junk-rigged scamp?

  • 18 Apr 2021 16:21
    Reply # 10325217 on 10324549
    Deleted user
    Anonymous wrote:

    I agree in general with Graeme's long screed. Probably because we're both coming at this from similar experience of having been dinghy sailors long ago. 

    So Arne is ill, with a low mood. That would explain the grandfatherly mutterings coming from deep in his armchair, speaking of matters of which he has insufficient knowledge. Get well soon Arne, and return to writing good sense on matters familiar to you ;-)

    Self righting in a small dinghy is not something to be looked for, I think. As Graeme said, a boat that self rights and sails away from you is positively dangerous. I certainly want to see the ability to self rescue, in a boat for adventuring and exploring off the beaten track; call it self reliance, or self help, or something similar, if you like. Arne's Jolle dinghy was positively dangerous, if it could not be self recovered by its crew. The SCAMP is positively safe, as it can be. 

    Long ago, as a sailing instructor, I had to do capsize drill halfway through a week-long course. The Enterprises and Wayfarers I used had buoyancy fore and aft, but none at the sides, and so would float deep when on their sides, and not blow away. This is good, and desirable. What was not so good was that they came up full of water and took a lot of bailing out. Buoyancy under the floor would have helped a lot. After the capsize drill, my party trick was to do a 360˚ "eskimo roll" without getting my feet wet - until I had to bail out with a large bucket. So the SCAMP, with a high sealed cuddy forward, having a floor above the waterline and being self draining, is close to ideal, but I'd lose the side tanks.

    Sausage fenders are certainly not going to help recover a SCAMP, which already has too much buoyancy in its sides IMO. It would help the Golden Bay though. I once made some from closed cell pipe insulation inside a canvas cover, Graeme.

    As ever, this sort of topic gets me thinking about what I could hypothetically design and build. Starting from SibLim and scaling down, I could do a 4m x 1.5m water ballasted dinghy with large tanks fore and aft, 0.175m draught at 235kg displacement, a self draining floor above the waterline, an extended foredeck for stowage of gear in drybags, bilgeboards to act as legs, (as the bottom is narrow), built depth of 72 cm max so that I could build in my warm front room and get it out of the front door. Maybe a sealed cuddy for high buoyancy could be added once it's outside? I'd paint it red so that if I couldn't self recover, the lifeboat could find me. H'mm. Winter project??


    It strikes me that one should not necessarily end up in the water in a SCAMP capsize.  With the floating mast, if there is something to grab onto you should be able to stay inside the confines of the boat, and perhaps ever right it by grabbing a rope attached to the mast and hiking out on the hull walking up the side and getting back in as the boat rolls upright rather than swimming around and pulling the boat over on top of you by the offcenter board........... perhaps that's unrealistic, as it is not the way it is shown being done.


         The Race to AK version has an open transom and drains completely.... and that could also be a real asset for boarding if you were in the water.


                                                           H.W.




  • 18 Apr 2021 11:49
    Reply # 10324705 on 10324642
    David D wrote:

    Hi David,

    The Bayraider 17 option is under the "bespoke" heading.

    It is basically a smaller lighter version of the 20.  They used to do a laser cut kit when I looked a few years ago but they seem to be more about the bigger more expensive yachts nowadays.

    Dave Wyf

    Thanks, David. I've found the Bayraider 17 now, and had a look at the capsize video. For someone looking for a dinghy of Wayfarer or Devon Yawl kind of size for safe family sailing, this would seem to be a strong contender.
  • 18 Apr 2021 11:25
    Reply # 10324692 on 10324661
    Arne wrote:

    PS: Btw. why didn't any of you (Graeme and David) mention those Gazelles?

    Yes, the Gazelle des Iles, at 3.9m x 1.45m x 0.55m x 130kg, with a flat cockpit sole for overnighting, looks interesting and safe for family sailing - but very, very expensive-looking! And with that deep fixed draught, not suited to shoal water and sailing off a beach. More like a mini-keelboat than a dinghy.
  • 18 Apr 2021 11:24
    Reply # 10324690 on 10309125
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Arne! Great to know you are OK - you see, you were quite right about the efficacy of a dram or two of aquavit! I will follow that advice myself, next time. And you are right that a fool-proof dinghy does not exist. My favourite quote from Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) was the Dad's telegram to the worried Mum about letting the children go off on their own in a dinghy: "Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers won't drown". Like a lot of things these days, not quite the right way to think, I suppose.

    The Gazelle? That video was an eye-opener to me. I am not sure if the mechanics of it would scale down to a smaller dinghy, and its not the road I would take to a hull shape suitable for rowing (or sailing, really) but the video sure taught me a lesson and if Mauro is looking for a safe dinghy suitable for safe family sailing in Northern climes - and if it is not too big - it might just tick all the boxes for him. I was planning a spiel on the Gazelle - you might regret adding to the temptation. In the meantime, thanks to the two Davids for posting on it. [Sorry, mistake - I was thinking of the Denman Marine vessel for which David T provided the link. The Gazelle? I have never seen or sailed anything like that before, so not sure. It is really a small keeler. Maybe suitable for Austrian lakes?]

    David T wrote: 

    Starting from SibLim and scaling down, I could do a 4m x 1.5m water ballasted dinghy with large tanks fore and aft, 0.175m draught at 235kg displacement, a self draining floor above the waterline, an extended foredeck for stowage of gear in drybags, bilgeboards to act as legs, (as the bottom is narrow), built depth of 72 cm max so that I could build in my warm front room and get it out of the front door. Maybe a sealed cuddy for high buoyancy could be added once it's outside? I'd paint it red so that if I couldn't self recover, the lifeboat could find me. H'mm. Winter project??


    Oh! Boy oh boy oh boy! I would like that. Wouldn’t that make an exquisite “junket boat”?

    And with that lay-out, a boom tent, inflatable mattress and sleeping bag converts the boat instantly into a weekend camper-cruiser. Anyone want to buy a half-completed Golden Bay conversion?

    Unable to refrain from being long-winded, here’s a couple more comments. I like the downward sloping fore deck. Marcus is planning to do the same on his Golden Bay – and also to convert the aft thwart/tank into a similarly downward sloping aft deck, draining through high scuppers in the transom. Why? Because then all you need for shelter at night is a simple boom tent, open at each end. Any spray or un-driven rain stays out of the boat, the boom tent can be made in a jiffy – and to empty a cooking pot over the stern, or attend to the anchor over the bow, does not require any unzipping or re-zipping of the tent.

    Less important but worth noting is the choice of colour – dark red – for visibility on the water. My first lesson as a bright-eyed newby commercial fisherman was to impress the old hands with my newly-made longline flags – bright yellow for improved visibility. The lazy ones didn’t bother with flags at all (to the disgust of the seine-boat boys who sometimes scooped up all their gear but did not enjoy picking the hooks out of their seine ropes afterwards) – and the rest, I noticed, seemed to have dull colours, mostly dark red or black. I soon found out why. Despite a commonly-held belief, yellow shows up poorly on the water, at least in our climes, and for longline flags. The so-called “air-sea-rescue-orange” is not much better. Dark red or black does seem to stand out best.




    Last modified: 18 Apr 2021 11:43 | Anonymous member (Administrator)
  • 18 Apr 2021 11:05
    Reply # 10324663 on 10324642
    David D wrote:

    Hi David,

    Your 4M version sounds interesting.  How much do you think it would weigh in dry land?

    The biggest beef I have with my Wayfarer is that it's nearly 250kg ready to sail and hard to get back up a ramp when recovering.

    Dave Wyf


    I'm getting a weight for the basic hull structure around 100kg, with 9mm bottom and 6mm sides, and 9mm cockpit sole. Lots still to be added to that to get an all-up weight, though.
  • 18 Apr 2021 11:02
    Reply # 10324661 on 10309125
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    OK, ok, I’d better leave the subject of making a fool-proof dinghy, as such a thing hardly exists. It strikes me now that the human factor, sensible handling and skills obtained by practice, is the dominating safety factor when sailing dinghies. This was why I sold Frøken Sørensen. I didn’t dare to give the tiller to anyone, unless the winds were very light, and I knew she would turn into a slippery whale if we flipped her. The junk rig certainly was a lucky choice, both for Frøken Sørensen and the 18’ Broremann. That rig  -  and me always keeping the sheet at hand, kept our feet dry.

    Boarding ladders on yachts.
    One thing did I learn by servicing radars around my airport: Climbing vertical, 12-15m tall  ladders is a lot harder than ladders with a 70-80° slope. Our arms are not made for climbing vertical ladders. Therefore, rope ladders hung over the side of a yacht will not help others than young and agile people. Rescuing ladders should therefore be made rigid and supported in such a way that it slopes, even if it looks less elegant.

    Yes, and I’m fine again, thank you, either because of that dram, the Paracet, or by wrapping myself in clothes enough to let me sweat it out  -  or the combination of the measures.
    April is an unstable friend, up here. The sun may smile at you and warm you, but the wind chill is bad and can soon make you regret that you dropped the winter jacket. I must remind myself that it is only April by watching the snow-covered mountains around here...

    Arne

    PS: Btw. why didn't any of you (Graeme and David) mention those Gazelles?

  • 18 Apr 2021 10:34
    Reply # 10324642 on 10309125

    Hi David,

    The Bayraider 17 option is under the "bespoke" heading.


    It is basically a smaller lighter version of the 20.  They used to do a laser cut kit when I looked a few years ago but they seem to be more about the bigger more expensive yachts nowadays.


    Your 4M version sounds interesting.  How much do you think it would weigh in dry land?

    The biggest beef I have with my Wayfarer is that it's nearly 250kg ready to sail and hard to get back up a ramp when recovering.

    Dave Wyf


  • 18 Apr 2021 09:16
    Reply # 10324549 on 10309125

    I agree in general with Graeme's long screed. Probably because we're both coming at this from similar experience of having been dinghy sailors long ago. 

    So Arne is ill, with a low mood. That would explain the grandfatherly mutterings coming from deep in his armchair, speaking of matters of which he has insufficient knowledge. Get well soon Arne, and return to writing good sense on matters familiar to you ;-)

    Self righting in a small dinghy is not something to be looked for, I think. As Graeme said, a boat that self rights and sails away from you is positively dangerous. I certainly want to see the ability to self rescue, in a boat for adventuring and exploring off the beaten track; call it self reliance, or self help, or something similar, if you like. Arne's Jolle dinghy was positively dangerous, if it could not be self recovered by its crew. The SCAMP is positively safe, as it can be. 

    Long ago, as a sailing instructor, I had to do capsize drill halfway through a week-long course. The Enterprises and Wayfarers I used had buoyancy fore and aft, but none at the sides, and so would float deep when on their sides, and not blow away. This is good, and desirable. What was not so good was that they came up full of water and took a lot of bailing out. Buoyancy under the floor would have helped a lot. After the capsize drill, my party trick was to do a 360˚ "eskimo roll" without getting my feet wet - until I had to bail out with a large bucket. So the SCAMP, with a high sealed cuddy forward, having a floor above the waterline and being self draining, is close to ideal, but I'd lose the side tanks.

    Sausage fenders are certainly not going to help recover a SCAMP, which already has too much buoyancy in its sides IMO. It would help the Golden Bay though. I once made some from closed cell pipe insulation inside a canvas cover, Graeme.

    As ever, this sort of topic gets me thinking about what I could hypothetically design and build. Starting from SibLim and scaling down, I could do a 4m x 1.5m water ballasted dinghy with large tanks fore and aft, 0.175m draught at 235kg displacement, a self draining floor above the waterline, an extended foredeck for stowage of gear in drybags, bilgeboards to act as legs, (as the bottom is narrow), built depth of 72 cm max so that I could build in my warm front room and get it out of the front door. Maybe a sealed cuddy for high buoyancy could be added once it's outside? I'd paint it red so that if I couldn't self recover, the lifeboat could find me. H'mm. Winter project??

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    Last modified: 18 Apr 2021 09:29 | Anonymous member
  • 18 Apr 2021 08:14
    Reply # 10324443 on 10321781
    David D wrote:

    There is a company in Wales, Swallow yachts.com that make a 17ft waterballasted "dinghy", self-righteable from 90 degrees with a self draining cockpit and if totally inverted has a buoyancy tank which will slowly fill to bring it back to 90 degrees for righting and then drains into the self draining cockpit. 

    A 17-foot "Baycruiser".  They used to sell a kit, but not plans. Not sure if they still sell the kit.

    Not junk rigged but I'm sure it could be.

    Might be worth a look also as a large family dinghy

    Looking a Swallowyachts.com, I can only see the Bayraider 20, a very much larger boat than the SCAMP, and very much more in need of self righting at that size. Even a strong crew is going to struggle with pulling half a ton of boat upright. The designer has clearly given a lot of thought to the process:

     Surprisingly, perhaps, she is an ideal boat for beginners as, with ballast tanks full, she is stable, forgiving and very hard to capsize (See this Video from Denman Marine our Licensed builder in Australia to see just how hard!) In fact, with the ballast tanks full she will self right from a 90 degree knockdown and thanks to her sealed hollow mast and asymmetric capsize buoyancy, she can easily be recovered from a full inversion. 

  • 17 Apr 2021 23:43
    Reply # 10323615 on 10309125
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Howard: certainly no ill will, I admire Arne for his many clever, well-thought-out and valuable contributions to the junk rig, and have said so many times. I also agree with Arnie more, now that he has clarified that his main concern was over-promotion which could lead someone inexperienced into a dangerous situation.

    However, Arne: I must again reply to your continued language such as the recent “… to prevent the SCAMP from parking on its side…” and "misbehaving" which, to me, is simply misleading, and not useful.

    I think the really interesting thing is that, as we all come from different parts of the world, with different coastlines and different ideas about sailing – we really are living in completely different worlds – and to mix metaphors a little – we must all join with David T and Arne who have agreed that dinghy design is “horses for courses”.  But we need to be careful when evaluating someone else’s horse, especially if we have never tried to ride on it, and Arne, who has a considerable following, continues to be careless here.

    All dinghies can capsize. Both David D. and Mauro have stated that there is such a thing as a self-righting sailing dinghy (though I have yet to see drawings and stability curves) so I will concede for the moment that such a thing may be possible. However, since it is not all that difficult to right a capsized dinghy of decent design – and given that in any case the “family of four” are going to find themselves in the water in the event of a capsize, it is almost (not quite) academic whether the dinghy can right itself (leaving the sailer to swim after it, as in the case of the La Gazelle video)* – or whether the sailer rights it. In any case, there are people in the water. It is in the capsize, not the mode of righting, that danger may lie.

    For a dinghy to be “safe” for inexperienced sailers, it should be stiff when moderately heeled, and not easy to capsize, and if it does capsize it should be possible for it to be brought upright again, bailed out if necessary, to be boarded and sailed away.

    Though the ultimate in safety is to be (like the SCAMP or the P-Class) fully decked and so buoyant that it floats high and can be righted with little or no water to be bailed out, this would generally interfere with other functions of a general-purpose dinghy and is not a requirement, in my opinion. To me, the more important requirement of a "safe" sailing dinghy is that capsize should be less likely, and  the situation of a capsize should be recoverable.

    Arne’s nonsensical description of “parking on its side” presumably refers to that point in the (static) stability curve where the dinghy loses its ability to self-right without assistance, and tends to remain with the mast (and the crew) in the water. In practical reality this simply means “capsize”, and any dinghy can capsize.

    I would also expect (tell me if I am wrong) that a fully buoyant dinghy which floats high on its beam and can be righted with the cockpit almost dry, will not tend to be self-righting as its stable position after a capsize will be somewhat more than 90 degrees. This could also be the effect of Arne’s “generous fender sausage”, which may reduce the risk of capsize but could quite possibly also add to the stability of the dinghy in its capsized position, and mitigate against the (in my opinion worthless and generally non-existent) characteristic of “self-righting”. (The efficacy or otherwise of a fender sausage, in relation to righting a dinghy once it is capsized, will depend on the distribution of the other built-in buoyancy, if there is any). 

    [Addition for Arne: A fully-buoyant capsized dinghy can rotate to fully upside-down and in the non-static situation, if this began to happen, the fender sausage would aid this "misbehaviour".  The mast itself should best be buoyant. I wouldn't go as far as those masthead floats you used to see sometimes, on catamarans. Welsford specifies a watertight masthead plug for aluminium tube.  I would add to that, for yard and battens also. ]

    *Incidentally, I have also been rescued from the situation of being in the water alongside a righted dinghy and had it sail away from me. (I can’t swim very well, and had my first experience of using a life-jacket in a real-life situation – not quite how I imagined that to be, either). So, I am not sure if “self-righting”, even it if were possible, would necessarily much reduce the danger from a capsize.

    I can only say that in a cold climate, out of reach of shore, and with a “family of four”, everything should be done to avoid a capsize, including the choice of a wholesome type of dinghy. The SCAMP belongs to that class of dinghies which could be described as wholesome and “safe” – particularly safe, I would say.

    To suggest that a dinghy is “safe” because it can self-right – or worse still, to suggest that a dinghy is ONLY safe if it is self-righting is almost as dangerously misleading as to suggest that the SCAMP is suitable for sailing around Cape Horn.

    To add a sausage fender (and lead ballast!) to a SCAMP would indeed be to add “a large dram of turbocharged potatoes (Lysholm Linie-Aquavit) to cure a possible cold” – or, as the Chinese more simply say "adding feet to a snake". Though I guess there is no harm in a little aquavit from time to time - or adding a sausage to a SCAMP -  other than to further degrade its looks, from a Dutch clog to a fur-lined boot.


    (Here in New Zealand we call them "Ug Boots").

    PS For a dinghy like my Welsford Golden Bay, which is narrow in the beam, a little over-canvassed and with not much built-in buoyancy - not really in the category of "safe" as a sail boat - I think the "sausage fender" is a great idea. My old mentor Brian Donovan used to suggest a length of fire hose stuffed with kapok. I guess (and hope) there are better materials to hand these days - and would be grateful for further suggestions. I'll bet Arne could come up with a clever way of making one.


    PPS Jim: -yes the idea of an emergency boarding stirrup is a good one, though even that is more difficult to deploy, from the water, than it might seem.   With a life jacket on, I am unable to haul myself up over the transom, from the water and into a dinghy (perhaps turbocharged with adrenalin I might be able to do it?). Even the usual little folding-down boarding ladder is surprisingly difficult for a waterlogged person to negotiate from the water - those who haven't tried it should do so. (The folding part swings under the boat with your feet and mounting it just ain't as easy as you might think, especially if you carry a little bit of surplus weight.)

    Capsizing is a laughing matter here during our warm summers - or used to be, for kids anyway, in the days when the weekend harbour was a mass of tiny sails. But it probably should not be. There is a school of thought which says kids should not be taught to capsize - they should be taught NOT to capsize. Perhaps this explains the disappearance of the once ubiquitous P class and its replacement by the more docile Optimist. Anyway, for family sailing I am right with Arne - best not to capsize. And think very carefully about about a "plan B" BEFORE you accidentally do. It might not just be your cell phone at risk.


    ***


    Sigh! I might as well waste the rest of the morning, seeing as we are on the subject of water safety, and anyway, its raining down here in the mangroves. In relation to boarding a boat from the water. Some years ago we had a tragedy here that all could learn from. It was during a party one night, on board a yacht tied up at a marina. A somewhat heavy man fell overboard and could not get back up. Yachts have pretty high freeboard these days. His companions were unable to pull him back on board, and did not know what to do. It was late at night. The man (well-loved and with a family) slowly died of exposure. As many of our members will know, the solution should not have been difficult. In the same way the old scowmen dragged kauri logs out of the water and onto the decks of their scows, the solution was "parbuckling" - that is, a rope, or ropes, or a sail, made fast to the deck then under the person's body and back up to the deck where it can be hauled or winched if necessary, rolling the horizontal body up the side and onto the deck. The old scowmen used to remove the bulwarks for log scows - I don't know how lifelines can be negotiated but perhaps they can be quickly removed, or maybe in the above case there were none. Anyway, although it has no relation to dinghies, it does apply to larger boats, and wharves and marinas, and is a simple (but perhaps non-intuitive) action that can be kept in the back of one's mind.

    Last modified: 18 Apr 2021 04:35 | Anonymous member (Administrator)
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