Does size matter?

[Guest Tom Holder]

Hi everyone - first time poster, long time lurker here.

I have a question for the board that I have already had answered negatively by the folks at Stephensons but hey, hope springs eternal.

I would like to build a Vacationer but because I have 5.7 kids I would like to build it at 125% scale or so. I've seen dories up to 30 feet almost that look very similar to the hull design of the Vacationer.

Does anyone know of someone who has done this? What are the safety considerations? I would sail freshwater lakes including Erie and Huron.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Stuart Benbow]

First off, as the designers of the boat, I'd seriously consider what they say can and can't be done with their designs. Secondly, if you scale up the Vacationer, you're outta luck on trailer sailing as the Vacationer is already as wide as you can get on the open road, so keeping the boat suddenly becomes a much more expensive, and ongoing proposition. Your best bet would be to keep looking for a more suitable design.

As far as I know, nobody has scaled the Vacationer due to the designer saying it's really not a good idea. Now, were I to consider doing the scale up, I'd probably find a boat closer to the size requirements I needed, rather than exceed designer specs as a first alternative. Failing that, and really having my heart set on this design, I'd spend a ton of time doing my homework on structural requirements and get a bit of a grounding in boat design.

Although this method of construction doesn't really fit any of the build methods outlined at the following link, I would seriously consider checking out the various scantling books: Macnaughton Group

Following gaining a good understanding of that, and still thinking it's a good idea, I'd build a model at 1:12th scale or similar. Also, be aware that when the Stevensons went from the Weekender to the Vacationer, they noted that the boat shapes aren't exactly a one for one scale up of the measurements, meaning that you'll have to do some educated guesswork (thus the design study suggestion). You'd be in the ballpark of a 30' loa boat with a 10' beam. That's quite a big boat for being a shoal draft, flat bottomed design.

With the effort involved and the lack of certainty in its success, I probably wouldn't be willing to go that route, but if you do, I'd love to hear about your progress (actually, regardless of which design you settle on, I'd still love to hear about your progress) and will be more than happy to offer suggestions or advice if I can help. All that being said, I'm not exactly famous for following plans myself, and more than one boatbuilder has thought I was a little more off my rocker than the hobby warrants.

Good luck to ya, as a 30' boat is a big project and will keep you hopping regardless of the construction method or design.

[capt jake]

Maybe this is more to your needs? http://www.bandbyachtdesigns.com/princess26.htm

Or check out the B&B forum on this same site.

[Guest]

People are always attempting to change plans. When a person says can we change this and can we change that, except for a few revisions, time honored history and results point towards an unhappy ending for several reasons, peformance, weight distributions, and structual failures. Outside of these issues, I have to point whenyou have 5.7 kids, seldom you will get them all to agree to enjoy the same interest, and schedules will dictate some will not be avaliable to go with you, when you wish to go.

Talk this boat deal over with your wife, and get her opinion and then bring us a note to save for future reference. It also sounds like your wife maybe pregnant? If so, forgo the boat idea and talk till she is unpregnant around six months. :wink: You may receive a more logical answer, or an answer favorable to your liking.

[Tom Hubbard]

Guys, lets not forget that the Pocke Crusier has bee successfully scaled up as far as 124%. I can't remember the name of the guy who did it, but it made a huge boat that is still under the 8' limit and I have read performs very well. Perhaps this would be more of what he is looking for.

[Stuart Benbow]

Tom,

That's a very good point, it basically was the conversion of a weekender to the vacationer on a catboat. If that design was something he wanted, and a scale-up didn't quite give the required cockpit area, then following in the footsteps of Scott Widmier and converting the aft section of the cabin to a bridge deck.

Scott had both his family and mine aboard a little while back, and although his boat is not scaled up, it fit his family of four, and my family of four in the cockpit and we could sail comfortably (granted a bit more comfortably when the kids headed into the cabin to play).

[Jim Stumpf]

I think with the 8 ft beam the Vacationer it is already at the max legal road width is it not? If so then your upscale would only be in length and not width. Just my thoughts.

Jim

[Barry Pyeatt]

I think a couple areas of clarification are needed.

What is the age group of the kids?

Do you plan on keeping it in the water during the season?

How much overnighting do you plan to do?

Or is it for daysailing only?

Is a cabin a necessity or a desirable feature for a place to knap.

I would think that haveing more than just a port-a-poti would be important to you.

Short daysailing trips or overnight camping a consideration?

Are any of the kids old enough to be of use in handling the boat?

Is trailerability a primary consideration?

Once you can answer some of these questions along with those offered by some of the other posters, then maybe we can make some recommendations for a solution for you.

[Craig]

Here are my thoughts Tom: If you are very close to your launch site a little wider will not likely get you in trouble. The real issue is the length/beam relationship. While longer and narrower is faster the tradeoff is stability. You have not mentioned how old your children are so I will assume young, thus, you are intrested in stability and safety. That being the case I can not recommend you play with overall size of the boat to much over 10-15%. That will not really give you what you are looking for and will really drive costs and build time so let's talk about modifications to the stock design that may give you a more comfortable boat. Two adults and 5.7 small children will not likely exceed the capacity of the boat, however, as designed, seating is limited and close so look for ways to increase the seating and overall comfort/utility of the design. The lockers under the seats are a waste of space and time to build. Think about open, slat type bench seats. Narrow the deck by half from the cabin bulkhead to the lazzarette. Restore the structural intregraty of the sides using 2x4 stringers and enclose these to form a box beam in the areas modified. Reduce the cabin size from 1/2 to 2/3 of the designed size increasing the cockpit size. Or just build her as an open boat with no cabin at all leaving the desks as designed. Others have done this with the smaller boat. Use a bridge deck in the front of the cockpit to maintain the rigid box frame that stabilizes the hull and to gain a little more seating. Obviously these mods will bring other problems and the redesign is not quite this simple, however, it can be done. With 6 kids I doubt you could overnight with this anyway so these mods would allow you to use the boat and still not loose much utility. Loosing the cabin will speed construction and ease costs by a small amount.

Make the recommended scale models and use scale stick fiqures made from wire to estimate the size relationships for your crew members vs. the boat. If that does not look too promising then this is not the boat you need. Good luck

[Robert Cox]

I can understand your desire for a bigger boat, but I think your really looking at the wrong one. Scaling up the length of the Vacationer without scaling the width would likely lead to desaster. Being an unbalasted boat, you need the beam to give you stability.

You may not realize it but the over all length of the Vacationer as designed is almost 28 ft. Would you really want to pull a boat much longer than that. At 112% increase you've now got a boat that's 32 ft. long.

If you really want a 30 ft. boat that looks like a Vacationer and is built out of plywood take a look at the Bahama Mama from Data Boat. This is a link to the boat.

http://www.databoat.com/Page_ProductDetail.asp?sid=151&pid=2951

I just checked and their website is temporarly down.

The Bahama Mama looks just like a Vacationer and is already 30 ft. long on deck, and built of plywood. It is also a balasted boat. I think this would better suit your needs. On the other hand if you decide to scale up the Vacationer make sure and keep us up to date on any progress and remember, we love pictures here.

Bob

[P Doug (WA)]

I would think that if a cabin is not important than the CS 20 would be the Ideal boat for that many people. Wouldn't have to worry about all the modifications. There would be a lot of help on the forum with the building, at least I am counting on it. :wink: Check this one out.

http://www.bandbyachtdesigns.com/cs20.htm

[Russell Sova]

Go for it Tom. I doubt if any of the nay sayers has ever tried it. Get rid of the goofy beakhead while your at it. Extend the length, add some stone ballast, put it in burlap bags if you want and remove it or put it down low and ceil over it. It might take a season or two fooling around with the rig to get it right but so what? You can use tarps for sails so there is very little cost involved. If anyone in your family doesn't like your boat just throw them overboard (with a life jacket on).

[Guest]

Go for it Tom. I doubt if any of the nay sayers has ever tried it. Get rid of the goofy beakhead while your at it. Extend the length' date=' add some stone ballast, put it in burlap bags if you want and remove it or put it down low and ceil over it. It might take a season or two fooling around with the rig to get it right but so what? You can use tarps for sails so there is very little cost involved. If anyone in your family doesn't like your boat just throw them overboard (with a life jacket on).[/quote']

I hope you are kidding here. Some serious thought should be taken, before taking the leap, if experience is not on your side. Boat plans are engineered with a margin of error for the home builder. But there are items that should be adhered to if a person purchases a set drawn, marketed, and case history to back up plus and minuses of the designs, in this case. Naysayer, in this case, can take the heat for what I post here.

[Barry Pyeatt]

AMEN,

We are talking about the safety first of a family with a lot of small children most likely. I for one would want to know a lot more about the actual needs, experience and use before recommending any "stock" design, let alone any modification of a "do-it-yourself" modification.

Too much at stake here to just throw out a suggestion and let it lie.

If we are going to be helpful to new builders, then we have to understand a lot more than we know about this situation.

I'm all for the exploration of new innovations, and some reasonable modifications that are more cosmetic than structural. But when you start tampering with structure, you enter an area that can take lives quickly in the wrong conditions. The Great Lakes abound in "wrong conditions" and they happen very quickly, especially on Erie and Huron. I would sincerely hate to see a new builder, novice sailer, modify a proven hull design and get into trouble with it, particulary with a young family aboard.

It is really easy to suggest doing this or that or just go for it. When the designer said it isn't a good idea and they wouldn't recommend it, then I certainly wouldn't go ahead and get the opinion of others that haven't done it to make my decision.

Sailing, water, young inexperienced families all add up to the potential for a tragedy to happen.

We don't know if they have any boating experience, or building experience at all.

[Russell Sova]

Nope, I wasn't kidding. You guys take yourselves way too seriously. I too live right next to Lake Erie. I have all my life. There is a guy who built a flat raft for fishing that has a chair and a trolling motor on it. When it's flat calm it looks like a alot of fun. Regarding boat design, many boats that are over 25ft. between pperpendiculars are 8ft. wide. Tom, you could also add some pig iron to the keel, say, as a shoe on the outside. Have fun.......Still sailing on the the "dangerous" lakes.

[Guest]

God takes care of drunks and fools, most of the time. But he seems to forget the innocent sidenotes, during these occasions, of mental lapses, to these folks. One bad link of chain, can allow for a ship to drift upon a rock and create havoc to the masses on it.

[Frank Hagan]

Go for it Tom. I doubt if any of the nay sayers has ever tried it. Get rid of the goofy beakhead while your at it. Extend the length' date=' add some stone ballast, put it in burlap bags if you want and remove it or put it down low and ceil over it. It might take a season or two fooling around with the rig to get it right but so what? You can use tarps for sails so there is very little cost involved. If anyone in your family doesn't like your boat just throw them overboard (with a life jacket on).[/quote']

Actually, the reason the Stevenson's say not to scale the Vacationer up is because they have done it. And it failed structurally. They determined the stringer-glue-and-screw method is not strong enough for the stresses when you get this large. When I interviewed the Stevensons for the premier issue of the BYYB's on-line magazine, The Gaff Rig, Peter mentions the project and how it failed (it was in the first or second issue for the BYYB members who can access it and tell us the exact quote from Peter; I'm not allowed to re-post it without permission, of course).

The Princess Sharpie 26' or 22' would be a much better choice if you are going to this scale; its designed for it, and Graham ("Designer" on the B&B Forum here) is always willing to answer questions. The construction is not only stronger with the tack-and-tape method, but the internal bulkheads are designed by a NA to allow the use of plywood for a vessel this large.

[Steve Tarry]

Taking ourselves too seriously? It is impossible to take yourself too seriously when you're talking about launching yourself and a bunch of other people (in this case, children) out onto the surface of a large body of very cold water. I hold with the majority here -- build what you know is going to work before you involve your whole family. Experimentation is fine if all you stand to endanger is yourself, but when you drag a spouse and 5.7 children into the mix, basic maturity and responsibility would rule on the side of caution.

[Konrad in Lincoln]

My thoughts on this: "What Frank said."

To go a little further:

A year ago, for the fun of it, we loaded down my Vacationer with a lot of adults, just to see what would happen. Let me see... Mike, Arlen, Nancy, me, Tony (I think) and two other adults. That's seven adults. Plus all the coolers of ice and food and beer. Plus a gasoline outboard. We were well over 1,400 pounds that the boat was carrying, I guarantee it.

The boat was fine. The 3 hp outboard was fine. It sailed nicely in light winds that evening.

Personally, I love the Bahama Mama, and really think you should consider it. However, with that many kids on hand at the moment, you may find that many of them are out of high school before your launch day. Seriously.

[Guest Tom Holder]

Thanks to everyone for your comments and advice. Some history - I read the article on the Weekender in PS magazine when I was 9 and decided I was going to build one. My father wouldn't let me so I put it off for a time. Now my oldest (a boy) is turning 8 and I though it would be right time to start building if I wanted to get it in the water by the time he's 12 or so.

I'm very experienced with lake and river canoeing and kayaking. I prefer the quiet boats to the noisy ones so that's why I want a sailboat. I'm not a sailor per se but I have a healthy respect for the wind and the water. (Though I once "sailed" a 19' aluminum Springbok square-stern canoe across Pigeon Lake near Peterborough with 2 paddles and a windbreaker - looked silly but got home though)

I have the romantic idea that I would go on some longer journeys but imagine that daysailing is more reasonable. My kids are all water rats/fishermen so I think the boat would be full most times. I guess my thought was if I am going to put in the effort to build a boat, I don't want to finish it then not be able to share it with my kids.

The Vacationer is probably plenty big - I looked at a few of the "turning" entries and it looks like a lot of plywood. It also looks like something that I can build without straining myself. (Mr. Gerkin however should not be allowed to post on this board.)

Thanks again to everyone for your input.