Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[Jmolan]

Mark you are doing great !!! Whoa nice shots! Better get those on the Searunner pages...:-) Well you pretty much called it on the 37' with the plugged board. It was plugged because he could not figure out how to stop in from leaking. Then he proceeded to try to install dagger boards in the floats, they broke off, and he ended up with heavy floats and a frame right under the hatch....just ugly.
When I am looking at a boat, i always remind myself "If this is the 10% I can see, what about the 90% I cannot see"
If they did a nice clean job of the lockers on the inside, you can bet it will be that way in those dark deep places you cannot see.

[Mark Johnson]

I was waiting to make another post untill I got more photos into my computer, and now have that hurdle covered. My entry was to be about our centerboard history, but I realized that for future posts to make any sense, they needed to be in context. How did "Delphys" come to be. AKA, "How NOT to build a boat". (The complete version of this story is for another place, another time) I have said before that MAJOR renovations are vastly more work, than from scratch. Well, this has been born out for me, through both ways of building boats, as well as houses.
The photos below are my previous cruising boat projects. The Wharram cat "Namaste", I started 35 years ago & launched it 3 years later. Then, 7 months after that, it was run over & wrecked in Key West! (I was on shore) I took an almost total loss, returned to my boatyard / barn outbuilding home base, in central SC, to start another project. Then my father was murdered, I needed to get away, to my head right, So I built a live in / work out of, "hippie van", moved back down to Key West, and more or less, lived out of boatyards making money for my next boat. Years later I started the Seacliper 28, which was admittedly built TOO perfect for the real World. This took 8 years & a small fortune. The art of it all, was more important to me than the cruising, at the time. When I got it SO finished that I had to do it, I sailed "Mana Loa" BACK to my old haunts in Key West. This was a FAST boat. Twice, I just hit 20 knts! After a couple of years of cruising & hanging out, (I took over 80 people out on day sails), I met my now wife Mariam, (@34 years old) And we sailed away together. After some months in the Bahamas, we realized that my little rocket, with 4'6" head room, just wasn't going to cut it for a liveaboard for two! We went back to central SC, got married, built a house, (ourselves), and SADLY... put the boat on the market.
After a year of serious effort at selling the boat, and only asking $20,000, which was a small fraction of my investment, I realized what a white elephant I had built & it might just not sell. I then heard of a Searunner 34 bare hull, floating in a marina in Charlston, that was mostly deralict. I asked the owner / builder if he would consider an even trade... which he would. I REALLY loved this design, and had had NO luck at talking Mariam into another boat project from scratch, but this "Finish it" idea, she might go for. This project had been started in 1980 by a guy & girlfriend, with help from friends of vastly varying building skills. Five years later it was given up as a real boat, launched as a "condo at the beach", and with hatches & even the rudder boot left off, left to weather, partially full of water. It even suffered through hurricane Hugo here, where the ama was holed & later patched.
I showed up to survey this boat with stars in my eyes & wearing rose colored glasses. I thought I couldn't sell my other boat, saw this as a way out, and REALLY loved the design. It was very windy & right at freezing. It had been really cold for weeks, and the water was not much above freezing. I dove on the boat with my conventional wet suite, damn near went hypothermic, and in "0" vis, came up & said: "looks OK to me". It was all insanity, what can I say. We made the deal, and hired a guy to tow it 75 miles up a series of rivers, locks canals & lakes... to where we started the 75 more miles by road, with an escort service, to my place in the country. I was assured by the DOT, that a return trip like this, would not be allowed, as the driver had STUPIDLY called her a bitch. This was the stressfull way we started the 5 years that the boat was there.
I realized what a screw up this was in incriments. The glass job was all no good. It was not top coated with resin, but rather the weave of the clouth was filled with one part paint. This failed, peeled, and the remaining glass was UV damaged. If this weren't bad enough, the 1/4" glass on the chine interrior, was only 1/16" worth! I would have to put glass reinforcement on the outside, which would then have to be faired out. This after re doing EVERY chine, corner, and radius, as they were way too sharp. The interrior had similar failings!
After a month of expensive Hydrosanding the hull down to the base, I had a surface that was perfect for bonding to, but surfaced like a Moon scape. Then I built our temporary structure over it to dry out. This cover lasted the 5 years it was there, with two covers added over the years. Now, at about 6 weeks into the project I realized that this was a HUGE screw up, and WAY WAY more work than starting from scratch. The thing was, we couldn't even GIVE it away where it was. I contemplated burning it where it sat, which would be a loss of all of our $10,000 invested so far, in the haul, sanding, & covering structure... AS WELL as my traded 8 year "work of art" boat. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So we determined to strip, fair, glass, reinforce, dig out, and make whole, this hull... inside & out! Mariam kept the money coming in with her part time job as a lab tech, and worked with me the rest of the time. Between us, we worked about 110 hours / week, for all but a few days per year, for five years. Counting the summer my young neaphew sanded down the ama interrior, we had about 28,000 hours in the project, before launching it as a mostly hull / deck kit with an egine, but with no systems, accoutrements, or rig. (36,000 cumulative hours to the first sail) Now, 14 years from starting the project, we have just over 50,000 hours in the boat! It is more of a "silk purse from a sows ear", than one can immagine.
No regrets though! Now that we have lived on the boat as long as we have, and visited as many places as we have, it is all just part of life's steep learning curve. Now it is in context. So, if I talk about glassing overhead, or things you can't reach, or the inside of an already built CB trunk, or the inside of a cockpit seat cooler by using mirriors, etc. It is an embarassing case of "been there, done that".
In another entry, I will get into the Center Board issues.

[Mark Johnson]

More depressing photos...

[Mark Johnson]

John Marples helped with the glass schedule. On all of the hull chines, I used 3, 4, &5" heavy unwoven biaxial. (faired in with microlight) All of the other radiuses, after being made larger, got three succesively smaller layers of woven fabric, that was cut on the BIAS. This makes glass tapes that are very flexable, and all of the fibers go across the joint!

[Mark Johnson]

Time flys whem you're having fun! The Dodger frame was only 30#s before it's plastic was added, yet both of us can stand on it! Both it, and our light weight dinghy, made of Kledgacell, were each well over 1,000 hours... but they sat in a corner for years, to be filler jobs occupying any downtime.

[Mark Johnson]

The inordinate time in repairs was due to the fact that the hulls are to be glassed on there sides, and all lockers, cubys, CB trunk, and as much as possible are to be glassed out flat on a table, then constructed. The amas are to be epoxied before being built into a hull, not after, etc. Glassing in the vent hole, & the wing, overhead, was a TRIP! Note the holding tank from the hull itself. (30 gal)
Mark

[Jmolan]

Mark....you are killing me man!.....All those hours! I have never heard of a project that took so many hours. Holy guacamole!
Great posts, and thanks for taking the time to post them. (time!!!) man o man. I always wanted to build a boat, I even bought the plans for a CC 26 years ago and put the money down for a mold that was available. Just never happened.
I have a new respect for the labor that these boats take. I was whining about sanding the bottom for 10 days last year to get 7 coats of paint off. Never again
1000 hours for a skiff? I have plans to build on this fall. I was thinking a few weeks. It is designed for 6mm Ply but I may go with a foam like you did. I would like to get it as light as I can. The designer said with Okume Ply and Cedar lumber his came in at 58lbs.

Devlin Designing Boat Builders

Anyhow thanks again, no one....I mean NO ONE can complain about boat building hours until they talk with you....

[Jmolan]

Did you go with a dagger board? It looks like it in the one shot.

[pwratch]

Mark,

You are certifiable! And I mean that in the deeply respectful but unbelieving sense that I use when I see things like bungee-jumpers or jaywalkers in L.A. I was hell-bent on building a boat myself but my wife, in all her wisdom, made me promise to look for two years before starting the project. I swear, two weeks before the drop-dead date, we found the boat (a 41ft Marples CC design). I have since sobered up as to the scale of these projects and will be forever grateful for the intervention. But you are awe-inspiring!

[Mark Johnson]

Well guys, I must say that it is with great humility that I make these admissions, and I do so only to try to help guys that see an old project & think, "all I gotta do is"... These hours are estimates, but on the low side! They do however include My hours, & Mariam's, & the summer my nephue healped, & the 1 year long total refit and paint, & the hundreds of hours making the awning, vacuum panel refrigeration, solar panels, watermaker, and the entire 5 months spent in Trinidad... coming up with a way to have a windlass, (or loose my marrage!)
Searunners were the best of their era, in my opinion, and except for the space of the 40er, the 34 had the most refinements and best proportions. First off, what they say about a hull & deck being 1/3rd of the completed boat is true. of THAT 1/3rd of our project, if I had done the thing from scratch like previously, built, radiused, & epoxied "x" number of linier feet of stringer material, built & coated the frames, coated / sanded, recoated & re sanded the ENTIRE stack of plywood, and gone at like an assembly line, it would've been a fraction of the hours. (maybe 2 years for the structure?) Better yet, starting from scratch & building a faster easier boat design, like the Seaclipper, or the CC series. My Seaclipper took so long because I chose to. (ego trip, dragging my feet, waiting on a first mate... I don't know?) All of the above! Anyway they can be really knocked out. Also, CC boats go really fast by comparison. Don & Tamar Clark's 54' CC "Carissa", was a drop dead gorgeous work of art. It was way less hours than our project! We just got into something that was like doing time. Like the centerboard trunk. If you glass the two sides & ends out on a table, sand & do top coats etc, then glue it up & fillet the joints... you're talking a week. We had a trunk with partial glass, and the weave not filled with epoxy, but 5 years of accumulated slime instead. It was not completely glassed, pourous, and had to be done over. Mariam sanded with this "butter churn" spring loaded sanding block, for over 100 hours, JUST to get a flat sanded surface to re glass. Then it was unbelievably difficult to hang fabric in there while the other wet it out. Then the top coats & filling bubbles etc, I used a mirror at a 45 degree angle on the end of a stick. It had flourescent lights on both sides, and if I looked through opra glasses, I just could see these pits enough to coat them with my free hand using an artist brush taped to a 4'stick. THAT is how a one week job can take 6 weeks! Easy to do right, REALLY hard to correct. I can say that glassing a complete CB trunk, cooler, anchor locker, etc, is DOable, just to be avoided!
Now this dificulty is what explains half of those hours. The other half, is that I wanted perhaps too much, from a small boat. (A really comfortable, ONLY home, for a middle aged couple) If we stick to our current idea of having a home base as well, we don't have to have winter AND summer clothes, tax records, tools for making a living, etc.
These systems and acoutriments, representin half of the hours I have talked about. If one does go with "the stuff", it better be done right... or go simple & don't have them. I put more care than you can imagine into my installations, and in 14 years we are on the same refrigerator, instriments, solar panels, etc, even the Power Survivior water maker that was on my LAST boat as well. (with it's orrigional membrane) In no case will a failure of this STUFF leave me in a bind, but in fact very few things have broken. Still, they do break, just like the mechanical complexity.
Had Mariam let me start from scratch, I think I would've gone with a CC42 or the like, and the extra room & payload, would've allowed less dificulty in installing everything we put on our boat. I would have had an insulated overhead, one large water tank, an anchor locker that was made from the hull & drains directly overboard, etc.
Still, we only pay half as much when going to the Bahamas, or the boat yard, or the marina... Perhaps our little Searunner is "just right".

[Mark Johnson]

Oh God... it's more STUFF!
We get 100% of our power from solar, 95% of the time.
The standard air cooled fridge only uses anout 20 AH / day. It is SUPER insulated without being thick. it has 2' of foam, with vacuum panels inbetween, 100% sealed up, & with radient foil barrier. (works fine, even in the tropics... contrary to what "they" say about needing water cooled.)
The batteries are like the L-16s that Roy has mentioned, except we had more amps than we needed, & down sized to the L-14s. (340 AH) With hydro caps, should last 10 years! Best bang for the buck.

[farotherside]

Mark, thank you so much for posting. I'm greatly enjoying reading your story!

I have found some rot in the centerboard trunk of my Searunner 37, so I'm now shopping around for the best place to haul her out for a month or so come April. I've got a long list of repairs and upgrades to do to her, a full exterior paintjob not being the least of them, and since she's also my full-time house I'll likely have to live out of a tent behind the boatyard for a while...

I'll take photos along the way. Until then I'm blogging as I go, disengage.ca

[Mark Johnson]

The engine's CV joint made alignment a cinch, and never becomes an issue again. It makes a PSS shaft seal work better, because the shaft rotates, but does not wobble with the engine, & if I snag something I don't tear out the transmission bearings!
The windlass I put off for 10 years, untill fight # 100 +, when in high wind, Mariam just could not drive the boat straight & slow, while I pull in the chain & rode. I had the problem that making the box seperate (rather than out of the hull), was required, to allow acess to the through hulls underneith & the far bow for ventilation. Also, with enough chain drop, the bottom of the sump is way below the WL. (so, can't drain straight overboard) I put a float switch in a strained sub floor sump, and connected a hose to an external "gulper" pump. The box weighs about 20 #s, and is rubber mounted to the stringers so things can move if they want to. The vapor proof connection to the Haws pipe is with a hypolon "witches hat", and the entire system can be disconected & removed in about one minute. The windlass, box, wire, salt water washdown, & pumps, all added about 75# to the bow area of the boat. This is why I put it off for 10 years! In the end, it was get another boat, a new back, another wife... OR what I did! When seriously at sea, I put the 35# Delta, and most of the chain, in the wing locker. This gets the weight on the bow back to normal.

[Mark Johnson]

Jack, That skiff you mentioned looks like stitch & glue, just like the kayak above that I just finished. If you PRE glass & sand, then / topcoat / sand again, the panels, then stitch & glue the seams, you only have to fair the seams, glass them, and after fairing the edges, topcoat the tapes. Then install the other PRE finished out parts. It goes REALLY fast if you do it right, and can be a lot of fun. Full time... Maybe two weeks??? The easier construction ideas of stitch & glue or CC, are SO much easier to build, & QUICKER. Especially under 30' boats, it is reasonable for a couple to build their own, IF you have the time & skills. My horror stories are like I've said, taking on an aborted, abandoned, abomination of a hull, followed by setting out to make it into a full time liveaboard only home, that could give my "high milage" body enough comfort, that it was still fun. Now that it's done... NO regrets, we LOVE our little Searunner! It's all good.
For the serious folks regarding building your own bigger boat. (like say, A CC-42) If you found someone else to go in with, and BOTH build at the same time, you could split the work & money on the CC mold. Also, there would be phisical help when you need it, to lift panels & such. And, IF you have an income, & work on the project full time... There is absolutely no reason that your first sail couldn't be in two years. All that STUFF! Well, that is up to you. It can take years. That part however, can also be done, little at the time, while you have a life!
Searunners are SO compartmentalized, that they really don't lend themselves to becoming a "yacht". It can be done, but, not easily. P.S. No, it is a standard centerboard. It has a rubber flap that fairs it in. A daggerboard has no place on a cruising boat! This is another long story, with re dos, photos, & in the end Victory! These are trickey little devils, but what make a Searunner fly. I'll finish THAT story after a rest. Actually, that was what I was origionally getting to, but wanted to put the story into context. So, there you have it.
Mark

[Roy M]

Hey Mark! There's a picture of Jeff and Jose Allen in your sterncastle! This is a great collection you have put together. This searunner thread must be one of the best in the forum. Thank you!