workboats are by necessity a balance of maximum burdensomeness for a given length and performance, meaning that by their very nature work boats, with a few notable exceptions, had to carry a lot of cargo, as well as support their crews and make reasonable passage times, with minimal crew and a reasonable degree of safety.

Because commercial working water craft had the need to carry so much weight, they generally made poor choices as pleasure craft where there was no need to carry so much weight. When you look at the work of Colin Archer, his working water craft were literally approaching twice the weight of his pleasure craft of the same length.

To one degree or another Atkin's Ingrid was evolved from Colin Archer's pleasure craft, but was so much more refined that it would be hard to say that they were really adaptations of the Colin Archer rescue boats for which Colin Archer was best known. Atkin's also designed a 32 footer called the Eric that was more closely related to Colin Archers designs. The Eric formed the basis for the Westsail 32.

In any event, the Ingrid design was eventually adapted to fiberglass and sold as a an Alejuela and Pacific Seacraft 38 (not to be mistaken for the later Pacific Seacraft 37) as well as under a variety of other names built by a number of builders world wide.

The original Ingrid was just under 38 feet in length. A number of designers and boat builders produced longer adapations of the design as well, often keeping the name Ingrid attached to the design, even those the quality of these adapations varied very widely from the original.

The design concept was also adapted to Ferrocement by a number of boat builders, both professional and amatuer. I can't speak to the particular version that you are looking at, but there was one very high quality 41 foot production version of the Ingrid built in Maryland in the early 1980's. One of those had been on the hard, in near derilict condition, for decades just up the street from my house and the hull is in near perfect shape. I thought she was a glass boat until I met her owner.

He was the original owner of the company and he contends that the hulls of his Ferrocement versions were lighter and stronger than the glass boats. He described the process of building these boats to me one day and it really was impressive using a powered pump to rapidly place the high strength cement under pressure and using a more complex mold than was typical with most ferrocement processes. I don't recall the details, but for its size the boat seemed very robust and taken at his word, not as heavy as the glass boats.

Now then, when it comes to the boat in the YachtWorld listing, the ad does not say whether the boat was professionally built, whether the LOA includes the bowsprit or is the more typical length on deck and it is hard to say where the numbers come from and whether they are accurate or not.

It is not unusual for displacements to be inaccurately quoted, but then again you never know. At least in the pictures that boat looks moderatly fair but not as nicely modeled as the true Ingrids or the one up the street from my home.

Respectfully,
Jeff