Western Australia

[MikeHale]

Hello everybody. My name is Mike and I am introducing myself to the forum as part of my plans to eventually attain a nice boat and commence coastal cruising before hopefully 1-day heading out into the Pacific

I look forward to getting to know some of the people on here.

[Ballsnall]

Hi Mike,
You taking the long way round to get to the pacific?

[MikeHale]

to be honest I am heading to QLD next July and will be buying a much better yacht then, than I have now.

I am putting some miles on my old steely, but it will never be suitable to go cruising on.

My next plans involve finding a boat...

are you west coast

[Ballsnall]

Nice, I'm in Qld. Definitely much better on the east coast.

[Fore and Aft]

Mike I thought Wilf O Kell yachts were mainly ferro? What's wrong with your steely?
Cheers

[MikeHale]

I purchased it mostly with the intent on learning about boats, and this one has taught me a lot.
But I have come to learn that steel boats really need to be built properly (with specific regards to dealing with water on the inside of the full) and mine wasn't...

The fit out was never completed and there are a number of areas that the hull has some issues on. The cost to fit out the yacht properly would never be realised and so I would prefer to spend my future hard earned on a more finished and comfy boat.

I have fitted new electrics, done some fitout, painted the outside and tidied it up. new stainless shelter with solar, new custom stainless stanchions, linked a very agricultural 2pot 4stroke diesel to the Raymarine NMEA setup and done a bit of work on the running rigging.

But to be right it would need a bit more plate cut out of the full and a fit out that I will never be able to do and wouldn't pay for...

Terrific boat to learn on though!

[Fore and Aft]

She's a sweet looking yacht. You can definitely keep chasing your tail if she has not been built right.
Cheers

[Adelie]

Welcome to CF.

[RaymondR]

Steel's actually a good choice if you're going cruising in very remote or badly charted places.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Steel's actually a good choice if you're going cruising in very remote or badly charted places.

Maybe but don’t overestimate it. I’ve a friend with a Dutch steel yacht who clipped a rock and a welded seam opened. She sank

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Maybe but don’t overestimate it. I’ve a friend with a Dutch steel yacht who clipped a rock and a welded seam opened. She sank

Poor quality assurance can doom any structure to early failure.

The other side of the question is illustrated by one of my mates experiences when he ran onto a reef on a steel Roberts 52 in the Solomon Islands. He was stuck on it for seven weeks until he got two shrimp boats (prawn trawlers) to drag him off, treatment which would destroy most non metal vessels.

Another friend was caught in a hurricane in an exposed anchorage in the West Indies in his steel Boro Princess. He had to dig a lot of sand out and rebuild the engine after he had it dragged back down the beach with a bulldozer and re-floated it but managed to finish his circumnavigation back to Australia. His was the only boat in the anchorage which survived.

As a former steel boat owner for about thirty five years the OP has my sympathy for bring obliged to struggle with the maintenance of a vessel where most of the maintenance issues were designed into the vessel.

In my own case I eventually cut out all the stringers in the mid portion of the vessel and reinforcing the large panels thereby created by installing keel cooling tubes on the outside of the hull. Whist this partially alleviated the worst of the maintenance issues there were still an amazing number of water traps built into the hull (It should be a criminal offence to put stringers into a steel boat)

As for the OPs plan to cruise the east coast of Australia and the South Pacific it's very sensible. I got as far as Sydney whilst doing a circumnavigation of Australia from WA and then turned back north twenty years ago and have been cruising mostly the east coast ever since.

This part of the world is a great place to cruise as you can drink the water out of the taps and unlike WA where you can go 400-500 nm without anything but an anchorage it would be the grossest of flattery to call lousy, there's generally, a half decent anchorage every twenty miles or so and if you are inclined that way you can live your entire life in the 80-110 temperature zone.