On choosing your dreamboat
You will have some thoughts in your mind as to what would
be a nice boat to have, and no doubt some ideas as to what
you want to use it for. Some people will have seen something
on the water or in print that they have fallen in love with
and nothing else will do except one of “those”.
Some will have been told by a friend that the only thing to
own is a “Such and such” and some will be haunted
by memories of the boat that Granddad used to take them out
in as kids on summer holidays.
There will be those who have a lot of boating experience in
one type of craft, and who don’t want to risk a change,
those with no experience but who live in an area where a particular
type is common and a few who are looking for something different.
All of these already existing ideas have a bearing on what
you might choose for your “dreamboat”
Warning: I’m going to lecture you a bit here, if you
don’t like lectures, go and have a look at the rest
of the magazine, but otherwise, do read on.
This well intended diatribe (thanks for reading on) is about
keeping dreams alive, they have a much better chance of surviving
if they are a good match with reality.
I have sold something in excess of 3000 sets of plans over
the years and more than a few of the owners have ended up
with a boat that, while it did what it was designed to do,
what it was designed to do was not a good match for the owners
environment, or was not suited to the usage, or could not
be achieved with the time, building space or budget available.
Nothing wrong with the boat! Just the wrong one for the time,
the place the resources, the skills, or the job to be done.
How does a designer prevent those mismatches from happening?
When selling stock plans from a catalogue that’s not
easy. People are making an unaided choice and I the designer
rarely have an input. No problem with custom designs as I
ask what my clients must think are an inordinate number of
questions, some of which they must find quite odd but all
of which have a bearing on some aspect of the design. I recall
asking one client for his wife’s vital statistics, not
the ones you might think that I’d be interested in,
but in height, reach, weight and fitness. This boat would
be no problem for the client himself as he was a 6ft x 200
pounder and fairly fit but they were to sail her on overnight
passages where she would be on watch on her own.
She turned out to be short, well rounded, and not used to
heavy work. That, as you can imagine changed the entire cockpit
layout, the winches and the rig. It affected how the Anchor
tackle came aboard, the lifting gear for the centreboard,
how the galley was laid out and the height of the seating
in the main cabin. A lot more than you would think!
So here are some suggestions:
Have a look at the area where you are going to use the boat.
An ocean cruiser is not going to suit daysailing on a small
lake, any more than a boat intended for running a river bar
will be ideal for fly fishing the upper reaches of that same
river. So have a realistic look at the water you have available
to you and make some notes.
A small boat can be very seaworthy, but each person on board
needs about 10 pounds a day of stores and the trip to Europe
from the US east coast needs six weeks worth of stores aboard.
If your crew is four people that’s getting up toward
a ton of food and water plus the boat’s needs for that
trip. Choose something that is designed to carry that load.
On the other hand a boat that is intended to do that trip
may be mostly cabin, and have a tiny cockpit to accommodate
one or two on watch, and if day cruising in a hot climate
no one will want to be downstairs in a stuffy cabin so you’ll
need a much bigger cockpit.
Type is important too, rowing boats are as long and as narrow
on the waterline as the designer thinks they can get away
with. A power boat intended to plane has very straight lines
underneath that make it a poor sailor, and a sailboat is of
a shape that resists the winds efforts to heel her over, and
will travel at relatively slow speeds efficiently but not
faster.
A cutter rigged heavy displacement long keeled cruiser wont
win races around the harbour, an ultralight displacement racer
is likely to be fragile, shake the crews teeth out in a chop
and not carry the load needed for long cruises. 20 tons of
Schooner will take 6 crew and cost vast sums to both build
and maintain. A simple flat-bottomed skiff will suit an estuary
or lake but is not the right boat for a high speed offshore
fisherman.
A heavy motorboat may be comfortable in motion, without ever
achieve planing speed, but the longer it is the faster it
will run, ( a bit like the rowing boat). The really efficient
displacement powerboat, being long, fairly heavy and quite
narrow is likely to roll a long way which can be uncomfortable
and disconcerting.
While a yacht tender is possibly the hardest thing to design
of all as it has to fit into a small space on deck, carry
impossible loads, row well, tow at high speeds and be stable
enough to allow its occupants to stand up and scramble into
the parent vessel without going for an ignominious swim.
There are so many types, each suited to a particular set
of circumstances, some of which apply and some of which may
not. In making a decision all of these need to be considered.
Think about your dreamboat, consider where you are going to
use it, be realistic about what you are going to do with her,
and think over the reasoning behind your likes and dislikes
in a boat.
Even the building space and budget will have a bearing on
what is realistic. Consider ALL aspects of the boat from the
reason for wanting one, through the area and type of use,
the building of her and the resources you have available for
the project. Skills, tools, materials availability, space
and the hours you have available all have a bearing on the
choice. Try for something that is a good match in all respects.
If your choice is a good match with your dreams, the environment
in which she will be used, and the skills and resources available
to build her, then the project will be a successful one. But
do think about it. A half built boat that will not suit the
job is a real Albatross and potentially the coffin for a lot
of well intended dreams.
