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25 FOOT CRUISER BUILT FOR TWO


Scott Dunsworth

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I forgot to update my planned cruiser. I told Graham that he could go to 26 feet a few weeks ago. I know its just another foot but a foot on a boat makes a big difference on a boat this size.

Still collecting lead and its getting harder all the time. Seems to be laws against selling lead to anyone that's not a scrap dealer. Thankfully most of the places I look don't know about this and are still selling me tire weights. But more of them are finding out and refusing to. Don't know if this is state or Federal.

I'll start modifying the shop when the weather breaks by adding another ten feet to the building. It'll be a temporary addition that I can take back down after completion.

My wife has been involved quite a bit offering the suggestion of putting the galley across the back of the cabin with the sink on the center line. The large ice box with a lid on the top next to the companion way steps.(easier to reach in and grab a cold one Gordy) Also another thought of moving the galley forward and putting the head in the back also has it's pluses. All this is a long way off but I'll keep thinking about it.

I have been kicking around the idea of having two fuel tanks instead of one large one. I would like to have a motoring range of 300 miles at 5 or 6 miles per hour. Yamaha has some long shaft 20 and 25 hp high trust motors but how efficient they are is anyones guess.

Also been thinking about if the motor could have power tilt installed so when under sail I could just push a button and get rid of the drag. It would be nice to keep the lower unit out of the water when docked also.

I'm just pulling a number out of the air but I assume there be about 350 to 400 square feet of sail to manage and will for sure need winch's. Also with the rudder inboard the mizzen sheet is going to be a trick. Maybe gallows could be used for that also for solar panels.

I figure its going to cost around 4 grand to build the bare painted hull. Then about 15 grand to fit her out with tanks, masts and rigging, sails, good stainless ports, life line stanchions, cabin hatches, wiring 12 volt and shore power, sinks, pumps, motor, tiller pilot and electronics, cleats and all the other little things. On the up side I'll be old enough to tap my 401k for these when the time comes.

Just some more thoughts.

Scott

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Scott - I would guess the Yamaha hi-thrust engines are very good. I have an old 115 Yamaha 2-stroke on an 18' Starcraft aluminum V hull (very light rig), and and a 250 Yamaha 4-stroke on a 23' Parker (2 plus tons of plastic).  Both are super engines. Back when I was selling boats the WAG (Wild A-- Guess) for fuel consumption was one gallon per hour for every 10 horsepower. Fairly close. My 115 dynos out about 10% higher than the nameplate HP and the Starcraft has a 20 gallon tank. At WOT you need to be within coasting or paddling distance from a gas stop at 1 1/2 hours. Roughly 13.5 gal/hr from a 130+ HP engine. The 4-stroke is a lot less thirsty, usually reads 18-19 gal/hr from 250 HP.

So you could figure 2.5 gal/hr out the outside for a 20/25 hp engine that is a 2-stroke at Wide Open Throttle. Methinks a 4-stroke would burn about 80% of that. At 5-6 mph my 250 HP burns about 2 gal/hr while loafing at near idle rpm. So you might want to figure HP and prop for mid-throttle 6 knot speed to save gas.  You can always use the extra punch to charge a headwind or tide.

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I told Graham that he could go to 26 feet a few weeks ago. I know its just another foot but a foot on a boat makes a big difference on a boat this size.

Adding length to a displacement boat makes a huge difference.  It makes a huge difference in every way, including expenses to build, expenses to maintain, weight, room inside, size and cost of sails, and the list goes on forever.  I am not saying you don't want 26 feet, only you can possibly know what you want.  Just remember that costs go up logarithmically with length.

I use a 9.9 HP Honda 4 stroke on my 27 ft., 6500 lb. Renegade.  I can keep a constant 5 kts. in even the sloppiest conditions and over 6 kts (hull speed) in calm conditions.  I burn about 0.4 gal./hour at cruising speeds and a little worse against a sea and/or head wind.  There are a few times I wish I had a little more ooomph, but that is only when against a really sloppy sea and head wind, and mostly I sail at those times.  I have electric start, which I like and my wife loves.  I have charging which is quite effective for cruising with no other source.  We are a little conservative with power.  Power tilt was available but my outboard is in a well, so there would be no use for it.  The drag of an outboard on a displacement boat is minimal.  Drag does not become significant until speeds higher than I can go as the hull speed of my 27 footer is 6.14 kts..  On a semi-planing boat it is another story completely.  Charlie J and I had a discussion in another forum about outboards in a well and on the transom and concluded there are many trade offs for both.  This alone can easily make a topic for discussion.  If you do use a transom mount, then I would definitely recommend being able to tilt it out of the water.  Power tilt would be nice.

I would think that your boat will be quite a bit lighter than mine and likely be able to exceed hull speed more easily.  I can't imagine you need a 20-25 hp. outboard.  I carry 9 gals. of fuel and rarely wish I could carry more.  I sail my boat.  I see motoring as being for the times I really want to get somewhere (which is quite seldom) and there is no wind.  If you plan on making distance in spite of conditions, then maybe you need more fuel than I carry.  I try to not put myself in that situation.  I am on a sailing vacation, and motoring to a new location is not a priority I want to have.  If there is no wind I am content to stay in my present harbor and sip rum.  Again, this is an area where you have to decide on your priorities.

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I agree with all that has been said about the HP. But what I keep thinking about is my intended use for this craft. First I'll be keeping her on Kentucky lake. To get to the Gulf and south Florida no mater how you look at it, it will be 90% motoring. Over 1100 miles by the Mississippi river and over 900 miles the preferred ten-tom waterway. The currant will be with us in one direction but against us every May coming home. I don't look at this as being a problem but part of the adventure.

If I remember correctly the 20,25 yamaha has a 17 amp charging system. Which will help along with a 80w solar panel.

My Belhaven with a 4.5 gets around 15 mpg and my friends Catalina 22 with a 9.9 gets around 12 on the same trip. His boat is 1000 lbs heavier with twice the HP, but he can run his at half throttle.

So my thought is if I can run a 20 at half or less but still have the extra power to fight 3 to 5 mph currants we'd be better off. Not only with the extra power but also much easier on the motor.

Scott

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  • 2 weeks later...

I got started with my shop upgrades this week for our new project. My shop has 4" of insulation in the ceiling and only 3/4" blueboard on the walls with no interior sheathing. So we have been adding 1 1/2" more foam to the walls and sheathing them with 1/4" osb. When the weather breaks abit we'll take down the sliding door and build a temporary ten foot extention out the front. That I can take down after the hull comes out. Anyway we are moving towards the goal of starting this spring.

I have found a couple of interior layouts that have good points. Both have an 8 foot beam where were planning 9 foot min. On the first one I don't care anything about having any berths under the cockpit and some other modifications would have to be made for the off set companion way of the cat ketch that we want.

PS Graham I got a new email I'll bring my info up to date soon and I'll send you the new one.

Scott

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I love it! She looks very good with nearly a 9 foot beam and over six feet of standing head room. Also seems very capable of doing anything I would want to do. I like the opened up feel to her, like the one posted awhile back on Garrys Princess 28 thread.

I was surprised to see that she carried 3200 lbs of ballast though. I hope mine being a catketch with the rigging lower won't have to carry that much. The Dana has a draft of 3' 10" which is nearly 4 foot and a displacement of 8000 which is what I would expect.

I don't know if I can get the wife to agree with not closing the v berth area up. I think in the long run she would like the open larger feel. I'll just have to wait and see.

I liked the cherry interior. We have nearly a logging truck full of ageing cherry cut in ten foot length's. Just need to get it saw and dried.

I know Graham will design a catketch as beautiful as the Dana. The only real question is can I build it to high standards.

Thanks for the youtube link.

Scott

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Scott,

Take a look at the Bayfield 25 for more ideas.  This was my first "large" boat and it was very comfortable for 2 people.  I think we enjoyed that boat more than any of the larger boats that followed. 

It packs a lot of living space in a what is essentially a slightly less than 24' hull - the stated 25' length includes the 1'+ "bowsprit".  Starboard settee berth is longer than it looks as it has a foot well that extends into the area underneath the head sink.  The settee back rests are hinged and swing up to provide a wider and more comfortable berth.

I'm  6' and could stand upright under the companion way slide and could stand in the rest of the cabin but did have to bend my head down.  The one downside to the ample head room in the cabin is the dog house is a bit tall which made it hard to see over while seated in the cockpit.

http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=487

Fred

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Sorry for the slow reply, my new satellite internet died in a thunderstorm newyears night and I am back to using dial up till its fixed.

The Bayfield is a nice looking boat with some nice features. I love looking at all the boats in this size range for ideas. Thanks for the link.

Mostly for interior layouts and ideas. Graham is mostly going to dictate the appearance of the hull. I told him last year that I liked the looks of the Island packets, modern looking but salty looking also. I am really starting to like the heaver displacement boats. Yea I know they don't accelerate quickly or plane, but they look comfortable and sea worthy in very rough stuff.

Change the subject a bit. Have you all seen the stainless ports made by New found metals? VERY pricey but I'll have to have them. I'm going to try to fit this boat out with the best stuff I can find. Unless I'm just not that happy with my construction skills of the boat. But if I can get the hull to a high detailed quality I'll spend the bucks, unless my 401k crashes.

I don't want to sound like money isn't a issue, because it is, but I know this will be the last big project for me and if the hull turns out I want the whole boat the best it can be.

Scott

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Why don't you try building a Panatal 25. It is a design very popular in Brazil and the plans are readily available. See online under Roberto Barros Yacht designs. It is a trailerable boat but it has a fixed keel and lots of room and standing headroom as well. The company has moved to Australia now but the plans are still available. They have many more to choose from.

Good luck.

Bob Clayton

Alaska Core Sound First Attempt

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I ran across this while looking into the speed strip method of planking a hull. It seem to me that it would work very good and be a lot faster to do. No milling the strips and no epoxy to mess with until the whole hull is striped up.

Peter what do you think? It seems similar to what you ended up doing towards the end. I'll question Graham about it also.

Done plenty of strip plank boats in the past and seen lots of different methods used.

My favourite way at the moment is to dry stack the planks using a thick paint scraper as a spacer and using plastic strips and a battery drill and chipboard screws to fix, I read above someone using pre drilled holes and timber dowels as a method, bloody hell sound's way labour intensive.

Once everything is in position and lined up we roll unmodified epoxy over the hull pushing it in and watching it pull through with capillary attraction. then use a rubber squeegee to wipe it in from both sides.

Sure, a bit of resin gets wasted on the floor, on my current 50ft cat we probably dropped about 3 to 5 litres, but much faster than gluing individual planks.

Any bigger gaps get a sloppy epoxy filler mix wiped into them while the first lot is still green, making sure to clean up the runs as you go.

Let dry, pull out screws, peel strips off and fill holes that are left.

Let dry and sand with a 2 speed sander with 36 grit, give a quick fair up with a long hand plane where needed, scuff these areas again and glass.

This method works for me and many other builders in Oz and we think it is the fastest and most cost effective way to do a strip plank hull to date.

The timber core used here is Kiri, lighter and in my opinion better than cedar http://www.highpointtimber.com.au/

Dave

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Scott, I am presuming you meant me in the query above. Does it sound good? Sure does. Would I do it?- probably not. Spacing all the strips far enough apart to make sure I get enough glue in between AFTERWARDS sounds like a whole lot more work to me than just putting the goop in the plastic sandwich bag, snipping the corner off and squeezing a bead on a strip. That way I know the strips are 100% glued in the middle of the contact area (with more to fill in as you glass)- which to my mind - you cannot guarantee in the method above. If your sticks are too close together you could end up with a dry spot. How much of a problem would that be? Who knows. I have enough stuff to pray about now - I don't need to add to the list. I would even consider using PL urethane construction adhesive (http://www.wolfeboats.com/ ) You can't get any quicker than that. But putting the glue on will be the last of your worries - believe me. At the end of the day you have to come up with a method you are comfortable with  -one that will not come back to keep you awake later on. I totally agree with the guy on using trunels to line up the strips. I gave up on that real fast. Total waste of time and effort. Your biggest time saver may be your brother or any other help you can round up. Look - if you need to run 70 strips per side - and  2 per day is all you manage (like me)- that is over two moths of work. Not counting PTA meetings, family picnics honey dos etc etc. Two of you running 10 strips a day - you're done in less than a month. While I have the highest admiration for Aussie boat builders and their inventive ways -personally-I tend to be more conservative. Whatever you decide -best of luck with it. PeterP

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  • 4 weeks later...

My wood supplier has all the 4/4s cypress I could ever need. But I got to working through cutting the strips and there is going to be so much more waste than I thought. Around 40 percent. So he's checking to see if he can get me some in 8/4's which will eliminate the waste to almost none. So just maybe I can start ripping strips before the end of the month. If he can't get the 8/4s I'll just bite the bullet and start milling strips next week from the 4/4s.

Does anyone have any ideas for finding lead. I'm up to 600 pounds but it's be slow going. I don't mind tire weights. I can safely melt down, skim 500 pounds of them into 30 lb ingots on a Saturday after noon. But they are getting harder to get and a lot of them are made from something other than lead. ( new environmental crap ) I'm all for taking care of the environment but some things just don't make sense. Tire weights have all the correct alloys to make the keel hard enough where pure lead like plumbers lead and roof lead is to soft. But it probably would hurt if maybe 5 to 10 percent was pure. Anyway anyone got any good ideas to help me out here?

Graham hasn't told me how much I'll need but it will probably be 2000 to 2500 pounds.

Scott

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My wood supplier has all the 4/4s cypress I could ever need. But I got to working through cutting the strips and there is going to be so much more waste than I thought. Around 40 percent. So he's checking to see if he can get me some in 8/4's which will eliminate the waste to almost none. So just maybe I can start ripping strips before the end of the month. If he can't get the 8/4s I'll just bite the bullet and start milling strips next week from the 4/4s.

Does anyone have any ideas for finding lead. I'm up to 600 pounds but it's be slow going. I don't mind tire weights. I can safely melt down, skim 500 pounds of them into 30 lb ingots on a Saturday after noon. But they are getting harder to get and a lot of them are made from something other than lead. ( new environmental crap ) I'm all for taking care of the environment but some things just don't make sense. Tire weights have all the correct alloys to make the keel hard enough where pure lead like plumbers lead and roof lead is to soft. But it probably would hurt if maybe 5 to 10 percent was pure. Anyway anyone got any good ideas to help me out here?

Graham hasn't told me how much I'll need but it will probably be 2000 to 2500 pounds.

Scott

Scott, Your comment about not being able to buy lead made me sit up. I swung by a scrap dealer in New Bern and it so happened he had about 750# of wheel weights. So I bought it up (47c/lb). Pretty much brings me up to what I am going to need with what I already have. I hate to add to your misery but you may have to drive/hustle to get yours. Good luck with it PeterP

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Scott, Your comment about not being able to buy lead made me sit up. I swung by a scrap dealer in New Bern and it so happened he had about 750# of wheel weights. So I bought it up (47c/lb). Pretty much brings me up to what I am going to need with what I already have. I hate to add to your misery but you may have to drive/hustle to get yours. Good luck with it PeterP

Peter I was talking to Tony over the weekend. Seeing your post on wheel weights, check with him on his setup for melting them down into blocks. I think he still has his own setup. I gotta get up there and see your build after he told me about it.

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Peter I was talking to Tony over the weekend. Seeing your post on wheel weights, check with him on his setup for melting them down into blocks. I think he still has his own setup. I gotta get up there and see your build after he told me about it.

Oyster, you are always welcome to stop by. As for Tony's smelting set up - it's behind my shed already. It's not big enough for the main pour but it will work to refine the weights. PeterP

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