Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[Maren]

Originally Posted by PhantomBoatwork

I mean, would anyone go back to AC fir plywood and polyester resin to build a trimaran? Not me. And thanks for all of the input from everyone.

I was just thinking of you. But more to the point. You do realize that you took whatever plywood you bought, cut it up and reassembled it with a different glue to make curved plywood, right?

Also, since I'm now in a great sailing location but not able to bring the 44CC down to work on it, I started building a Seaclipper 20 ... out of AC pine.

[Mark Johnson]

Originally Posted by PhantomBoatwork

Not really sure about the number of wraps. The construction manual just said to saturate the cloth on a piece of polyethyele film and roll it up on the shaft to the right thickness. Doesn't take an awful lot of cloth to get the desired thickness, just roll it up. John Marples did suggest that you roll the end up on a wooden dowel of the same diameter, and use that to pull off the bushing. Sounds good to me, I'll let you know in a few days how it works out.
BTW, the trim tab idea is just a holdover from some of the old ideas in the original Searunner construction manual. I'm not going to put in a wind vane, and having a wheel self steering would be a WHOLE lot easier. With the trim tab, I would have to put the tillermaster clear back in the sterncaste, and the controls in the cockpit. Not the best configuration, upon reflection. I'm going to do a re-think on the trim tab, and maybe eliminate it entirely. Most of Jim Brown's ideas were and are great, but that doesn't mean that some newer ideas aren't just as valid. I mean, would anyone go back to AC fir plywood and polyester resin to build a trimaran? Not me. And thanks for all of the input from everyone.

The needs of a person / couple that are going on a single, one time circumnavigation, and then hang it up, (like many well known writers did), are a bit different. They will be on one long passage after another, for a relatively short period of time. (1 or 2 years)...

Most folks who have what it takes to build a boat, however, envision it as a seasteading "lifestyle", for perhaps an indefinite period of time. They will be anchored out 90 something % of the time, and the rest will be mostly 1 or 2 day hops between the islands in a group, up rivers & the ICW, across inland sounds, or between protected anchorages. Long passages will be occasionally necessary, but rare.

In this case, the extra amps of a small wheel pilot, (vs tiller pilot), are for a very small % of the time. One probably started, and perhaps ended the day, with a 30 minute engine run anyway, (pulling out of or into an anchorage), IF it was just a 1 or 2 day hop.

Even with ALL of the standard comforts of home, like a watermaker & refrigeration... we are 100% solar self sufficient, between 90 and 95% of the time. During that small 5-10% of time spent on long passages, our amp/hr consumption DOUBLES. (We then ADD... SSB, computer nav, running lights, RADAR, VHF, auto pilot, etc. to the mix). When at sea... A short 45 min. engine run at about 5:00 AM, when the batteries are at their lowest, and sun still down, brings us up enough that we are back up with solar by sun down. (Even with our little Hitachi 55A alternator). Then the cycle repeats itself the next morning, (when at sea, only). So, for "this" sort of cruising, after having made everything as energy efficient as possible, (particularly in anchored out mode), using a less consumptive autopilot will not change the scenario that much. It is the 90% of the time lifestyle that matters most.

In these more frequent, closer in, day hops, the wheel autopilots ability to be adjusted to an unusual chop, the turning speed, ease of making literally hundreds of little coarse adjustments a day, (to dodge shipping/boats, rocks, crab pots etc.), speed of engagement and particularly DISengagement, become more important than the fewer amps consumed by a tillerpilot. IMO, of coarse...

Having taken my middle aged years off, I am now stuck in work mode, and our 1 week cruising is mostly to Cape Lookout. This is an 8 hour trip, with the first 3 hours sailing... During the 5 hours of fighting boredom, while motoring down Adam's Creek, (ICW), I sit reclining in a Sportaseat, sitting on the cabintop, still under the recently "raised" bimini top. The wheel pilot is steering, but I have the wireless hand held remote in my hand. (last year's birthday present)... I make adjustments with my thumb! It is lazy, but really nice.

At sea, one is in a totally different mode, but SUDDEN coarse changes, (like within 2 seconds or you crash), have saved our bacon on several occasions.

We are FIRM believers of "someone on watch 24/7", but the occasional accidental nod can still happen, and has, with a container ship parked motionless, (500 miles at sea), and 100' in front of us! I would have hated to need 5 or more seconds to disengage a tiller pilot, or the CPT that we started out with.

The other issue is that a trim tab is extra work/expense & complication, (IF you were going to have a wheel pilot anyway). It also could induce rattling when motoring, as we started out with. There is also the shape and efficiency of the skeg/rudder foil. If there is no trim tab, you can get a damned near perfect, tapered to a sharp edge foil. This reduces vortexes, vibration, etc. and makes for high speed steering with that "power steering" feel that we love.

In my view: ONLY for purely long passage types, with an absolute minimum of electronics and few amps available... that do not plan the type of more close in cruising that I described, THEN a trimtab to tiller pilot makes more sense, and the pluses outweigh the minuses. Otherwise...

Not trying to talk you out of it, just explain my rationale.

M.

[Mark Johnson]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Mark, just wanted to make sure you got the message I sent regarding Coppercoat. My neighbors just hauled out after six months, and their bottom was a disaster area. You were absolutely correct. Search the forum for the pics, I sent it to several discussions on bottom paint.

No Roy, I had not heard. Thanks for letting me know...

I saw that there was conversation about the stuff on CF, but having already chimed in with my experience, I "passed" on looking at what they had to say.

I already do fairly regular wipedowns, and care deeply about the environment, but in looking for a better solution to the bottom paint conundrum, Copper powder or flakes, that is 95% isolated from the surface of the coating (within epoxy resin), is a flawed concept, and a dead end street, in my view.

Here's hoping that someone comes up with a solution that is less toxic, AND effective!!!
M.

[Mark Johnson]

SASSARASSA:

The problem with your suggestion is that it takes at least 3 of these bearings to make a hinge, and each would be about 6" long. How would you insert the 18" long pin, & keep it in? It would be too close to the WL gudgeon & pinntle. It would be better to change BOTH in that case, but keep the uppermost one as SS. THEN the problem is that the hinge pin must go through all 3, and be in perfect alignment. It could be done, but is tricky at best.

On Searunners, our skeg/rudders are almost as deep as the minikeel, so the skeg is particularly vulnerable to the bottom.

While the composite bearing system is best, from a minimal corrosion, less turbulence, and cleaning growth point of view, I like it best when applied to either a kick up skeg, (like on my SC28), or on a skeg/rudder that is several inches higher than the minikeel. Perhaps John's CC boats have this???

SO, our metal can have an advantage, in that it makes the bottom and nose of the skeg REALLY tough. If I made mine over, this is what I'd do...

I would leave the uppermost SS gudgeon & pintle the same, (being out of the water), but have the bottom two made over of Titanium! It used to be considered unobtanium, but no more. Folks are now using it for chainplates & such.

I would make the strap portions no wider on the outside than the foils, and create gentle ramped down recesses into the blades at these points, (to accommodate these narrower straps). After heavy glassing of these recesses and a trial fit, I would make the bolt holes in the "big hole, fill with thickened epoxy, & re-drill method".

Then I would bed the entire mess in epoxy, rather than caulk & let it set up.

Now... rather than hex head bolts, I'd use 1/2" flat head machine screws, going into the threads tapped into the opposite side's strap, and grind the tail flush.

Now you have totally corrosion proof METAL hinges, that are strong, light, and just below flush on the straps. Then glass over well, & completely fair the strap portion of the hardware.

Yes, it would be expensive, but a permanent solution, baring shipwreck!

Only the sticking out parts would have metal showing, as the straps are glassed over and bottom painted. That leaves the question of: IF left bare, how much do Barnacles like Titanium? (they LOVE SS), and if needed, can you get 2 part primers to stick to Titanium, should you need to bottom paint it.

Getting a sample, and doing a few experiments, will answer those two questions.

I have btw, seen a version of this done to SS hinges, that covered the straps, (bolt heads, nuts & all) with bog, then glassed over & painted these. The problem is then crevice corrosion.

With my practice of painting the below WL hdw, when chunks of paint or primer fail, they fall off. No problem, I fix it next haul. IF it was glassed over, when bits become un-bonbed, it is trapped under the glass, and will corrode eventually.

This only makes sense with Titanium.

Just a thought...

M.

[Bob Moore]

Originally Posted by Mark Johnson

Roy, In case you missed Jeff Allen's story about this, among many... Otherwise, by all means, correct any mistakes. My apologies if I'm butting in...

My memory of it was that Jeff was living "on shore" for some time in Gibraltar, with his SR 40 anchored out, on it's on, near a military base. A sudden HURRICANE FORCE storm brewed up, and Jeff hauled ass to get to his boat and secure her for the storm, but needed to cross the military base to get to the boat. Due to some kind of security concerns at the moment, they wouldn't let him pass at the gate, so his beautiful boat remained unsecured for the storm. When the storm hit, the boat drug onto the unforgiving rocky shore, and was pounded to pieces. Later, he was allowed to his boat to strip her. THE BOAT NEVER CAPSIZED, BTW.

ROSSAD, Yes there was a SR 37 that capsized in the Pacific, in Cyclone Meli (sp?) about 35 years ago. The gusts had been officially measured @ 200 MPH!!! She had been anchored in the lee of an island, with the chain wrapped securely, 180 degrees around a coral cluster, so it held. When the winds reversed, they were on the windward side, and the waves HUGE! She rose on a wave, wind got under the wing, and the boat became AIRBORNE and flipped. He and his girlfriend, and his father, were in the intact, but upside down boat. They, (all 3), tried to swim in to shore, but his girlfriend and father never were seen again.

I don't off hand know of any capsizes "at sea", from wind or wave. (Perhaps the smaller ones have?) A few have fallen apart at sea, from being SO neglected and rotten, that they were a ghost of their former selves. Events like this are "making **** happen", in my book! There were others that were disabled by hitting whales or the bottom, or flotsam, but in most cases, they were rescued, or one even sailed back home, with ALL THREE hulls being holed by a whale.

I know my South African friend, Nevil, ended up with him and his Searunner 31, in the top of a tree, in St Martin, during Hugo, but it mostly floated up there. He winched her down, rebuilt her, and sailed on for years.

If one looks at the number of boats built, number of ocean crossings, number of circumnavigations, total sea miles covered, years spent living aboard anchored out, over the most years... and compares this to the number of lives lost "at sea on a SR", over those 40+ years, (two lives lost, as far as I know?), then it tells the story.

The "safest track record boats ever designed"? That's highly debatable, but Searunners are surely in the top five!

BTW... I have gotten Multihulls Magazine since #1, (35+ years), and still have the collection. Very few "incidents" went unreported, back in those days. We were all riding a revolution, and communicated a lot!

M.

Photo is Nevil and his 31, up the Rio Dulce, years later...

Dear Mr Johnson,
I am a friend of Jeff Allen - we trained at vet school together. I have lost all his contact details and I am trying to make contact with him again.

If you have an address or see him could you please ask if he would contact me, or could you send me a contact detail.

Many thanks

Bob Moore
PS I'm envious of all of you in the South Pacific. I had the joy of a week spent between Tahiti and Moorea in 1999, but haven't been back since

[Roy M]

Bob Moore: Send me a private message and I'll send you the contact.

[Roy M]

Here's what I have been doing for the last thirty years: At each haulout I remove the fairing compound (Splash Zone epoxy), remove the bolts and inspect all the hardware, then replace with new fairing.

Last time, I replaced the rudder piece because I had the time and resources to make it better, not because it had any problems. The picture shows only the skeg portion faired, but I also fair in the rudder portion. It makes cleaning a breeze. I do the same for the cutlass bearing strut.

[Bob Moore]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Bob Moore: Send me a private message and I'll send you the contact.

Roy
Thanks for replying so promptly.
I don't have a private address for you, I have only joined this site this evening.
Mine private email is
[USE PM- DO NOT POST EMAIL ADDRESSES IN THE CLEAR. READ THE STICKIES, PEOPLE.]
Bob Moore

[carnasty]

i have a seaclipper 28

thecommodoresmith.wordpress.com

cant afford to get it out the water though to fix it.

[Roy M]

Bob Moore, I have sent you a private message via Cruisers Forum. If you have any problems accessing it, please let me know. It is against the rules of the forum to openly list e-mail addresses to protect the members from nasty consequences. Say hi to jef and Jose for me.

[Tropical Home]

Sorry for popping in here a bit late, but I was wondering what is the build time and basic cost to build a searunner 40? A friend of mine was interested. Thanks in advance!

[rossad]

If anybody knows that Roy M will ......
But i am going to take a wild guess
Completed Searunner 40 ...... 2 1/2 years 5 days a week for one bloke.
Cost materials ready to sail ... $450 000 US

Maybe the constant camber contruction is the way to go saving so much time.
Though the Searunner design has more valuable room
It would be great to here of someone actually going ahead to build a Searunner these times.

[Cavalier MK2]

Using gold plated plywood?........

[Boatguy30]

the time frame is about right on 2.5 years but would need to be more like 60 hrs a week in my guess.

I figure a good guide is, how long does it take to build a nice dinghy from 2 sheets of ply, fitted out for sailing? 2 weeks full time? how many sheets of ply in a SR 40? 150 sheets? = 150 weeks.

45K would do if you use decent but not top grade materials, fit a used mast and perhaps a used rebuilt engine.

It seems to me a CC design is actually more work based on the projects I've seen reported. the nice thing about ply on frames is that all the bulkheads are in place when you turn the hull over which greatly speeds fit out.

[Cavalier MK2]

Especially since the bulkheads are are pre built with the wood cleats for the interior furningss/seats etc...