Pilothouse or not?

[tdw]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Here is a listing for a pilot house designed by Ted Brewer and built by Kanter. Getting quite old now for a steel boat but has a layout as tdw described. Day bunk in pilothouse, U shaped galley and salon below. The only problem I see with the layout is (as it appears from the photos) that only the helmsman can see out the windows while seated. Of course that could be easily rectified by putting in another chair.

Hmmm, maybe I really do want a Trawler...

Deep

Deep, you forgot to add the link.

Andrew

[DeepFrz]

Ooops...

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1330526/0

[tdw]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Ooops...

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1330526/0

Yes that is nice, very nice indeed.

[rsn48]

Living in the Pacific North West and Coastal BC area monsoon area, a pilot house looks pretty good and would seriously extend the sailing season. I have "pilot house envy!"

[Talbot]

Having had a boat with a solid roof for the last 19 years, I would not consider a boat that did not protect me from the elements. Standing at the wheel in the wind and rain and salt spray is for idiots.

[tdw]

Originally Posted by Talbot

Having had a boat with a solid roof for the last 19 years, I would not consider a boat that did not protect me from the elements. Standing at the wheel in the wind and rain and salt spray is for idiots.

Oi !! Who you callin' an idjit ? Bloody imperialists !!

Just kidding, but down here in the land of Oz, wind and rain and salt spray are not quite the issue as they might be in the North Sea. We do a nice line in drought however.

In a perfect world I'd choose dual steering positions but I must admit that if it's a choice twixt out or in then I'm afraid out would still be my preference.

[mike d.]

tnflakbait as DeepFrz said oh ya the boat is too!!!~! HA, HA!! no it really does go well proportionally with the hull design.

[CSY Man]

[QUOTE][I mean, with a bimini (or enclosure with panels removed) you would get a nice breeze on you all day long while staying out of the sun. With a pilothouse, it's either sweat in there, or run a genset and air conditioning/QUOTE]

Yeah, agree 100%.

That being said, I have wished for a pilot house a few times here in Florida:

My CSY 33 have a large bimini that protects from strong sun from any angle..But not from strong wind or strong rain.

Incidentally, the CSY 33 is advertized in some "Brokers Guide" as having a pilot house option with an inside steering station...Not so: The 33s have a raised house as part of the saloon and they may look like a pilot house, but there was never such an animal made from the factory.

With my new autopilot and the remote control, I have plans to duck in there and look out the front windows when the bad squalls hit with rain going horizontally.
All I need to do is to remove the dink from the foredeck and install a remote compass as well as putting a "clear" window up front instead of the tinted "smoke" plexiglas in place right now.
(For night vision)

Have sailed to the Bahamas and back on a CSY 44 PH, a proper pilot house vessel, and made so from the CSY factory.
What a sweet deal that is: If the raindrops starts to fall, jump inside and mount the "captains chair' at the nav station, with the steering and engine controls and request a fresh drink from the nearby galley.
Not a hair on yer head is being curled from rain or wind and the AC is working fine down there.....

My previous boat had no such thing, nor my present one.
Perhaps it kept me from sailing in weather I should have stayed away from.
Too easy to sit in there pushing GPS buttons and fiddling with radar screens without sensing what is really going on with the seas and the sails...?

Standing at the wheel in the wind and rain and salt spray is for idiots.

Real men stay in touch with the elements....

[tdw]

On the subject of pilot houses, has anyone had any experience with a thing called a Spindrift 43 ? The only info I've read on them said that some of them were renowned for deck leaks (bloody teak decks, sheesh !) but I'd like some more info if anyone has any to offer.

Regards

Andrew

I assume most of you haven't heard of a Schucker since I don't see anyone talking about them. It also seems that most of you may be referring to more of a doghouse rather then a pilothouse. Some manufacturers simply do slap a box on top of the boat and call it a pilothouse. They look a little awkward, but serve their purpose well. In fact, many folks today are adding some type of hard dodger or pilothouse to their boat, trying to get the dry weather advantage we have.
As far as a Schucker goes, it is a very good cross between a trawler and a sailboat. Most of them were 40 footers. Ours is one of four 50 footers. It has a huge aft cabin and a schooner rig, which none of the others have. We have lots of windage and it is a pain, especially when doing slow maneuvers such as docking. A friend once told me that our boat goes as well sideways as it does forward.
Our boat has both inside and outside steering. Something the 40 footers don't have. I use the outside steering mainly for docking, anchoring and going through bridges. One of the posts said that a pilothouse boat is mainly for use in colder climes. This couldn't be further from the truth. We live in Florida. Sitting in our pilothouse/main saloon/living room, we simply open all the windows and cruise right along. On days where it's a bit too blustery outside, we close the windward doors and windows and leave the leeward side open. We get a big kick out of people going by us wrapped up in their foulies while we're comfortably dry in our shorts and t-shirts.
As far as windows taking a wave, we had no problems. We took one hell of a pounding, this time last year, as we traveled through the Tongue of the Ocean on our way to Nassau. This wasn't the only experience we had with waves pounding our windows. And our windows are a lot higher than most sailboats.
I realize that a Schucker isn't a high performance sailing machine. And we do motor or motorsail 99% of the time. Just like everyone else we met during our 2 years of full time cruising. But we were a heck of a lot more comfortable then any of them. So the offset in performance and sailing ability was well worth it to us.

[tdw]

Just an addition to my post ref Spindrift 43 Pilot House. I've since found out that this boat was also manufactured under the name of Young Sun 43 Pilot House.

Andrew

[Charlie]

Hello All:

I have a raised Saloon Pilothouse and think it is wonderful. I also have a dodger and a bimini. The boat I have is a Sceptre 41. It was a semi custom boat produced in Vancouver BC. There are two steering stations. One outside and the other on the portside down below. I'll look to see if I have any pictures but I must say that I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I have found that I can't steer as well if I'm wearing something over my ears (strange) but having done the Baja Bash twice I thought that it would be great to sit below and steer up the coast in a nice warm cabin. The nice thing about the Sceptre is that it really doesn't look like a shoe box on top of a boat. Here is a link to a frontview of a boat that is similar to mine. Notice the glass windows on the front of the cabin top LOVE OF LYDIA. We ended up spending more than we had originally planned b/c of the pilothouse.

[Quijote]

Hello all,
I got a Sceptre 41 because of the cold and wet issues that I had experienced along the California coast. Now that we are in tropical Mexico, I find that getting out of the sun is just as important. As far as it being too hot down below, that's what hatches are for. We have a nice opening hatch on the face of the pilothouse that provides a great stream of cool air.
I've never before found a boat where I like to be down below under way until this one. Now, you can't get me out of it...rain or shine.
Regards,
Richard

[Brent Swain]

As all the boats I build are steel, structural strength is a non issue. The buoyancy in a pilothouse is the equivalent to adding thousands of pounds of ballast to the keel when it comes to ultimate stability, a major improvement in safety,when the boat is capsized. I keep my windows small and cover them with half inch plexi.
It is much cooler below in hot weather than in the cockpit , even with the canopy up. I have a large forehatch, an opening port in the centre of the pilothouse, and another hatch over the steering seat. The boat is well insulated with 1 1/2 inches of spray foam. Painting the decks white was like adding air conditioning on my last trip home from Tonga.
Giving interior styling priority over safety and comfort underway is houseboat thinking, a sure sign that one is spending too much time in port.It's also bad seamanship.
Brent

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by tdw

Oi !! Who you callin' an idjit ? Bloody imperialists !!

Just kidding, but down here in the land of Oz, wind and rain and salt spray are not quite the issue as they might be in the North Sea. We do a nice line in drought however.

I remember sailing down in Oz (Whitsundays) for a couple of days, it was hard for me mentally to get my head around that the main "danger" of being in a F5 / F6 was.......sunburn (rather than Hypothermia!) - from sitting out in T-shirts and shorts!

Different world