Powering Large Boats - From Scratch

[GordMay]

GSA Auctions®, General Services Administration, Government Site for Auctions

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by markpj23

Hey Sean - isn't this your boat? It's also on the GSA website.

PG-227 PERSONNEL CARRIER BOAT

Yes... that's where I found them.

[LtBrett]

Sean,

I suspect the repower, no matter how you do it, will blow your budget. The cheapest solution I can think of to give her her own power is to weld on a bracket for an outboard. You need a tender anyway, so perhaps the towing arrangement is best. Forget about electric power. A 100HP motor needs about an 80KW generator plus a big ass motor controller. Very expensive. You have a major problem with transporting the hull any great distance, so perhaps the location of this hull is a showstopper as well. If you win the auction, you need to transport the hull rather soon. Do you expect to sell your boat in the next week?

Brett

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by LtBrett

Sean,

I suspect the repower, no matter how you do it, will blow your budget. The cheapest solution I can think of to give her her own power is to weld on a bracket for an outboard. You need a tender anyway, so perhaps the towing arrangement is best. Forget about electric power. A 100HP motor needs about an 80KW generator plus a big ass motor controller. Very expensive. You have a major problem with transporting the hull any great distance, so perhaps the location of this hull is a showstopper as well. If you win the auction, you need to transport the hull rather soon. Do you expect to sell your boat in the next week?

Brett

I'm with you, Lt Brett. That's why I was asking about repowering in this thread - to make that call. Now that I have got a lot of information on the topic, I see that clearly, it will blow the budget (including transport, etc...).

This boat is close... but not quite right due to timing, repower cost and distance (for inspection). We will continue to search for old commercial vessels to refit.

Never the less, this was a very productive thread (IMO) regarding powering larger commercial vessels. Next time one comes along, I can look at it through a more enlightened eye.

Thanks for the analysis. Unfortunately for that boat (it's going to scrap), you are correct.

[hellosailor]

Sean-
"STEAM...You need TONS of coal to go a pretty short distance." Nah, as JohnL points out they come diesel fired. And if you look into triple-expansion steam engines--way less fuel, way more efficient, no matter what you feed them. It's the simple cheap single-expansion steam engines that eat gobs of fuel.
Of course, steam is also how the USN got shut in at Pearl Harbor...it takes time to build a head of steam.

[Alan Wheeler]

I think all the wrong questions are being asked and answered Sean. What to power this thing with is not the right question, although it is the centre of the question. First of all, we need some more info. Yes I realise you are looking at it as your home. But the real question is what are your future intentions with it going to be. Are you just staying in one Marina and using engine power to say, go from Mooring to shore, or from one Birth to another type motivation? or are you looking at traveling longer coastal distances?? Either will require a very big difference in engine power. As Pat mentioned, you maybe able to move it around with a couple of outboards. But distances are greatly limited with that low power. Then another question, what sort of weight are you figuring on fully fitted out. She maybe 40T now, but she is a bare shell. Finished, she maybe 50T. For properly powering a vessels this size, you want to figure on 3.5Hp/T as minimum and preferably 5Hp/T. I would imagine in her day she possibly had a ratio of more like 7-10Hp/T for cargo needs.
Forget Diesel Electric. Very inefficient. Every time you convert engergy, you have a loss.

Personly, I think you have something that is going to soak up a tremendouse amount of money and have no reasale value nor ability. But I am not in your market area, so maybe this sort of thing done up does have a reasle value in your country. I will leave that up to you.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

I think all the wrong questions are being asked and answered Sean. What to power this thing with is not the right question, although it is the centre of the question. First of all, we need some more info. Yes I realise you are looking at it as your home. But the real question is what are your future intentions with it going to be. Are you just staying in one Marina and using engine power to say, go from Mooring to shore, or from one Birth to another type motivation? or are you looking at traveling longer coastal distances?? Either will require a very big difference in engine power. As Pat mentioned, you maybe able to move it around with a couple of outboards. But distances are greatly limited with that low power. Then another question, what sort of weight are you figuring on fully fitted out. She maybe 40T now, but she is a bare shell. Finished, she maybe 50T. For properly powering a vessels this size, you want to figure on 3.5Hp/T as minimum and preferably 5Hp/T. I would imagine in her day she possibly had a ratio of more like 7-10Hp/T for cargo needs.
Forget Diesel Electric. Very inefficient. Every time you convert engergy, you have a loss.

Personly, I think you have something that is going to soak up a tremendouse amount of money and have no reasale value nor ability. But I am not in your market area, so maybe this sort of thing done up does have a reasle value in your country. I will leave that up to you.

The resale value will be zero on anything I am looking at. This type of boat and systems (when I find the right one) will soak up $30K or so. No resale - it will go to scrap when we are done living and working from it. If we never make enough money to cruise, we'll live on this type of vessel until we can't physically do it anymore. We will take any systems we can with us if still operational and can fit into a cruising boat (assuming we can ever cruise, which we aren't leaning much toward).

Our intention is a disposable home. Usage is as follows:

Anchored: Either 11 or 6 mos of the year
Docked: Either 0 or 5 mos of the year
Traveling: MAYBE a month off each year to putter the coast. No "cruising"

We are looking for tonnage. Why? Tonnage = stability at anchor.

But again, and very respectfully to someone I trust, it's not a "which boat" thread. Yet I sit here defending my decision yet again... when will I learn. LOG OFF.

[hellosailor]

A resale value of zero. Hmmm...

Versus a trailer or RV losing pretty much only a year's rent? And not needing all that pesky boat work?

Then again, you realize you can't just walk away from the boat when you are done with it. If you don't sell it, you'll have to pay someone to scrap it. You know how the authorities are about abandoned hulks, and presenting the removal bills for them.

It just seems, well, like you've been bewitched.

[Capct]

as fast as you can....would be my first thought....no offense but ummmm.It looks like a freakin nightmare.... however brett IMHO had the best soultion if you have to power the old scow ...get an outboard.

[Alan Wheeler]

Well actually I think I know where Sean is coming from. I watched a TV programe of a couple doing up a large River barge in England. I wasn't really sure if it was mobile. The thing sat tied up and dried out at low tide. But the thing was huge. Once they did it up, it was something spectacular. I would have given my back teeth to live on the thing. And it didn't cost much to do it. They used old recycled timbers.

Sean, with that info of what you are wanting to do, I think Pat is spot on the money. Get two second hand outboard motors. As large as you can afford to buy. I suspect 40hp each would be about minimum. Two 100's would be great, but I think they may blow budgets.
Twin allows you to have better manouvering of something so big and something that can get pushed around by wind easly. Then also, with two, if you have a breakdown, you still have something to get you somewhere out of trouble. They would be easy to rig to the back and easy to set up stearing. Hydraulic would be the cheapest and easiest stearing for such a big boat.

[EngNate]

Ever looked into Gardner engines? A really neat machine, I think, the pinnacle of low-tech refined to the highest degree. Practically take the whole thing apart and reassemble with screwdrivers and crescent wrenches; cruise at 900 rpm or so, de-compress any cylinder and shut its fuel off, emergency start with a hand-crank, and they run darn near forever.

[never monday]

I don't think a new Gardner would pass emmissions to be imported into the US.

[tybee]

Boats & Harbors - The Commercial Marine Marketplace

try this link for large work boats... all is possible with enough time ,vision , and it helps to have some $$$$. I think you're on the right track ,just looking at the wrong starting point .... for example in california right now people are building new homes from old shipping containers... best of luck in your project

[Charlie]

Sean:


While following this trread I came up with some othr ideas and thought that I'd share them with you. Remember the show "Highlander" the protagonist in that show lived on a barge without a motor and was tied up to different wharves around the world I remeber Paris is one show.

Then I thought of Forbes Island and found this link.
Houseboats


This floating estate was spotted on Long Island Sound last summer.

Richie Sowa's Spiral Island.
Richie Sowa is a British carpenter who dreamed of living on his own private island. So he spent 4 years building one out of 250,000 plastic bottles. Spiral Island, which measures 66ft by 54ft, weighs 60 tons and has three sandy beaches. The mangrove-covered paradise is anchored off the coast of Mexico near Cancun.

Forbes Kiddoo's Island aka Forbes' Island.
Forbes Kiddoo built this originally as his floating home. He had it anchored in Richardson Bay. However the residents of the newly built Strawberry Point homes objected to it since it marred their veiw of San Francisco. If you have been in the Bay Area long enough you will remember that Richardson Bay was once filled with 2 large barges and several derilict boats that the "Sea" people lived on. These were all demolished by the Army Corps of Engineers due to the complaints from the "Strawberry" folks.

Forbes moved his island up to the delta and then to San Francisco where he turned it into a restaurant.

It's not a bad place for food, plus you can watch fish swim by the underwater portholes. The restaurant is located at Pier 39 in San Francisco. If your lucky Forbes will greet you at the dock and take you out to the island on his launch.
Inspired by Live Sail Die and Strange Watercraft.
Tags: Forbes Island, Houseboat, Houseboats, Unusual homes, Richie Sowa, Spiral Island






Since you like out of the box solutions I thought I'd mention these even thought they have nothing to do with your question. Have you thought about just buying a big barge and then converting that itno a house. That way if you need to you can just hire a tug to tow you whereever you want to go?

[Alan Wheeler]

Nate, sadly the Gardner has stopped being made. And only very recently as well. These are a very popular commercial boat engine here in NZ. They run like the energizer Bunny. They just keep going and going. They orginaly were made for the London Taxi and Bus fleet.