Hampus Mattsson wrote: Hey Annie.
I'm quite busy myself so don't worry about taking your time. Yeah, you would have to reach back to pull the rudder up. Depending on what system you use to connect your trim tab to your airvane it could be modified to work. I have experience both with the trim tab type of windvanes and servo pendulum types and I find the servo pendulum to be superior. In all fairness though, I have used them on very different boats so the comparison might be flawed. The trim tab version was on a 15 ton 12 meter ketch and the servo pendulum was used on a 6 ton 9 meter Scandinavian double ender. A rudder that folds up would be OK as well. Preferrably with a locking pin that brakes if you hit a log or whatever else.
I find the idea of having to lean over the stern to pull up the rudder just as I'm about to come into anchor a bit of a worry. I sail single-handed of course and would like to keep everything as foolproof as possible. I would prefer a trim-tab type of self-steering: they are less vulnerable and don't get tangled up with the dinghy anywhere nears as much as a servo pendulum type.
Using the leeboards as legs would require a locking mechanism which wouldn't be too difficult to accomplish. If you dry out on very soft bottoms they would sink in though as they are vertical. I've actually seen fin keeled boats sit absolutely straight with their entire keels sunk down into the mud in Holland and Germany, enough to make you wonder if they'll float free when the tide comes back in.
Some of the Northland mud is exceedingly soft and I would certainly have to plan my trips to and from shore accordingly. However, quite a lot of it isn't and I want to dry out essentially upright. The plan is to dry out very often, not just on the odd occasion: places like Great Barrier Island have numerous very deep anchorages and more than a few bays that are silted up at the head. The latter would provide splendid protection, but just about dry out even on neap tides.
On the other hand while being more effective as supports and also hydro dynamically, canting leeboards would be quite vulnerable unless heavily built as they could be subjected to significant shear stress if you were unlucky enough to settle on or float free from the bottom with a swell coming on. One option would be to make the bottom very flat. The downsides would be that the you would have more slamming while beating into a chop and also added whetted surface which is undesirable. The worst downside would be that we'd have to loose the skeg which would indeed reduce the whetted surface but you'd also loose the protection it provides for the rudder which, in my humble (or perhaps not so humble) opinion, would render the boat unsafe for anything but close coastal cruising in sheltered waters.
I entirely agree with you about protecting the rudder.
Another option would be to add small bilge keels so that the boat would rest on the keel and the bilge keels. This would also increase the whetted surface but it could to some degree be compensated using a smaller skeg. They would also produce some turbulence which will create drag.
Bilge keels would also increase the draught, which I would like to keep at about 2 ft - 600 mm
The construction is light in a sense that when measuring strength/weight it will actually rival steel in some aspects. It is by no means weak. If you plan on hitting a lot of hard objects though steel would be the way to go as while most other materials found in boats would crack, steel will just buckle, and with a decently sized sledge hammer you'll be able to unbuckle it :)
OK, I'm quite happy if you mean 'light' as in 'carefully engineered'. Nothing on earth would induce me to live on another steel boat, let alone build one!
The outboard would go on a mounting bracket offset to either side of the rudder.
No, sorry. My view is that I'm going for the simplicity of an outboard over an inboard, with all its ancillaries, but I don't want one sitting off the stern. It would be exposed not only to the elements but to the more light-fingered elements of the population. And I want the prop to stay in the water if I'm motoring in a wind-against-tide situation.
Using a well for the outboard would take away the big advantage not having an engine using up a lot of space that could otherwise be used for storing... beer? or Beans perhaps?
I'll manage to find room for both - I brew my own beer!
There would be plenty of space on deck for both dinghy and solar panel. No bridge deck but a threshold to keep the water out. I put a new picture with some measurements here. With an arrangement like this there would be, literally, tons of storage in the cockpit so shortening the berths would not be necessary.
I used a standard toilets as I was lazy and reused something from my library of previously modeled items. I hear you on the composting toilet though. Standing headroom at the galley would be just shy of 1.7 meters. I was thinking of a chart table folding down onto the sink counter from the aft bulkhead.
I don't think that the chart table idea would work for me, because I do tend to use my galley under way. But one of the advantages of a small boat is that the saloon table isn't that much further forward than where a chart table would be!
Yes, the cockpit should be shrunk in favor of galley space. This will however require a redesign as the appearance of the boat would be altered quite a bit and I'g have to come up with something different. I'm happy to do that though.
Now a few questions:
- What would you like the entry arrangements to be like? They don't affect too many other parameters so you are quite free in choosing as long as you don't want the vault door from Fort Knox.
I want an arrangement very similar to that which I have presently on Fantail. I love this arrangement and for me, can't see any way of improving on it. Some photos of this can be seen in my photo albums here.
- Did I get it correctly that you don't need the bunks to be longer than 1.8 meters? while this is fine it would severely reduce the number of potential buyers should you ever want to sell the boat.