Boat Building thread

[BoatBoy]

There have been a few who showed interest in the boat I am building and wanted a thread started about it.

I did warn that once started, I would froth on a bit about it, so be warned

To fill others in ,

I am currently building a 50ft Powercat that is really a 40 footer on 50 ft hulls.

She is long, light and low powered so will be fairly economical in comparisson to other powered vessls with live aboard capabilities.

Bloss and I intend to have her finished within the next 2 years and go cruising full time living off income from our investments.

We will be mid 40's.

I will start with an article that the editor for a yachtie magazine wanted me to write as a private builders perspective on powered catamarans. He also had other companies representitives building power catamarans write as well.

Why did we choose a Powered Catamaran over a Sailing Catamaran ?

Why the $*#@ would I want a stink boat?

Something I said for years, and I vowed to never have one,

But after getting ready for an early retirement, and looking at my requirement's for a comfortable live aboard boat for a big fella who like's a sip, my thought's changed some what.

Having had a lightning strike while on board, made me a bit warey on having 50ft metal poles up in the air as well.

My last cat was a 10 m Simpson ground effect sailing cat that we built. While she was fantastic and we did cruise her for several months at a time, in reality she was no live aboard [for us anyway] 50 Litres of water ,a couple of cartons of belly wash an 8ft dinghy and o/b and food for two for 2 weeks was fine, she'd still win rum in fun races up and down Queensland coast, but put a 3rd or 4th body on board [as we did when sailing to New Caledonia] and she suffered .

This boat sailed quite happily at 6 knots to windward in 10 knots of breeze without the extra bodys, while most other cruisers had the motors going, unless they were large light ULDBs or big light multi's.

I'm a boatbuilder by trade and did the numbers on building a 50 ft performance cat (similar to pic) with 40 ft accomadation 40 hp diesels and big rotating mast, Andersen winches, nice square top main sail, screechers etc that we felt we'd need to maintain good sailing speeds in light air,

but figured we could ditch the rig and other bits, modify the underwater shapes in last 12 ft, up the diesels to 65 hp/ side, continue the cabin roof till past the back beam [plenty of shade in tropics] and have about $60,000 Aud to buy fuel.

We also figured on replacing sails every six years and rigging wire every five years, so near enough to another $ 20,000... or $4000/year.

Reckon we'll cruise around 10kn and 14kn on the perfect day and shouldnt suck down to much diesel.

Also we get to go out to the reef in calm weather instead of the usual 20 knots required to sail fast.
The ones we want to go back to and stay awhile are about 300nm offshore, carry the big dinghy [11ft with 15hp o/b] and be able to have a few extra solar panel's on the roof to run that big fridge and freezer I've always lusted for.[ got to have ice in the rum and coke.]


Why we decided to go this way was we followed the first Schionning Prowler up the Queensland coast a few years back. (note the big threadfin salmon)

She had 50 hp diesels x2 and was built from western red cedar and epoxy with Duflex bulkheads . She seemed to manage the trip doing 10 kn and getting around 1liter to the nautical mile economy.

This is pretty close to the same cost per nautical mile, when worked out in real terms on a larger sailing cat adding in capital outlay on rig, sails and deck hardware and wear and tear on sails, rig and hardware over a 5 year period.

On the same 3 month trip we hardly saw any one sailing. The weather was predominately flukey 0 to 10 knots for a few days and then a week of 30 kn. If it wasnt that,In the morning you would get a couple of hours of calm and then 30 knot trades kick in. This is a fairly normal weather patern for QLD east coast and gulf areas.

Boats that can't sail to well eg average 5/6 knot's, often spend weeks in a miserable anchorage running out of supplies waiting for a break in weather pattern. When they get it its usually wring the poor motors neck to get 6kn from it having to get 50 miles down the track to the next anchorage before the 30 knots kicks in again. This cycle can obviously get a bit taxing on the boat and I can assure you that most people don't get off on it.

Of course if your lucky enough to have a boat that can sail at 6kn in 10 kn of breeze this is not so much of an issue, but of course you can't carry the gear eg 500l + of water , 10ft tinny/15hp o/b, extra fuel for it , lead weights for diving,tanks and compressors a month or three's worth of food and lets not forget the multiple cartons of beer and the big refrigeration and batteries needed to keep it all cold.

You probably can if you have a forty foot sailing cat on fifty plus ft hulls, but then can the two of you handle the sails without taking on extra crew all the time? And this still doesnt help in the weeks of no wind at all,sure you've got those 40 hp diesels X 2 and they'll get you along around 9kn pushing a rig through the air. The expense of this rig and sails on this style of boat buys heaps of fuel and having spoken to lots of cruisers on this style of boat the maintenance on this sort of thing spread over the life of sails, wire etc gets back to around the same cost of running a low hp fuel efficient power boat like the Schionning or some of Chamberlain's ,and hopefully what we're building

I agree if you only go out on weekends this may not be the boat for you, but if going the full live aboard option,and keeping the girl of your life happy , and if you don't intend to sit in marinas week after week and want to get out to that tropical paridise a couple of hundred miles of shore in calm weather a fuel efficient power cat might just be for you.

You'll never buy one of these off the shelf, you'll have to think outside the square and build one yourself, or have a custom build done as production build boats are generally built to heavy, requiring more HP = more fuel = more weight = more HP and a viscious cycle begins to appear.

I do understand that diesel isn't getting any cheaper but I don't think good sailcloth, riggers wages, alloy sections,spectra halyards and rigging wire let alone blown deck hardware etc etc are getting any cheaper either. I may infact have a better chance of getting my low hp low tech naturally aspirated Cummins Diesel repaired ,than I would have of a decent sail repair or dropped rig fixed in a remote place.

We also only plan on doing around 100nm/week, unless on passage, and then anchoring for a couple of week's to enjoy the sight's, like in Langkawi, where diesel is about .70c /L AUD, and beer is .50c a stubbie.

So in places like this you may well find that a long , light, low powered Powercat may actually be a more affordable option than the same thing in sail.

To be continued

Dave

 

[BoatBoy]

The beginning.

In the beginning, of our quest for a cruising lifestyle Bloss and I did what most first timers do and purchased a small yacht. Ours was a 22ft Cold moulded sloop which was pretty to look at (from a distance), had an outboard as an auxilary (seagull) which started when it felt like it by wrapping a cord around the top and giving a large yank. This usually resulted in much swearing and blood letting, so we became fairly adept at sailing her "everywhere".

This vessel cost the grand sum of $4000, which in 1992 we had to get a personel loan for as the concept of saving money was almost unheard of to me.

Unfortunately, while she was reasonably swift by Mono-hull standards, "everywhere" revolved around a lap around the nearest Island's Green and St Helena or a trip down to Peel Island for the weekend.

As most other mono-hull sailors had similar speed/time restraints, these areas were always choka with boats and tranquility and privacy was limited.

We soon grew out of this vessel and I decided I needed something faster, so we sold her for a slight profit and upgraded to a 30ft Diamond class keelboat.

She came with a trolley so as to pull her out of the water after use, and cost about $3000. She was originally designed as a one design racer, and was one of the fastest in her class in Australia in her day.

In the pic we are having an easy sail, but when the wind gets up the design has 2 trapeze wires so as to hike out the side, feet on gunwhale (edge) just like on an 18ft skiff, making them very fast with speeds in the high teens.

Sailing in the fast lane boosted our sailing skills and confidence, real trial by fire stuff.

This extra speed allowed us to cruise over to Moreton Island and Mooloolabah for the weekend, which was great, but accomadation was sleeping on wet sails under the front deck with about 3 ft headroom, water sloshing around, Brown bucket for a toilet, Red bucket for washing up (don't mix the buckets up) and an esky with cold beer and cold chicken.

In a sloppy anchorage one day, while we rolled our guts out, spilling more beer than we drank, we saw a Seawind 24 catamaran in about 2 feet of water , 10 feet from the beach, with a couple sitting on the level in deck chairs drinking champagne.

Bloss said if we were to play this sailing caper, she wanted one of them and after searching for a couple of weeks I found an unloved one parked up a creek in Redland Bay.

I tracked down the owner and purchased her for $8000
(pic not actual boat, but same model)

For a while I was 2 boat person, but eventualy sold the Diamond for what I paid and upgraded some sails on the Seawind in the quest for speed.

We sailed her for a couple of years and got her up to Lady Musgrave, Fairfax and 1770 a few times, which we would never have achieved it the first 2.

We grew out of her, as while she was fast and fun, she was very wet and accomadation below was a bit like living in a fiberglass esky, up top was fine, but at the mercy of the elements.

We needed a bigger boat.

What we wanted was unaffordable to us at the time in one lump sum. We would have needed about $60,000 (big jump from $10k) and that would have been for a boat with issues (bodgy build, tired sails, etc etc) so would have needed another $20k thrown at it.

New would have cost as much as a house, so by this stage I had read a few articles on building in strip plank cedar and epoxy and seen pics of boats built by dentist's, school teachers etc etc.

I figured as I had a boatbuilding background (in Aluminium) I should be better off than these guys as at least I had used tools before.

So we decided to build.

I should add that at this stage of life I had actually been out of the trade for several years and was now selling basically photocopying and plan printing services.

We sold the Seawind for a profit, and purchased some materials to start the build and got into it during work hours (when I could sneak away) after hours and basically every available minute that we had.

Every available cent went to the boat. Bloss got drums of epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth for Birthdays and Xmas and I the same. The money to build her just miraculously apppeared over the next couple of years.

It was handy having contacts and a sales background as I was able to negotiate well on material cost's build the mast myself (my alloy background) had a mate who did the sails at near cost and had mates who worked at chandleries, so all up she cost about $55,000.


We don't have or want children, Bloss reckons this was a 2 year gestation period and more painfull than childbirth and the warnings on the paint and primer tins repeatedly warned of birth defects.

We called her "Two Headed Love Child"

and launched her with little ceromony, rigged her and proceeded to terrorize the racing fleet on Wednesday afternoons in my endless quest for Rum. (the prize)

To be continued.

Dave

 

[Sunfish]

I assume the top picture is your Simpson Cat.

It looks as if the luff of the genoa is is fixed to the lee gunwale. I imagine this would add to power but it would also add to instability in gusty conditions if it is so. Could you fill me in on this?

 

[Sunfish]

Me again (Love the thread )

You mention strip plank cedar and epoxy. Is that where they fix the keel, stem, stern & gunwhales with a tempory internal mould and form the hull with two diagonal plys of cedar, epoxy? This form of construction revolutionised the skiffs in the '50s. Before then they were planked and ribbed.

I remember my uncle's first race in his 16footer built this way. Blew them away. Started as back marker and got up and planed on the first reach so led around the second mark. Awesome.

 

[BoatBoy]

The sheets are cracked, but no, it (the clew) is not attached to the gunwale.

I did have a tweaker that I could adjust from the chainplate, but not the gunwale.

If pushing hard in heavy air we would always have sheets in hand ready to dump if a hull got to high out of the water.

She was getting light there, but had a fair way to go.

That heady was light Mylar, so was really only good for 20 knots of wind, so hardly heavy air.

In all honesty, we whipped her fairly hard, and only scared ourselves twice in 5 years.

Once we had a hull so high during a race that we were sliding down the deck and just missed takeing off the back of a newly launched 40 ft cat. I had a gun racer on that day who liked to crank sails and sail hard. Since then, he always got a plastic (flexible) winch handle.

As I slid down the deck, I dumped the traveller and mainsheet depowering the rig. (phew)

Another time I had just sailed 70 fast miles from Fraser to 1770 with a massive kite.

As we passed 1770, sea state changed rapidly and we fell off the back of wave and buried her up past the mast base and had a wall of green water dump back in the cockpit.

Boat shook herself off and powered on.

We quickly dropped the kite and changed down sail size and continued on with much reduced sail. Boat speed went from 18 knots to 15 knots, and of course much easier on the nerves, which by that stage were a bit shattered.

Dave

 

[BoatBoy]

Me again (Love the thread )

You mention strip plank cedar and epoxy. Is that where they fix the keel, stem, stern & gunwhales with a tempory internal mould and form the hull with two diagonal plys of cedar, epoxy? This form of construction revolutionised the skiffs in the '50s. Before then they were planked and ribbed.

.

The construction method is in your description. That is double diagonal ply.

These pics may give you a better idea of the strip plank process.

This one shows planks of timber layed inside temporary chipboard frames.
After glue has set between planks, sand and glass ( you can see first layer of glass in bottom so as to have a firmish surface to walk on)

With the next one, the inside of the hulls have been glassed and bulkheads are in place (plus a few temporary chipboard frames) so as to hold the shape.
Hull is rolled over (upside down)

and sanded and glassed, keel added, shafts and rudders done, bogged faired and primed.

Then roll 'em over again

Then start to jiggle them around so as to join 'em up

Hope that fills you in a bit.

Dave

 

[Welcome]

Good to see you are living the dream mate!

Is he hanging a slash off the front?

 

[BoatBoy]

Back a bit to

and launched her with little ceromony, rigged her and proceeded to terrorize the racing fleet on Wednesday afternoons in my endless quest for Rum. (the prize)

The week we launched the boat, I lost my job, something to do with them thinking I was building a boat during work hours, which was OK, as I had planned on tossing it in anyway.

Bloss agreed to support me for a while while doing the sailing thing, this was in 1992.

I got to sail and sail and sail as much as I liked. Every Wednesday afternoon I raced for the rum in a fleet of up to 50 boats (and won plenty), and every other day I just sailed where the wind took me and got my single handing skills up.

On average I sailed about 450 nautical miles a week.

Bloss travellled a bit with her work at that stage, so if she was going to Gladstone, I would head off and meet her there, or up to Yeppoon and meet her there, she'd wangle some time off and we would go out to the reef for a week or 2 and then I would drop her back at Gladstone or Bundaberg and I would get the boat home.

Sometimes I would head back out to the reef by myself. The pic above is in one of our favourite spots and I spent a couple of weeks in there alone with the mating Turtles during nesting season. There were literally hundreds of them swimming around sometimes with 2 or 3 suitors trying to have their turn at doing what turtles do.

After doing this sort of thing for a few years Bloss was coming up for long service leave, we wanted to go cruising for 3 months and I had some mods I wanted to do the the boat, so we pulled her out, got the saw and sledgehammer into her and did a bit of surgery to make her a bit more comfortable.

I extender her and added handholds in the steps to help with getting out of the water

I smashed out the icebox and seating in the middle and added a cabin which then allowed us to have a proper Queen sized bed with full sitting headroom.

This could be accessed from the cockpit or from inside the hulls.

I also installed some refrigeration and while not as good as I would have liked it did make ice for the rum.

She went back in and actually sailed faster due to the extra waterline length and carried the dinghy on the back without bogging the bum in, which was a huge bonus.

We were ready for our jaunt up north.


Traditonaly the trip up the east coast is a trade wind blast. Easy sailing with the wind from behind allowing one to get to safe anchorages in plenty of time before dark.

The return is usually different, as the S/E trades are now on the nose (the dirrection we want to go) so with this in mind we figured on a fast trip north and a slow trip home.

So a fast trip north was had, mostly with a spinaker only up, the main in the on boom bag, the shade structure up under the boom, deck chairs out, tunes blaring from the 12 stack cd player, cold beers in hand and Auto pilot on.

Met wonderful people on the way, looked through a few boats and saw what real cruisers were using, what worked , what did'nt.

Even pulled into a few places and did races and won the rum, the night race at Bowen very memorable as we did not know the course, marks were'nt lit, there was reef to avoid and we were told to follow one of the other cats around as we would not beat them.

We blew past them at the first mark, did the race and had to wait at the finish line to take the times of the other competitors. All this loaded with cruising gear and a dinghy on the back. Great fun and a great night.

On to Townsville, Hinchenbrook a truly spectacular place where apparently the mountains are so tall that we would have to go to Tahiti to get a similar photo of the boat with the big Mountain backdrop.

 

[BoatBoy]

Onwards to Dunk Island for Bloss'es Birthday, a Macadamia nut and Prawn Pizza and a bellyfull of cider, Cairns and crayfish

Port Douglas and up the Daintree for several days Croc spotting

Into Cooktown

and finally on to Lizard Island

We spent a few days here and over at nearby Eagle island where we were chased off the reef by a 7 ft Bull Shark (I think) and as we were expecting a tough return run decided to head off back to Lizard.

We had ran out of Rum and strong hooks so we contacted the pilot from the seaplane who comes out and he flew some back for us. His charge $7-00 for a box of whatever and he provides receipts for all purchases.

This actually ended up being the cheapest bottle of rum on the entire trip.

Headed south after a few more days stopping off at more places, meeting more people and looking at more boats and had a dream run and then one day we were at Keppel Island which is one of our favourite spots of all and met some yachties from Rockhampton and we got talking over a few beers about where we had been and seen and what we wanted and needing a base to park the next boat that wouldnt cost $200 per week in fees like in Brisbane.

They mentioned that you could get a place on the river and anchor the boat out front for free and it would only cost about $70,000.

Files it away, keeps heading south and get back to Brisbane and start planning the ultimate live aboard boat after 3 months of data collection and observations, the main one being that most cruisers use their motors much more than they admit.

We had days where we were the only boat with sails up as most cruisers are heavy with gear, so need a bit of breeze to get moving, yet don't want to go out on windy days.

On calm days they'll do their miles, but cant sail fast enough to make the next anchorage by night, so turn the key and burn fuel.

The only cruisers we saw that sailed on a boat capable of comfortable liveaboard had cats with million dollar pricetags, or Ultra Light Displacement Boats (ULDB's) fast cruiser/racer Monohulls again with million dollar price tags.

We new another boat was going to happen, so we gave renting away and purchased a place nearish to the water with clear access to a launch site and no train lines to cross and ended up with a corner block place with a 50 metre side street frontage, so easy to get a boat out.

The house was garbage, but stacked up well on the bank valuation, but it was the boat building site I was after as at that stage it cost about $200/week for the cheapest spot in Bris. to build.

We became property owners.

After a few more years of sailing around and doing the numbers countless times on the sailing cat I would have, and comparing to power, I decided to put "Love Child" up for sale.

She was at the stage where she needed new sails, and we did'nt really have the funds for a new suit of fast sails, cheapies were a waste of time, so go she must and we found a buyer from New Caledonia who wanted her.

As part of the deal we got to keep her for another 4 months, sail her over to New Caledonia, get 3 weeks on her while there and get air fares home.

I started building a shed for the new cat and investigated new materials, negotiating such a good deal on some timber from China Via WA, and Epoxy resin and Glass fron Newcastle, that I then decided to build a 50 footer as it would only cost several thousand more in material.

No one in QLD came close on price on the materials required.


To be continued.

 

[BoatBoy]

Good to see you are living the dream mate!



Is he hanging a slash off the front?

Getting ready to tie off at the jetty up front (out of pic)

Dave

 

[nomadic]

Dave, do you do any scuba diving? Looks like the thing i'd be indulging in with a boat in those sort of waters

 

[BoatBoy]

I have'nt done but would like to. The old boat certainly did not have the load carrying capability or storage for scuba gear, unlike the new one that has several large lockers big enough for 2 of me to get inside and close the lid.

I have a use for 3 of these lockers so it would seem I have room.

While scuba would be good, I think Hookah will be of more use to me so I will look into that and have been for a while.

Note: Can't spear or collect crays using scuba (not sure on hookah)

Dave

 

[Deepmarine]

Awesome thread! Please keep em coming. I've always been keen on a semi retirement lifestyle of sailing around the pacific but the partner has been adamant that she's not keen on sailing (I've done some sailing as a kid).

A powered Cat could be just the option for us - I'd never thought about it before!

 

[duncan_m]

I take my hat off to you Dave, building a boat must be a massively challenging undertaking! And so many aspects to it.. Fibreglass, mould construction, engines, electrical, paint, woodwork, metalwork, plumbing, upholstery.. and then after you get it in the water.. navigation, maintenance, safety..

Mate I'd be sh1tting myself at a thought of a project like that!

 

[duncan_m]

Incidentally, Dave.. have you been watching that series on ABC about James Cook? I've been glued to it.. never realised what an amazing skill he had when it came to surveying/map making and navigation. He's practically the father of modern surveying..

 

[MichaelW]

Dave,

Great thread, I've now subscribed! You're a few years, and quite a lot more experience, ahead of where I want to be. Maybe in 10 years time~ish.

I'm still racing on a DK43 out of MHYC in Sydney. We always take line on scratch, but can't race to our rating on IRC so struggle to place. She's very fast but needs to be tuned perfectly to sail to her rating. Bigger, heavier, more stable boats Like the X's and Farrs tend to take IRC. We did finish second on IRC last weekend and first on PHS which was a great result for us! This weekend we managed a 5th and 4th which was still pretty good, 1st on scratch by 7 minutes wasn't quite quick enough...

I'm off to Cabbage Tree Island this weekend which should be fun. Leave Friday night should see us back Sunday morning or very late Saturday night if we get a dream run. We're banking on those SE trades to drive us North, but the beat back should be hard going. We'll take a crew of ten and because I'm a little guy I'll be mast or bow (rock star position! ). But bow means you get wet and can be a hard slog on the off shores. I haven't got a ride to Hobart this year, but am definately going to do it next year as my first Class 1 race. The owner of Pla Loma IV is currently in the US on a prolonged business trip but we still take her out every weekend and for off shores. He's said its time to trade up and our thinking (he won't admit it) is that he'll come back with a DK46 in tow. We keep pushing for the TP52, but I think his wife pushes back on that one!

I was going to buy a little 24 footer mono-hull to play around with on Pittwater for overnighters with the family, but given I race Pla Loma IV every weekend out of MHYC, there's not much time left over for cruising. So, I'll do my racing time and enjoy every minute of it. Get my skills up to where they need to be and then look to buy that little cruiser after next year's Hobart. My son's now 2 years old, so he'll be a touch over 3 by then and a good age to be getting out on the water.

Keep up the great posts. I'm loving reading your adventures and living the dream vicariously.

Cheers,
Michael.

 

[BoatBoy]

Hi Michael,

Nice looking boat those Reichel Pugh's...................................for a mono hull

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_details.asp?raceEntryID=11669

But then again, heres a Reichel Pugh 80 getting blown away by a 60 ft cruising cat

http://uncutvideo.aol.com/videos/cabce7fe77982ed5cbb7fcdf0dd91825

Hope you jag a ride for Hobart, while I think it is a silly race (why no multi's ?) and unseamanlike how they flogg south when the weather turns bad, it is an experience you'd have to jump at if given the chance.

Me?, I prefer the run to warmer climes in something like the Brisbane to Gladstone (multi's) or even the newish Brisbane to Keppel Island race(Mono)

http://www.greatkeppelyachtrace.com/index.php

I'm just not a cold, heavy water kind of guy, likes me sunsets and rumbo's to much.

Good luck with it.

Dave

 

[BoatBoy]

I take my hat off to you Dave, building a boat must be a massively challenging undertaking! And so many aspects to it.. Fibreglass, mould construction, engines, electrical, paint, woodwork, metalwork, plumbing, upholstery.. and then after you get it in the water.. navigation, maintenance, safety..

Mate I'd be sh1tting myself at a thought of a project like that!

Different strokes for different blokes mate

I have no idea how to set up a blog site (and I will have to at some stage) and the thought of doing a car rebuild let alone several and trucks sends shivers down my spine.

But yes, this project is massively challenging for 1 with very occasional help.

I lied to myself that it was only a bit bigger than last time, if I was truthfull, I never would have started.

As an example of the enormity, I have used more timber, epoxy and fiberglass in ONE HULL of this one, than I did in the entire build of "Love Child" above.

Dave

 

[BoatBoy]

Incidentally, Dave.. have you been watching that series on ABC about James Cook? I've been glued to it.. never realised what an amazing skill he had when it came to surveying/map making and navigation. He's practically the father of modern surveying..

Sorry, meant to reply before.

Caught it last night and was impressed as well, so will be watching from now on.

Dave

 

[BoatBoy]

So, knowing that "Love Child" was sold on with the business of building the new boat.

I looked at a lot of different designs and concepts and knew a couple of guys building some at the time. Both of these were about 38 ft and had turbocharged 38hp X 2 in one and in the other it was designed around naturally aspirated (no turbo) 50hp X 2.

Both of these vessels while nice in their own way but were not what we were after due to too much boat being crammed into to short a hull (IMHO). One in particular had to have a de-flatable dinghy as it had no facility to carry a real one.

Others we looked at were what we were after, but construction techniques made them overly heavy and they required large HP and were aimed at a 20 knot boat owner.

We kept going back to one style (like the one we saw up north) that had space, grace and Low hp, being built from lightweight timber, epoxy and stitched fabric's (like Love Child).

At this stage we had no real money and the plans alone for this vessel were $10,000+.

I researched a fair bit on hull shapes to find out what the difference was between a sailing hull and a power hull shape, and without a doubt the leader in this in my opinion is Malcolm Tennant http://www.tennantdesign.co.nz/index.php

He came up with the concept for the hull shape on the powercat above, but it was a hullshape that worked through the entire speed range (0 to 35 knots)

After speaking with him, we came to the conclusion that a sailing cats hullshape worked fine until it got to about 10 knots of hullspeed under motor, then it started to squat. Mods that had been done in the past , had reversed the last run of hullshape so as to have a flat surface in the last 6 ft of hull running paralell with and below the water, giving a lifting surface. If only planing on doing lower speeds, this hull shape was quite effective.

As we only wanted low speed, this "Version 1" hull concept was fine by me.

You can see the difference here on "Love Childs" underwatershape at the back, which is running up and is quite rounded

compared to this which reverses and goes from a round to a flat.

So, now that this was decided, we went back to my mate Roger, who designed "Love Child", had many conversations over many bottles of rum, picked up a set of hull offsets (paper with grids and numbers relating to a point) for his "Slipstream 50" Sailing cat , which saved me about $10,000 , which paid for the first batch of materials and went home and built a shed.

Much cutting and welding later I had a place in the shade to start cutting chipboard frames to attach planks to. I have a mate who new a cabinet maker who let me have a vast supply of "damaged" 1200 X 2400 X 16mm craftwood with melamine faces for $5-00/sheet, so a few weeks of lofting hullshapes and cutting we had all the frames stood up and started planking.

I planked, resined and sanded all day while Caro worked her office job, and then after hours we would glass, somtimes on a big run until about 2am, then repeat again and again until a hull was sitting in the frames, glassed internally. (see earlier pics)

Then all the bulkheads were cut and fitted to stabilise the hull shape and stop anything from moving. These were mostly made from 12mm Gaboon Marine Ply .


(Pic of Gaboon Ply Bulkheads, baffles for underfloor fuel tankage and the start of engine beds in the forground.)

Though some up Fwd which were smaller were made from 9mm Pacific Maple Marine Ply. All ply was hand selected by me from the supplier.


It was about this stage that I decided the weather window was right for the run to New Caledonia, so we packed our gear,Spoke to Brisbane B.O.M. loaded up and cleared out for a comfortable but quick 5 day trip.

There was Bloss, a mate from Sydney who had sailed with me before and me.

(We had a 4th on board and he was great on coastal stuff, but he lost it on the second day out and after day 3 we felt like gutting him like a fish and could'nt wait to get rid of him)

The new owner of our beloved craft worked for the French B.O.M, and kept in contact via Sat phone that we rented and he paid for.

I wanted to beat out of Brisbane into a 15 to 20 knot S/E'er and free off after 24 hrs onto a reach to New Cal as it seems the closer to New Cal you get, the more East the wind goes and this is what the rest of the world seems to do.

About 200 N/M out we get the call to go North as fast as we can to avoid a low forming (cyclone)

Brisbane BOM had told me that this showed up on the French weather model before we left, but they did'nt use the French model as they felt it was statisticaly, not acurate enough.

No arguments, his boat (I s'pose) and his insurance.

So of we toddle, into the land of fickle wind and eventual wind on the nose from the N/E. After 3 days of this I could'nt take his call's anymore and left that to someone else.

Apparently the low did'nt form,(no $hit sherlock) , and now we were about 60 miles of the bottom of Bellona Banks and Chesterfield reef, with no charts for the area as we were supposed to be about 400 miles further south in clear water.

Would have loved to go over for a look as now there was glassy calm and I gathered there were plenty of cray's being so far offshore, but wiggle ,wiggle now heading south again towards Noumea at an incredibly slow speed (ETA approx six mths time).

We motored for a while, but only carry 60L so don't get to carried away.

Stoped and have a swim in 4000 meters of water.

Day 7, we would have been in Noumea 2+ days ago on my route , and now it's time for a bit of northerly yeehah, zipping along in fairly flat water doing low teens for about 5 hrs and then fun over and start bashing into increasing E S/E wind for another few hours. When it got to about 30 kn, and we down to double reefed main and an small blade, not quite storm jib, we thought about the tripple reef in the main, but I thought it was only going to get worse , so put out the parachute anchor.

Oh baby, these things are great, we rented [new owner paid] a demo model from Para Anchors Australia. http://www.paraanchors.com.au/

Best thing ever, it was like being in a not so comfortable anchorage for the night. We got the call to expect a 50 knot front to come through. Well they got 1 right.

Mid way through next day we headed off again feeling well rested, even jammed a couple of pre dinner rumbo's down while on deck surveying the scene the night before. Wind about 12 knots from exactly where we were going beating, beating, beating to windward.

Day 9 We could pick up New Caledonian Radio Stations and the next dawn we sailed in towards land, but of course did'nt have chart's to get into the lagoon 100 N/M north of Dunbier Passage where we planned on entering, so were taunted by the view for the rest of the day with ever decreasing wind and eventually none, so stay 10N/M off reef edge and motor at 1/3 revs (most economical) and arrived at entrance in morning and cleared in in time for lunch at the Club Nautique at Port Mosselle, with vapours in the tank.

Pic of Amadee lighthouse at Noumea

(Tied up at Port Moselle marina New Cal, about to send crew up the mast to check all was OK. Bloss takeing photo).

More later

Dave