Time and Designs
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:56 pm
This topic is an opening to discuss the overall design of welded aluminum boats, without assuming they're all planing hulls. I'm not trying to find fault with planing boats, they're almost all I've build my adult life- but they're not all I'd like to build.
Why do we all assume our boats are planing hulls?
TIME. That's why I think we almost all focus on planing hulls.
Almost all of us live in time/value life equations that seem to dictate planing hulls. What is the most cost effective* boat? Well the slower boats are more cost effective in terms of cost per mile; but what if we add TIME? Then the cost equation shifts somewhat and no longer focuses on just cost per mile, but that ratio now has to be taken cost per mile IN TIME. (fill in; To be back to work; To make the tide; To get there so we can go to....)
*lots of ways to define this value.
Once we add time, planing hulls are about all we can discuss because they're about all we can afford to run, but what if time were not the main overriding factor?
My close friend works in the oil industry, he works 2 weeks home and 2 weeks at work so he's home for 6 months a year. During that time, the water is wet, not solid, for about 100 to 120 days and of that he gets about half the time to use his boat. So TIME in his equation is about 50-60 day's potential boating a year. Of the potential days he may get 40% of them on the water in an average year so the real number of days is a couple weeks total.
[I realize AK is not the same as living in the 'old country' so the relative use days goes up as the latitude gets smaller. ]
What this means is; my friend works to afford his boat, and spends about 20 days a year afloat and the rest of the time he's got family and other commitments that out-prioritize his boating. He get's home from a hitch and hooks up to the truck and it's several hours pull to the harbor to launch; harbors in Alaska don't require taking ones boots off to count- they all fit on the fingers and in some places on one hand.
Can he realistically spend six or eight hours at 10 knots getting to his anchorage? What if he wanted to make a real cruise, can he spend 20-30 hours running to spend one day fishing or anchored only to run back?
Planing boats cut the on-the-water travel time but their design has to give up accommodation volume to allow them to be "trailerable". So what do we end up doing? Sprint out, try to get as much time on the water as possible, then sprint back- slow on the water is lower cost, sprinting is at the highest cost.
Most people try to pack as much living accommodation in a "trailer-ably" (new word) short hull. Further, to get the most power to wt. ratio we can get- the hulls use outboards instead of inboards cranking fuel use up, accessories down, and dominate the design's arrangement.
So, what I think would be a better arrangement (here, not necessarily in the 'old country') is a 20 -22' sedan to travel back and forth a power scow. I think it would be better to have a 40-some foot x 18' wide scow with all the amenities of a lodge/cabin/home and anchor it out. Run back and forth to the harbor/ highway/airport with a sitting only sharp bottom sedan 'commuter' skiff with a big block inboard.
If we drive a 40-someodd-foot scow out to an anchorage and drop the hook for a full season, then the runabout is used to commute to the parking lot with the vehicle to get home. An all metal scow/houseboat could be 'shuttered' with sheets of aluminum with interior studs to allow the entire hull to be one solid metal shell when you left. In the back of a bight that was sheltered and had no fetch sufficient to allow any big swells it could stay on the hook for the entire season and house the entire family and guests comfortably.
If someone boarder her, she'd be sealed unless they used power tools and did serious hull damage and that is not very common in our neck of the woods.
The sedan would handle six adults seating and move at 45-50 knots in calm seas allowing decent transit time and being metal with a sit down hardtop, provide those early spring and late fall runs when the weather isn't cooperating. Taking a 'green one' over the cabin would be a signal to back off the throttle but not an problem. An inboard/IO would heat the cabin well, provide the power to 'get home' and the combination of the two vessels would only approach the costs of some of our 28-32' fully equipped outboard powered boats commonly used today?
Just a thought, I'd like to hear from others regardless of the latitude of your boating.
cheers,
Kevin Morin
Why do we all assume our boats are planing hulls?
TIME. That's why I think we almost all focus on planing hulls.
Almost all of us live in time/value life equations that seem to dictate planing hulls. What is the most cost effective* boat? Well the slower boats are more cost effective in terms of cost per mile; but what if we add TIME? Then the cost equation shifts somewhat and no longer focuses on just cost per mile, but that ratio now has to be taken cost per mile IN TIME. (fill in; To be back to work; To make the tide; To get there so we can go to....)
*lots of ways to define this value.
Once we add time, planing hulls are about all we can discuss because they're about all we can afford to run, but what if time were not the main overriding factor?
My close friend works in the oil industry, he works 2 weeks home and 2 weeks at work so he's home for 6 months a year. During that time, the water is wet, not solid, for about 100 to 120 days and of that he gets about half the time to use his boat. So TIME in his equation is about 50-60 day's potential boating a year. Of the potential days he may get 40% of them on the water in an average year so the real number of days is a couple weeks total.
[I realize AK is not the same as living in the 'old country' so the relative use days goes up as the latitude gets smaller. ]
What this means is; my friend works to afford his boat, and spends about 20 days a year afloat and the rest of the time he's got family and other commitments that out-prioritize his boating. He get's home from a hitch and hooks up to the truck and it's several hours pull to the harbor to launch; harbors in Alaska don't require taking ones boots off to count- they all fit on the fingers and in some places on one hand.
Can he realistically spend six or eight hours at 10 knots getting to his anchorage? What if he wanted to make a real cruise, can he spend 20-30 hours running to spend one day fishing or anchored only to run back?
Planing boats cut the on-the-water travel time but their design has to give up accommodation volume to allow them to be "trailerable". So what do we end up doing? Sprint out, try to get as much time on the water as possible, then sprint back- slow on the water is lower cost, sprinting is at the highest cost.
Most people try to pack as much living accommodation in a "trailer-ably" (new word) short hull. Further, to get the most power to wt. ratio we can get- the hulls use outboards instead of inboards cranking fuel use up, accessories down, and dominate the design's arrangement.
So, what I think would be a better arrangement (here, not necessarily in the 'old country') is a 20 -22' sedan to travel back and forth a power scow. I think it would be better to have a 40-some foot x 18' wide scow with all the amenities of a lodge/cabin/home and anchor it out. Run back and forth to the harbor/ highway/airport with a sitting only sharp bottom sedan 'commuter' skiff with a big block inboard.
If we drive a 40-someodd-foot scow out to an anchorage and drop the hook for a full season, then the runabout is used to commute to the parking lot with the vehicle to get home. An all metal scow/houseboat could be 'shuttered' with sheets of aluminum with interior studs to allow the entire hull to be one solid metal shell when you left. In the back of a bight that was sheltered and had no fetch sufficient to allow any big swells it could stay on the hook for the entire season and house the entire family and guests comfortably.
If someone boarder her, she'd be sealed unless they used power tools and did serious hull damage and that is not very common in our neck of the woods.
The sedan would handle six adults seating and move at 45-50 knots in calm seas allowing decent transit time and being metal with a sit down hardtop, provide those early spring and late fall runs when the weather isn't cooperating. Taking a 'green one' over the cabin would be a signal to back off the throttle but not an problem. An inboard/IO would heat the cabin well, provide the power to 'get home' and the combination of the two vessels would only approach the costs of some of our 28-32' fully equipped outboard powered boats commonly used today?
Just a thought, I'd like to hear from others regardless of the latitude of your boating.
cheers,
Kevin Morin