Every pro builder I’ve ever talked to says that any idiot can learn how to weld in just a couple months. I still don’t know how but I haven’t tried yet either. I’m going to learn one of these days. Ideally, the easiest way to go about it is if there’s Junior College in your town that offers classes. If there isn’t, you can still learn how but it will be a bit more hassle.

First, you need to buy the equipment. Get good stuff. Go to a decent welding supply store, tell the people what you want to do, and get what they suggest. Saving a few bucks and buying a low end tool of any kind is a dumb thing to do; get good tools. Wire feed systems make the neatest welds but cost more, are heavier and more awkward to carry around the boat, and need shelter from bad weather. “Stick” systems are the least expensive and most forgiving, but, they require a bit more skill to work neatly. All pros I talk to tell me that stick isn’t that hard to learn, and many “old time” pros tell me stick is the way for an amateur to go.

Which would I get? I dunno; decide for yourself!

If there’s no trade school near you you’ll have to teach yourself how to do it. However, this is possible. The welding store you buy your equipment from will have books; for instance, the company that makes Lincoln Welders has some fine “how to” info.

Even the smallest community will have somebody with a welding shop of some sort or another. I would find a local welder, and offer him 100 bucks to come by and get you started. Buy some scrap steel and have the guy show you how to weld it together.

After you feel comfortable doing that, and this will likely be a couple hours, you can start the boat.

Since you still don’t know what you’re doing, I suggest you start off by making the frames. These are straight line pieces, just welded at the chines, and will be easy. You can also make the deck beams and weld them on, but I wouldn’t. Doing that requires perfectly fair “setup,” and most home builders aren’t accurate enough in their lofting and setup to do that. It’s best to erect the frames, wrap a batten around the hull at the sheer, sight it to be sure it’s “fair,” adjust it to make it “fair,” and then weld on the deck beams.

How do you cut the steel?

There’s several ways. The “normal” is simply burning it with a torch. That works good but is hard to do very smoothly.

A metal cutting blade in a “sawsall” or “skillsaw” works OK but is slow; what works better for straight cuts anyway is a high quality “chop” saw with a good metal blade in it. One of the slickest things I’ve seen is a gadget that attaches to the cutting torch (see photo). It’s powered by electricity, has wheels, and allows you to burn out pieces as smoothly as a skill saw cutting wood. It costs around $300 and I’d buy one.

After the frames are made you’re probably semi-comfortable welding. Now do the keel.

The keel has long welds in it. You do NOT simply weld a continuous line. If you do that, you build up all sorts of stresses and at the least the keel will warp and at the worst it will blow apart later. Instead, like with any long seam, you weld 6” here, then 6” there, skipping around from side to side and place to place. You “tack” it together then “skip weld” around until you got it. Read a welding book for the proper sequence.

New steel comes with what’s called “mill scale” on the surface. This normally is removed by sand blasting before you can paint the finished boat. Sand blasting is a lot of work. You can hire it done, but it isn’t all that inexpensive to have somebody show up with the equipment. To avoid this, many people buy “wheel abraded pre-primed” steel. That way, all you need to do is spot blast the welded seams which you can do with cheap equipment, or grind down the welds, something you can easily do yourself.

I tend to think I’d use pre-primed material. However, here’s what some people don’t like about it.

This pre-primed stuff costs a bit more, although less than the added cost of hiring the sand blasting. But more important, some people worry that you don’t know exactly how well the prep work was done. It’s said by some that the quality of the “wheel abraded pre-primed” steel depends on how recently the “beaters” that scrub off the surface were replaced. People who worry about that say if you get a bunch of steel that was shipped off just at the end of the life of the wheels that do the scrubbing, well, you won’t get a good job. I dunno.

The next objection you hear is that the incredible new coatings require bare steel to really be effective. There’s new chemicals that turn rust to some sort of benign gray something or another that you can simply paint over. There’s even a new paint that the makers say doesn’t require sandblasting, the claim being it attaches well to mill scale and thoroughly binds it to the steel, and I’ve talked to some pretty knowledgeable folks who say it actually does the job; they use it inside the hull but still blast the outside.

Do these new coatings REALLY work? Who knows; probably, actually.

So these days I think while I’m sure these new chemicals work fine, I’d likely, myself, use pre-primed. It seems a lot simpler for a backyard builder or small shop to deal with.

What would I paint the hull with? I dunno. There’s new chemicals and resins appearing almost daily. When I had the metal work about done, I would start asking steel suppliers what they suggest. By the time I’ve written this I know there will be new products available I haven’t heard of.

If you look at construction plans for steel designs, you’ll notice two distinct building philosophies; heavy, or light. Steel is very strong, and also heavy. To save weight or to keep the center of gravity of the hull low, many designers spec out scantlings that are just stout enough to do the job, based on purely theoretic calculations of stress and load.

I disagree with this approach because light material is harder to work than heavy material, load factors are simply different than calculations can figure (such as hitting a log at night at 7 knots, striking the hull between the longitudinals; is there a calculation that figures how fast will you sink if you’ve used 1/8” plate to how many times you’ll wish you used 3/16” before you drowned? Lets call it, say, the “how long can you tread water” coefficient….) and, corrosion must always be considered. Today’s coatings are wonderful, but, steel can rust away as much as 1/16” in a year. I believe 1/8” plate is to thin for anything except perhaps a house wall and even then, it better be very low, or, backed up with a good structure behind it. I believe 1/8” is way to light for hull plate, and would rather have a plywood hull, which is stronger than steel for the weight, than an 1/8” steel hull.

Rather than a very light construction plan made up of many small pieces, I prefer a simple and heavy construction plan. Heavy frames and deck beams are less likely to distort when welding. 3/16” is the minimum plate thickness that will flow smoothly around the hull without tending to wrinkle. To see what I mean, wrap some tissue paper into a cone. Wrap a sheet of typing paper into a cone. The heavier paper is much easier to “control” the bend. Of course this all depends on what kind of boat you’re building and in some cases a low CG (center of gravity) is very important. But rarely is it important for a cruising boat. In fact, I know one large trawler yacht that had such an abrupt motion because of its low CG that the owner attached lead weights to the roof to RAISE the CG! I think he would have been better off with heavier plating on the hull and deck, but it was to late for that.

Like every other form of construction, steel boats are built differently in each region of the country. Our southern states tend to build them lighter than here in the Northwest, because use in the Gulf rarely strains them as much as can happen off the Pacific coast. Fine boats are built in the south, of course! But the typical Gulf shrimp boat isn’t as heavily built as an Alaskan crab boat. On my designs weight is rarely an issue, so if I err in my scantlings it’s always on the side of caution!

This gets us to the subject of the Drawn Waterline. This line is given the major significance in many quarters. Don’t get me wrong; floating near the “marks,” especially floating right side UP near the marks, is important! However, in “real” life the DWL doesn’t mean a damned thing. What this WL (what the DWL is more commonly called these days) is, is, a totally arbitrary line drawn by the designer, showing where he thinks the boat looks best floating. All the weight and satiability calculations and coefficients and whatnot are figured from this line. People worry about the line, and want to know how much ballast it will take to get to that line.

The answer depends on what kind of boat it is.

Take a rowboat or canoe. On the plans, there sits the boat floating on its WL. But in REAL life, it will NEVER sit there. The little boat when empty barely submerges. With 4 fat guys in it there might be just 3” of freeboard. Float on ITS waterline? NEVER! The same is the case with a cruising boat.

My friend Smitty, after loading his 54’ motorsailor down with 1500 gallons of fuel and all the miscellaneous junk he wanted for a two year cruise to Pogo Pogo, had his boat floating 6” below the DWL. This isn’t unusual; I doubt there was ever a cruising boat that didn’t float below its designed water line when fully provisioned because there’s a number of tons of consumables added in, and, you want the boat to be ballasted enough to stay right side up when the stores and fuel are low. That means it will float deeper than its WL when heading out on a trip. One way a designer can compensate for this is to give the topsides some good flair. Aside from looking good, it makes the hull volume get wider each inch it settles, making it harder to sink it any more.

Here’s an example of how that can work………

The 48’ Diesel Duck has about 36,000 of steel in her. By the time you finish her, the weight will be creeping up so that in normal running condition, she’ll we close to her 50,613 pound displacement. But as you load her, the harder she is to sink. If you were getting ready to cruise to Pogo Pogo and really loading her down, she’ll start sinking past the DWL. But not much. It takes 3.74 TONS to sink her 3” past her DWL. It takes around 6 TONS to sink her 6” past.
The ONLY boats that are meant to float on a designed waterline are race boats. In this case, especially with class race boats, things are very carefully figured around the WL. In fact small ones when at anchor will float bow down so that when there is crew in the cockpit, the boat will float on its DWL (designed water line).

This vagueness is very hard for some people to cope with, especially those with engineering degrees; them folks in particular, as a group, just can’t stand vagueness. I actually made an exception and refunded a guy’s plan purchase (all plans are sold as non-refundable, regardless of the designer) because he did a weight calculation after my weight calculation and discovered the boat he wanted to build would float several inches below this arbitrary DWL when fully provisioned. My reply of “so what?” didn’t wash with him, and rather than try to explain what I just did above, I gave him his money back and went fishing. Some things just aren’t worth arguing about……

Keel:

I like a heavy box keel. Many builders assemble the bottom frames to a point, and then use a 1” plate keel. That works well, but, I like a steel hull that has a box keel and stems like a wood boat. I think it looks better, and, it gives a solid base for the hull to sit on when hauled out or beached. Some people even compartment it off and use it as a fresh water cooling reservoir. I personally don’t like that and suggest heavy wall split pipe welded to the outside of the keel instead.

On sailboats and larger powerboats, the box keel will be quite deep near the stern, making it very difficult to reach inside to back weld the sides to the bottom. This solved by making the sides in two halves, joined where the shaft pipe runs. You can reach about 2 1/2’ to 3’ into the keel, and building it like I’ve described here will allow you to reach all parts of the keel bottom.

Frames and Deck Beams:

It’s debatable how important frames actually are in steel hulls. Some builders don’t use any, relying on bulkheads to hold the shape. Probably because of my wood boat background, I spec frames at even station spacings, usually 3’ to 3 1/2’ apart. I have seen one builder who erects one or two major bulkheads, then, sets up wood forms on the steel keel, hangs longitudinals to the forms, welds the plate on, then removes the forms. This works, but doesn’t look right to me. Besides, the frames make building the interior easier because you have attachment points. And, if you come down hard on a rock, a big frame will make it harder to dent in the hull.

Flat bar frames are normally used in boats under 80 foot or so. The problem is that flat bar, especially when you have smaller pieces or big boat frames, tends to be rather wobbly. An “L” shaped frame (angle iron) is far more rigid. There’s two problems here. The stock material angle sections are harder to find in the type of dimensions you’d normally want for your frames. And, the top will be facing the hull sides which makes it impossible to sand blast underneath the top. If you want to use “L” section frames, in the “old days” you would first sand blast and prime them before you plate the hull. Or use pre-blasted and primed material. Of course today you also have the option of using one of the new chemicals that are supposed to do what sand blasting does. An angle iron frame in big boats might make sense because the angle frames are less floppy. I don’t know if I’d use it though.

Right now is where you need to start thinking ahead to make things easier for yourself.

One of the problems with hull materials except wood is that they condensate, so unless you insulate, you’ll be miserable inside. Steel is no different. There’s all sorts of types of insulation with the best being blown in. This has to TOTALLY cover the steel or it will drip. A common mistake is to insulate flush with the deck beams, which ain’t good enough; you need to COVER everything.

I strongly suggest, before assembling and erecting the frames or deck beams, that you take the pieces to a drill press and drill a series of 11/32” holes, maybe 10” apart, about 1” from the inboard edge of the frame or deck beam. This will make it very easy to bolt, with 5/16” galvanized carriage bolts, a wood strip to the frame. This strip will extend 1/2” past the frame or deck beam, should be say 1” x 2 1/2”, and the foam insulation will be blown in so that it covers the plate and frames and is flush, at the frames, with the outer edge of the wood strip. Then, you can easily attach a hull liner, such as 1/2” cedar, to the wood, with common ring nails. Plan on these strips at least as far down as the waterline, or chine, which is normally past the waterline. There’s no real need to insulate much past the waterline. Use pressure treated wood for these strips. Some people “shoot” the strips with one of those guns that can shoot nails into steel. This is faster than bolting, but the “nails” aren’t as heavy as the bolts and they won’t be galvanized. If you do it that way I suggest epoxying the strips to the frames too. Some people just use epoxy to hold the strips in but I would never rely on that. Today’s glues are marvelous but they’re even better when backed up with a bolt……

While I’m mentioning these strips, I believe before foaming the interior I’d stand up any major wood bulkheads. These will be important structural things for holding the interior in, so I’d want them securely bolted to the frames. I’d use MDO double side plywood, I’d epoxy coat the area touching the steel, and I’d still bed or put a piece of tar paper, between the plywood and where it lays against the steel frame. Attach fairing strips on each side of the bulkhead. They give a guide to how deep you blow in the foam.

Now then. The frames in my designs (and most “west coast” built boats) are not meant to have the plate welded to them. While the hull lines are “faired” via computer and are very accurate, steel plate is rigid stuff and wants to bend in its own fashion.

The idea is that the frames are stood up, then, a wood batten, say 3/4” x 1”, is wrapped around the frames about in the position the construction plan shows the hull longs (longitudinals) running. The exact position doesn’t matter at all. I like to see longs roughly a foot to no more than 16” apart. Run the batten, mark the frames where the batten hits, “nip” out a slot for the long at each point.

Longitudinals:

The “longs” wrap around the hull and are your fairing points. To get a really “fair” hull, as I said, the plate isn’t welded to the frames at all. Instead, the “longs” are lightly tacked to every other frame, the plate is hung and then the longs are moved out to meet the plate wherever the plate doesn’t touch them. Ideally you’ll have two or three plates per side and bottom (depending on the boat’s length, of course).

Bending these longs can be a bitch because the average rectangular section, 1/4” x 1 1/2” or so, simply doesn’t want to bend “fair.” Ship construction and some yacht builders uses angle or “T” section for the longs and that works for pleasures boats but it has some disadvantages to balance against how easy they bend. These are: you can’t sandblast behind the “L” or “T” shape so again, I’d pre-blast the piece. Unless of course, you’re using pre-blasted and primed steel. You have to cut a hell of a notch in the frame for the angle iron to fit in, and I don’t like that although of course you can weld a patch over the big notch. But the biggie that bothers me is that to get a really “fair” hull, the plate will rarely want to exactly lay on the frames. That means the longs, if they are set into the frames, won’t touch the plate unless you bang and force the plate against the frames, and that’s to much hassle. It seems better to weld the plate at the sheer and the chine, and let the surface between those points bulge out as it may want to, then, from inside, let the longs out to touch the plate. So while the flat bar is harder to actually bend around the hull, it’s easier to heat and move out to the plate, and, it requires less of a cutout from the frame. So I’d likely use flat bar for the longs in the type of boats that most of us are building. BUT, angle bends smoother than flat bar and if you have hull lines that you are positive are “conically developed” allowing the plate to really follow the frame shapes, the “L” or “T” longs will work fine. Make a scale model, say 1 1/2” to the foot, to see…….

After you erect the frames and tack in the longs, you do the plate. Now here is where I would probably hire a guy who knows what he’s doing to help. The material is heavy and doesn’t want to go where you want it to go. Somebody experienced with steel helping you is well worth a few hundred bucks.

Plate:

Plating should be done with as long of plates as you can get; ideally two a side and bottom although three is more likely. The reason you use as few plates as possible is because that makes a “fairer” hull; hulls built as I’m describing come out looking as smooth as plywood, without bondo finishing, either.

After the frames, and the chine bar if used, and the sheer pipe are in, make a plywood pattern of the side and bottom. 1/8” door skin is the easiest but it’s delicate. 1/4” plywood is less apt to break, in large sizes like we’re dealing with.

While I’d make the pattern to fit along the keel, I’d leave the top several inches or more higher than the sheer. The sheer line is very important that it be “fair” and the consensus among the pros is that it is better to plate the hull, then go back, wrap a batten around the sheer marks, and burn it out to the line. That guarantees you’ll get a smoothly flowing sheer line.

Along this line, you see many people who stand up the frames with the deck beams already attached to them. This works as long as your lay-out and set-up is perfect, but, like with wood boats, it seems it’s a better chance of getting a “fair” sheer if you just stand up the frames, wrap a batten (and I’d use a piece of flat-bar, say 1/8” x 3” around the frames at the sheer marks, and site it. If it isn’t “fair” that shift the batten where you need to and make it “fair.” Then weld in the deck beams.

Some people don’t use any chine bar, just letting the side and bottom meet and then welding them together. The advantage of this method is that there is just one weld at the chine, where with a bar, there’s two welds as each plate needs to be welded to the bar. Supposedly the advantage of a 1/2” or 1” sold bar chine is that the slight roundness makes the paint stay on easier than it does on a corner. Frankly, I don’t know if that concern makes sense because 1) you’ll grind down the weld so will be smoothing the edge over, and 2) the new paints, like “ceram-coat” apparently are very hard to make wear off. If I was building, the appeal and simplicity of one weld at the chine would seem pretty appealing, I think. If you do use a chine bar, use SOLID bar, not pipe.

Make the patterns to whatever size you’re going to plate with. If you’re using three plates per side or bottom than make three patterns. Lay the pattern on your plate, trace it, then burn it to shape.

Now, here’s where I get away from “normal” procedure but, it works. One of my builders, an absolute ace welder who thought I was full of crap on this, tried it to prove me wrong. He wrote and told me he was shocked how much easier what I said was, and here is a prime example how, when you don’t know what you’re doing, simply thinking about what makes sense and doing it usually is the right thing to do.

For some reason both wood and steel builders start plating (or planking) in the middle of the boat, which makes it a bitch to pull the plate into the bow and stern. I’ve always thought it makes more sense to attach the material AT the bow and stern, then bend it to the middle. This way, the plate flows like it wants. Don’t worry about if it hits the frames or not, that doesn’t matter. Lightly tack it to the bow, wrap it around the hull (use come-a-longs or whatever), and where it ends, weld it to the longs.

Go to the stern and do the same thing. If you’re using more than two plates, now attach the middle ones; there’s little bend here so they’ll be easier to pull into position.

Go inside the boat. The plate is flowing around the hull but likely not touching all the frames or longs. Ignore the frames; you don’t weld to them anyhow. But, if there’s a place where the plate isn’t touching the longs, release the longs from where they’re tacked to the frames and using heat, push them out to touch the plate. Now weld them to the plate with short welds every foot or so, and securely weld the longs back into the frames. If you do it this way, your hull plate will end up as smooth as a prom queen’s thighs.

You see, steel, like plywood, is self fairing. It WANTS to flow on so don’t fight it. Let the hull plate go onto the boat the way it wants to. Don’t think about the frames because all they’re for is to hold the longs.

When you build the boat, there are many places where things can be done in any number of ways. Especially, regarding the shaft log pipe.

I don’t spec out the engine for your boat because I don’t sell engines. Many different ones will work, and everybody uses what they like best or can afford. Each engine will require a different shaft and prop, determined by the HP, transmission reduction, and type of prop. Therefore, the size of the shaft log and the various stuffing boxes and packings can’t be specified either, other than I try to spec a shaft pipe, in steel designs, that is big enough to take what I assume will be the “average” shaft most of you will use.

Now, if you call a marine store, you’ll discover there are cutlass bearings and inner seals for each size shaft that have a variety of O.D. (outside diameter), and NONE of them will fit into any pipe size you can find. Wood builders normally simply buy a bronze outer bearing, have a cutlass bearing pressed in, and then bolt that to the keel.

Steel builders have to goof around a bit more. Since no standard pipe has an I.D. (inside diameter) that matches the O.D. of any bearing, you can’t just press the cutlass into the pipe shaft log unless of course you take it someplace where there’s a lathe and have it bored out to fit a cutlass.

The noraml and probably simplest way around this is to first decide what shaft size you need, then, make your shaft tube out of a pipe with a larger I.D. than the O.D. of the cutlass bearing the shaft requires. There are various epoxy compounds that are used for filling the gap; “Chockfast Orange” is a common one.

I’ve never worked with this stuff but I think if I was to do it, I’d install the inner stuffing box on the pipe by using a common “self aligning” style inboard speedboat system of heavy rubber hose, hose clamped to the stern tube, with the inside stuffing box hose clamped to that. Then, I’d run a wood dowel or a pipe or something, the same O.D. as the shaft, through the stern tube, longer than the stern tube. I’d slide the outside cutlass bearing over this rod, smear it good with “chockfast orange” or an equal, and slide it into the stern tube. The dowel will make the cutlass line up with the inside stuffing box.

Never working this stuff makes it hard for me to tell you how to do it. One concern is that you don’t want this goop to stick to well to the bearing because you will need to remove it some day. Perhaps the answer is to coat the bearing with wax before gooping it? I’m sure the directions will discuss that. Regardless, the important thing is that the cutlass is in align with the inside stuffing box, and the dowel, or the shaft for that matter instead of a dowel (the dowel is lighter weight so easier to handle) will guarantee the alignment is OK.

Once the cutlass is installed, drill the stern tube on each side and insert a stainless set screw into the cutlass to hold it in place. Actually, I’d drill the holes and tap in the threads BEFORE installing the cutlass, then, after it’s in, drill into the cutlass for the set screw. Do not drill clear through the outer case and into the rubber.

Many steel boats use normal brass walled cutlasses. Electrolysis doesn’t happen because the hull itself is zinced. This is normal. However, the normal brass housing, used either in steel or a cast bronze wood boat holder, does make a slight surface corrosion, making it harder to remove down the road. I don’t know how it works in the epoxy goop stuff. But to avoid this, I’ve been looking into it and have recently learned about NON-METALLIC bearings.
These cutlass bearings are made by several companies such as DURAMAX and MORSE, and are in a fiberglass housing. It’s claimed they last as well as the brass ones but are cheaper, and do not corrode at all, making them easier to remove. Like the brass ones, they come in 2 to 3 outside diameters to fit a variety of inside diameter pipe shaft logs. For instance, if you’re using a 2” I.D. pipe shaft log, you can buy a cutlass that will hold as small as a 1” shaft to as big as a 1 1/2” shaft. I tend to spec large I.D. shaft logs because that gives you more options. There’s no reason not to put a 3” I.D. shaft log in a boat with a larger shaft because that will give you some “meat” to the cutlass, which means it will last longer. And of course the “chockfast orange” or the like will fill the slop.

I recently examined a boat with an unusual engine installation consisting of a flex coupling and 2 universals in a drive line connected to the prop shaft. The advantage of this is the engine can sit lower, and, there is no vibration at all. In fact, the engine could even be off center! The owner claimed the engine could jump the mounts and lay on its side without disturbing the alignment!

I’ve taken this idea to its logical end on a new design, a 49’ DUCK. The engine on this boat is installed in the bow. The sole supports of the wheelhouse are fore and aft allowing a higher sole, giving full standing headroom below the house. The interior layout starches from the transom clear up to station 14’, where there is a major bulkhead. The engine room is in front of that. The wheelhouse is a bit further forward; the front wall is at station 14, and the dry stack will run up through the front of the house. I suppose a dry exhaust line could run below the sole and come up in the place shown on the other DUCKS, but I would likely look at a wet exhaust in this case; it’s simpler. Maybe even the “north sea” type, exiting the hull in the engine room? Like the rest of the boat this can be handled in many different ways so do what you think best. This is a good time to repeat the basic rule of boatbuilding, especially amateur boatbuilding, which is, and repeat after me; “nothin is carved in stone.” The point is, there is rarely a “wrong” way to do anything, boats have been built and systems have been installed in all sorts of different fashions, and you know what? They all seem to work. So do it in a manner that seems the thing to do to you. You might have a clearer picture of the situation than the designer…..

Ronnie Hanson in Michigan or Egypt or wherever it is he lives way away from the “coast” told me about a guy in his neighborhood who built a 65’ steel sailboat, and when he finished, he came up with a pretty slick way of transporting it.

Since the boat has a heavy steel keel, these guys weld on a couple axles from a semi truck junk yard. They put on air shocks and brakes, just like a real semi trailer. Then they weld a “third wheel” hitch, like a big RV uses, on the stem. The semi “tractor” can hitch on to this, and off you go to the water!

This works fine, is less expensive because you can hire a “gypo” trucker rather than a “boat transport company,” and, as long as the “trailer” (your boat and its wheels) meet D.O.T. standards for brakes and lights, is perfectly legal! Just don’t go under any overpasses…..

This is condensed down from a couple chapters in my book The Troller Yacht Book, Norton Publishing, available mail order from me or from better bookstores anywhere. I suggest if what you read here makes sense to you then read the book! It goes into far more detail…..

We’ve all read books and magazine articles about people who’ve cruised the world in small sailboats but many folks never realized that while those few were out sailing countless small powerboats were out there, too, their owners for the most part also earning a living, but not by writing for yachting magazines.

Western America and Canada have some of the most and treacherous coastline in the world, with few protected anchorages–a trip to be attempted only by seaworthy boats and mariners who are prepared. Sailing yachtsmen who negotiate this coast make a big deal of it, and rightly so. But God only knows how many 30- to -50-foot fishboats have gone up and down that coast routinely. And that’s nothing unusual; little fishboats are running over the oceans everywhere. For instance, some regularly chug back and forth across the North Atlantic from Iceland to England smuggling in fish, and buying booze and electronics to smuggle in home.

It’s funny how many of us never notice that. I was raised in Oregon and grew up with this stuff but it took me three sailboats and almost 30 years of boat building, owning, dreaming, buying, reading, designing and ETC. to see what was in front of my face; that small ocean going powerboats were the basis for a damned good cruising boat. And not only that, I came to understand that they made sense cost wise both for initial expense, and long term operations.

While most people who think about “goin’ cruisin” only consider sailboats, the record is clear: Day in and day out, quietly and without attention, small seagoing powerboats prove time and again that they are proper vessels for venturing out to sea, keeping their crews safe and considerably more comfortable than they would be in a sailboat.

If you read today’s boating press, ocean cruising in a powerboat these days means ocean cruising in a trawler yacht. The better ones are safe, seaworthy, and solid ocean-going cruisers, no question about it. But not all! I’ve seen some being advertised that would need to be towed by a tugboat to go against a chop, with mechanical and electrical systems that even the US Navy couldn’t keep operational!

My objection to their being held up as examples of the ideal ocean-going power cruiser is not that they aren’t able, for many certainly are. But they’re tanks! Their wide, deep hulls may have plenty of room, but they also need plenty of power to push them through the water. And those high, shippy-looking topsides and commodious houses have a great deal of windage.

When it comes to drag, windage is actually worse than wetted surface. A huge hull may take a while to reach hull speed if it doesn’t have much power, but it will eventually get rolling along, in calm conditions of course.

With an ocean-cruising boat, we care less about speed than about mileage, or range. A trim hull with reduced windage moves easily through the water and the air, and so it needs less horsepower than a tank of similar length but 50% or more displacement, and less horsepower means less fuel used.

The theoretical model for the trawler yacht is a heavy-duty commercial fishing boat, sort of a seagoing bulldozer. Its voluminous hull is beamy and high, with plenty of displacement to support the weight of the giant winches and booms that hoist the huge, fish-filled net free of the water and over the side. There’s nothing subtle about the way a trawler fishes. Its mammoth engine drags a heavy net across the ocean floor, scooping up everything in its path and scraping the bottom clean. I’m surprised they haven’t been outlawed. For instance, aside from destroying the bottom habitat, the “by catch,” which is what the fish that aren’t in season or otherwise aren’t wanted but are caught in the nets are called, in Alaska in any given year is 400 to 500 MILLION tons. They shovel it over the side.
While the working trawler may be a rugged and seaworthy boat, it’s a poor choice as a model for a cruising boat. A trawler is designed to haul weight, to be a semi-stable working platform, to fight the sea, not flow with it. Its fat hull is designed to hold tons of fish, not the comparatively light weight of a cruising couple’s worldly goods, and it needs lots of power to push it through the water. And lots of power means lots of fuel.

Getting inspiration from fishing boats is nothing new in the cruising world. Earlier in this century, sailboat designers also went to commercial fishing boats for inspiration, and designers like William Atkin and L. Francis Herreshoff fine-tuned working watercraft into perfect examples of safe and able ocean-going yachts. Atkin’s wonderful INGRID is a perfect example of a Scandinavian fishing boat design, fine tuned down to the needs of a cruising couple. It was designed to carry a couple of people and their personal effects, not a hold full of fish and ice. Unlike most contemporary sailing designs, it has sufficient area underwater to track well and heave-to easily. It has a fully protected rudder and propeller, and a long keel that allows it to be beached or easily hauled out on small railways. Unlike some “traditional” sailboats, the INGRID actually sails well enough on all tacks to be cruised without an engine. For the less gung-ho, 10 horsepower will get them around in calm conditions, and 30 horsepower would do in almost any situation.

That tack into sail was necessary to make a point: While the INGRID and some other sailing yachts are highly evolved, perhaps even perfect off-shore cruising boats, there are far fewer cruising powerboats with that degree of refinement. Most are pretty much just standard trawler hulls fitted out as live-a-boards rather then fishboats. They’re safe, roomy for their length, and have comfortable interiors. But they definitely aren’t efficient long-range cruisers.

The problem, as I see it, is that powerboat designers went to the wrong fishboat for inspiration. Long-range cruisers don’t need a trawler yacht; they need a TROLLER yacht.

The West Coast salmon trollers evolved to meet criteria very similar to what we want for a long-range ocean-going powerboat. Salmon trollers don’t go out like farm machinery and plow the same grounds every day. They catch their fish, no surprise, by trolling—towing hooks and lines–and individual boats usually don’t catch that many fish at a time. They don’t need to. Because the fish aren’t marked or torn up by nets, troll-caught salmon are the most valuable fish on the West Coast, ending up in the best restaurants and fish markets, while netted salmon end up in cans or fillets. Since they were designed to carry a small quantity of high-value salmon instead of a huge slug of low-cost fish, trollers don’t need to be as fat and burdensome as trawlers. Instead, trollers are designed to move through the water easily and cover a lot of water, while using as little fuel as possible.

Trollers frequently run for hours, sometimes even days, looking for fish. Many start the season in central California and by the end of the season range the entire coast, clear up to Oregon and Washington. And because the coast offers few harbors, they often stay out in bad weather.

In their glory days, trollers ranged in length from the low 30s, for boats that usually hung around one area, to the high 40s, for boats that wandered the coast or went way offshore looking for tuna. You hardly ever see one much over 50 feet, because they were usually operated by one person alone, or sometimes by a crew of two. Pretty much like an ocean-going cruising boat, if you think about it.

Salmon trollers hit their peak in terms of design efficiency by the 1940s. Then engine designs started changing, and power plants became available that were more powerful, lower maintenance, and most significantly lighter weight for their power output; this resulted in hull designs changing to take advantage of the new power. But at their zenith, before their fine-lined hulls began to pork-up to handle larger engines or to be able to “cross-dress” into other fisheries besides trolling, the Pacific trollers were as close to perfection in terms of seaworthiness and efficiency under power as anything since the Eskimo kayak. Their basic concept needs very little tweaking to become the roots for a highly efficient, ocean-going power cruiser.

Think of a Troller Yacht as a Performance Cruiser, not a beast of burden like a trawler yacht. Compared with them, our performance cruiser is far more affordable to build, maintain, and operate; it’s easily handled by a short-handed crew and perfectly comfortable for extended stays aboard. A Troller Yacht, unlike a trawler yacht, is well within the financial range of most folks with middle-class incomes to own AND operate!

Here’s a couple photos (taken in 1998) of the Oregon based troller FRANCIS. I’m going to own a boat like her one day. I’ll keep her perfectly restored and maybe even fish it the few days of the year allowed… . Their day is over, thanks to MBA “fish managers” who regulate in favor of corporate owned craft with no regard for the social and economic values that small family owned fishing vessels represented to our coastal communities as well as our country…. But I’ll spare you; read The Troller Yacht Book if you want to hear more about that…..

Big Mel, a B&B and charter boat, in Holland

Jolly Bear is an OLGA

Just Imagine is a steel OTTER

Occasionally I get an overwhelming urge to again see some of the old time northwest things I was raised around and which are so rapidly disappearing, so get in an old Dodge pickup truck I own and drive over to the coast. For instance; the gypo mill and its sawdust burner. How many of our area’s emigres from other states know what it’s like to drive a rainy windy northwest night along a twisty narrow road on the shores of a Pacific coastal river and to suddenly come upon a 50′ tall glowing red sheet metal cone, burning sawdust from a little mill.

Environmental concerns closed the burners and the scrapers hauled most of them away just 30 years ago yet I know where several still stand, rusting and idle, but still with us. Pilings in a river can make me pause and imagine what activities took place there as recently as when my father was my age. When I was a boy the coastal rivers were still used by the loggers to store and transport the great fir, cedar, and hemlock logs, torn from forests so thick and huge that nobody could possibly dream that in just 25 years saving the remaining few would actually be an issue.

Old abandoned railroad bridges still lean across a few northwest streams and rivers although their metal tracks were pulled up and sold for scrap and the little steam engines that ran on them stuck away to rust in small town parks long ago. But as recently as 1968 the railroad did run up the Washington coast as far as Moclips and when my wife’s grandmother was young she and her friends would ride the excursion train up from Portland and scoop crabs by the bag full off the beach.

Built as a “Lumber Baron’s” home, it’s now a private club, in Eureka, California

A bit more modest home, across the street!

But what I most miss is the time so shortly passed when the coastal towns were all alive and thriving, not just tourist destinations. While some populous politicians bemoan the fate of the family farm and federal money provides low interest loans and outright grants to farmers, the family owned fishing boat, the small independent canneries, the little boat building and repair firms, the gypo logger, have about all gone the way of the Dodo bird. As recently as the 1980s, Westport and Winchester Bay, Astoria, Newport, Florence, Bandon, and all the other little towns clear down to Santa Barbara were brim full of stout little family owned vessels, tow boats and crabbing boats and draggers and best of all, the trollers.

The trollers were the aristocrats of the fleet. Trollers didn’t trap or snare or drag huge nets across the bottom. Trollers caught fish by outwitting them, fishing for them. Beautiful to look at because their hull lines were created to be sea kindly rather than just working platforms, they ranged the entire coast towing baited lines and catching salmon which is why they were called “trollers.” Even today, “troll caught” is the best salmon because it isn’t marked up from nets nor scooped out of fish farm tanks. They had brave names like “Scout” and “Dauntless” and “Resolute” and Defiant”. Some were named for wives or daughters like “Mary H. or “Patty Ann” or even named for BOTH wife and daughter like the “Helen and Missy.” There was the “Mike” and the “North” and the “Beaver” and a whole host of others from the brave to the sentimental to the silly.

The trollers are slowly disappearing. Oh, there’s still a small active fleet in Alaska, but down here the season is so short that most years a troller can’t earn a living unless he does other fisheries or trades too, so few are still seriously working. A few retired ones can be seen, slowly deteriorating, tied to an old float in some out of the way place. But some are still active, owned by tough and skilled men who refuse to give up and still fish the few days per year the state allows them. And a very few are lovingly maintained and fished by folks with disposable cash, Northwest bred, who love the life and for several weeks out of the year “go fishin” not needing nor caring if they make any money at it.

But it isn’t like back when I was a boy and a young man could get a commercial license down at the fish and game office, fix up or build a small boat into a troller, and if his luck was good after several years he’d be able to buy a real one. My attempts were in a 21 foot dory with hand powered “gurdies” to manage the lines. I’ve never worked so hard for so little money in my life, which is why I didn’t stick with it. But that’s just paying the dues, and plenty of men DID stick with it, learned how to do it, and supported their families at it. Like the family farm, the family fishing boat was often passed on to a son, a daughter and son-in-law, or sometimes just the daughter, and they too earned their living with it.

The trollers symbolize the northwest to me, and it’s maddening that what killed them wasn’t the inevitable forces of “progress” or “technology” or the very depletion of the resource, those carved in stone things that spelled the doom of the old narrow highways with their covered bridges, the steam trains, the gypo logging. The trollers and the whole way of life they represented were done in by paper decree, by bureaucrats and fisheries managers who didn’t care about anything except managing the “resource,” as the salmon are called today, and who’s business college backgrounds made them unable to see the whole economic and esthetic picture the salmon were the hub of.

By the early 70’s the poor salmon were in trouble. Corporate logging was leveling entire mountains and valleys of their forests leaving a landscape that would rival anything an atomic bomb could do, destroying hundreds of streams where the salmon once spawned. Other rivers were damned up or diverted to irrigation canals, blocking the salmon from their spawning grounds. Off our shores Asian and east European owned fishing factories were spreading their “curtains of death;” nets as long as 30 miles, catching and killing everything that came across them, birds beyond counting, and of course entire schools of salmon.

From a management point of view, a troller is to damned independent. You never know where one will show up and how many salmon he’ll catch. In fact, the “highliner” boats, those that caught the most, often started the season down off San Luis or Monterey, following the fish clear up into Washington.

The first thing the managers did was put in “Limited Entry.” They stopped issuing new licenses. Suddenly a young guy couldn’t fix up a boat and “go fishin.” He had to first buy a license from somebody retiring. The license prices soared, and while today a Washington troll license is practically valueless, in Alaska it can exceed $100,000. Limited entry about shut out new fishermen because you have to buy somebody else’s licensee to fish. It didn’t help the fish because it kept out new people, usually young people, who didn’t know what they were doing so didn’t pose much threat to the fish, but now couldn’t pursue what had been a traditional northwest thing like working in the woods or at a mill. It did nothing at all for the salmon because it didn’t impose any catch limits nor did it effect all the other pressures on the fish. All it did was block people without the money to buy a decent boat and gear and who usually didn’t even know HOW to fish from being able to try it! So next, Washington state decided to buy up all the trollers. Every guy with a rotten boat or who couldn’t catch fish signed up for this program and the state dealt out millions of dollars to buy them out, then auctioned them off for pennies on the dollar with the condition being that once the boat went through the “buy back” program, it couldn’t ever fish again in Washington. Well, Indians bought them since they don’t feel they live in Washington or the US, until it comes time to collect benefits of course. Californians and Oregonians and Alaskans bought them too, and immediately put them back into service in their states. The upshot of it all again had little effect on the salmon, NO effect on the highliners (what a top producing fisherman is called), and still didn’t address the main problems; the environmental destruction and factory fishing ships. It just made one more obstacle for a young guy starting out. Now there were hardly any low end boats to buy so if a guy wanted to be a troller he had to have even more money, and if you have much money you weren’t likely to want to go through all the dues to become a fisherman.

The death of the trollers and with them the real decline of the coastal communities finally came in the early 1980’s when the regulators came up with “closures.” This was the result of several big things. A federal judge named Boldt had decreed that the Indian treaties allowed Indians one half of the harvestable salmon. It came out several years after his death that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when he made this decision, but his ruling stands today. Odd how Indian treaty rights never seem to effect things like downtown Seattle real estate or Weyerhaeuser corporate holdings, but of course little farmers, loggers, or fishing boat owners have neither the money or influence required to protect themselves from the Barons of Capital or Law. And finally, President Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior James Watt announced soon after his appointment that he believed the Second Coming is almost upon us and he knew that Jesus would want to see we had used the Earth’s resources.

This wasn’t the best climate for creative thinking to take place and the way fisheries people went about balancing the declining salmon with the Indians and Jesus was to target specific salmon fisheries and give them certain days to fish specific places. This was an attempt to closely regulate the number of fish caught so they could be divided up among the Indians, the sport fishermen, and the commercial boats.

The reason a troller is damned hard to regulate is because you never know where the guy will show up, which school of fish he’s found, or actually worse, whether or not he’ll catch anything. So the managers wrote them off. One seine boat or gillnetter can be stationed where a school is known to run and can scoop up a predetermined number of fish. A pack of them can close off a river or inlet for 6.2 hours or 3.7 hours or whatever the time frame happens to be that day, and “X” number of salmon will be caught. So today, rather than a great number of small inefficient boats catching the fish, we have a small number of very efficient boats catching the fish.

So what, you’re probably thinking. I suppose I sound like any other aging coot remembering only the good things about years gone by but I miss my old northwest where so much interesting stuff was happening. Tough men and stout little boats like Jack Conway and “Adios,” one of the most beautiful trollers in the fleet, a boat so seaworthy no Pacific storm seemed able to hurt her. “Adios” once surfed a whole quarter mile on her side while riding out an early spring gale, scaring the crap out of Jack while doing it, regaining her feet with a shrug and daring the sea to try something else. Incredible boats like her were suddenly forced to idle away at the dock. When “Adios” and all the others couldn’t fish enough to support themselves whole families saw the end of their livelihood and moved away. When the fishing boats not working the boatyards and chandleries that took care of them closed down and their people moved away. Finally the little canneries, unable to get fish, closed down, and when the cannery closes there goes the town. The cannery was always the place where ANYBODY could get a job; dirty, messy, cold, and often hazardous though it may often be, it was still a job, and many of us from the coastal areas found ourselves working the cannery more than once.

Sadly neglected, then finally abandoned at the dock in Florence Oregon, on her way to a date with the land fill. What a waste….

Today (as the November 1995 issue of National Geographic pointed out), we have a few big boats based for the most part in cities, and a whole lifestyle that I loved is gone. It didn’t have to be that way either. Denmark was faced with the same sort of problems. They didn’t have Indian fishing treaties, but they do have neighboring countries which seems to be the same thing. But there, they used the idea of a boat catch quota. Their coastal towns are alive with swarms of small timers and all the inter-related businesses, and fishermen are limited to the number of fish they can catch. Nobody gets rich, but many earn livings. Rather than regulate for corporate interests, they decided to protect the way of life and their small coast town economies.

So as I drive the Washington and once a year often down the Oregon coast too, in my mind I see a chandlery where the kite shop over there sits. The weathered pilings in the bay again have huge rafts of logs tied to them and the old abandoned gypo mill’s rusty machinery and leaning sawdust burner are humming away. The plastic sports fishing boats are gone and I see the harbor brim full of trollers and the bayside motel with heated pool is a cannery. That health food store doesn’t exist at all and the kids playing video games in the arcade are out working with their dads and moms on the land or water. That’s how it was not so many years ago and that’s how it will stay for me even if I must imagine it.

I spec out normal “traditional” wood construction with a bit of a twist. I’m also a home wood boatbuilder, and as a result I draw construction plans that I can build, and spec materials I can afford. This is nothing particularly original; I got most of my ideas from reading Bill Garden, Will Atkin, Sam Rabhl, Howard Chapelle, and various articles in old and now gone boat mags. Then I added a bit of 80s “immediacy” and I’ve been told “counter-culture” attitudes, and the results are pretty feasible building projects if I do say so! You hear a bit of flack about this attitude from some of the “purists” out there in the mists because they think that such an attitude is somehow suspect; it’s “do-able”to use a bit of today’s jargon, and to be faced with the idea that yes, an amateur can indeed build a large boat of wood, without a great deal of tools or money, annoys them because, I suspect, it means they can’t think of a good reason why they still don’t do it…… Talk is so cheap. I want to hear what people are DOING, not gonna do!

Forgive me; I enjoy poking fun at people who take things to seriously and believe me, many people, especially the younger ones who really don’t know what they’re talking about, have some strong strong opinions regarding what is RIGHT and WRONG about wood construction. I suspect I had a touch of that once myself but it disappeared many years ago when I realized if I was ever going to be able to build my own larger boat I had to get off my pulpit and spend some time around workboat builders to see how they did it. And you know, I found I not only came to understand the concept of simplicity, but, I came to appreciate and value it. A toy for a little Princes on a pond is one thing but a cruising boat is quite another! Anyway, for more than you care to learn about homebuilding a wood cruising boat read my BUEHLER’S BACKYARD BOATBUILDING available from me or in better bookstores everywhere. Now, here’s a few drawings.

The keel is the “backbone” of the ship. Big timbers are expensive and hard to most places these days (we shipped much of our decent wood to Japan in the 1990s by the forest load) but “2-by” is still available in lumberyards. I spec out keels laminated into “timbers”from normal lumberyard house construction 2-bys.

This is a construction cross-section that shows specific details at a “cutaway.” It’s showing two views, actually; on the left is the house and side deck, and on the right is a full deck beam and raised sheer. The 48 DUCK has both! To keep things simple I spec lots of lamination, making a single large piece from multiple layers of thin stock. You’ll note this is a “single chine” hull, a type of hull that is ideal for homebuilding both steel and wood. The wood version has frames that are two straight pieces joined at the chine by plywood gussets. It’s sort of like a house roof joist. The ones shown here are 2 1/2″ x 5″ frame pieces joined by 1″plywood gussets on each side, and makes a very very strong hull.A good table saw is essential. I’ve done it with a Sears Craftsman more times than I care to think about but now I own a $900 220volt Grizzly. The Craftsman works just fine but the heavier saw is easier. Good tools are always a big help…..

Here’s a typical Main Construction Plan. It shows just about every piece of wood in the boat. It’s hard to see in this drawing but if you look close you’ll see arrows with numbers above them pointing at various places, and then up above, is the written description. The bottom view splits the hull into two sections; the top is looking down on her from above the deck. It shows the deck frame and part of the deck itself.The lower half is the view from below the deck beams. you’ll note diagonal lines on this view just fwd. of the mid-section. There’s showing the first layer of planking which is installed on a diagonal.This is called “cross planking” or “planking ala Maryland,” is as old as time, and is very very simple. There’s little waste and easy fitting. Bigger hulls like this boat (48DUCK) will then have three layers of 3/8″ ply over the hull.Smaller ones like the 38 can get by with a single layer of “2-by”(1 1/2”) planking and no plywood. Or of course can be composite too.

If you’d like to see some photos of a 48 DUCK being built of wood by a homebuilder, click Wood Photos!

A common question I get is a variation on….”hey; the sail rig on the DUCKS and the other powerboats you show with one mast looks weird; the mast is too far back. The headsail luff is raked to much and the foot overlaps the side of the wheel house so much it would need to be walked around when tacking. You really think that rig will work?”
No, of course I don’t think it will work. That’s whyI drew it on all the boats, spent hours working up the sail and rigging plans, and devoted a chapter to it in The Troller Yacht Book…..

To try to be serious…. I realize that sometimes when you’revery close to a subject things seem clear to you but you don’t explain them well, and by putting sails on these boats many people think they’re motorsailers and then think the rig is goofy because I guess I never made it clear they aren’t sailboats.A lot of thought went into that rig idea and here’s whatI was thinking.

1) The mast has to be aft of the house because if it is forward of the house (like I’ve seen some modifications to the DUCK being planned), the boom will be to high for you to reach the sail easily, and the boom will strafe the roof of the house and take out antennas, lights, exhaust, and the radar when you change tack or need to swing it over. As designed, the boom doubles asa cargo hoist and with the mast aft the boom can easily be used for hoisting a skiff, motorcycle, or what-have-you to the back deck which is where you’ll likely carry things.. The boom is short and heavy. A friend used his as hoist to lift a small diesel out of a sailboat in the marina.

Is the mast to far aft to support “flopper stoppers?”I don’t think so. I also think there’s no need for floppers when you have the small main up except maybe in the case of big swells and no wind, a not unusual but still not common situation.

2) These boats are NOT sailboats. Yes, the hull type isn’t much different from many old time working sailboats; if we lost the pilot house and lowered the freeboard some, we could make a sailboat. I have some that look alot like the DUCKS which I show at my main web site, georgebuehler.com/ Take a look at MELQUIADES 60; she’s some ship!
You could possibly call these “Troller Yachts” motorsailers, but that implies more emphasis on sail than they have. The larger ones with two masts could almost be called motorsailers although the sail area isn’t much because I didn’t want the expense or windage of having a serious sailing rig. So, as they are now, they still ain’t sailboats. I call this rig idea “Sail Assist” rather than “Motorsailer.” It’s not just semantics; it’s a different intended use than what is behind a boat that is actually a “motorsailer.” A partial exception is the “Bubak Versions”, which Paul Bubak dreamed up. It features a junk rig forward and a marconi aft, and is more “motorsailer” than the single mast versions.Here’s the 46 DUCK with both sailplan versions. You’ll see right off this is no “performance” sailplan; the boat won’t sail well at all with it. But she WILL sail probably 90 degrees to the wind, and, should your engine blow, you won’t be stranded bobbing about like a dead whale. You’ll be able to set a course for land somewhere off or down wind, and you will get there.

Here’s ALCA i. She’s a good example of a “Motorsailer” rather than a power cruiser with a Sail Assist Rig. She has a low but still usable rig, as well as decent power. The plus side is she’s a better sailboat than the Duck above, which isn’t a sailboat. The minus side is the extra expense and windage the sailing rig ads.

Anyway, these Sail Assist rigs have several functions.

A) Heaving too: The mast aft and the small “main” will serve as a riding sail. This will be left up at anchor holding the nose straight into the wind. If you want to fish, or, drift and sleep some night, the main will hold you “into” it. If you get in awful weather, the reefed main (and they all have 2 to 3 reef rows) will hold the nose into the waves. These are good things and almost unheard of with powerboats.

B) Sail Assist: The vast majority of your cruising will be, like with a sailboat, off the wind. That’s because it’s to damned uncomfortable to beat against the weather in any small boat, so, you’ll cruise on at least a reach, probably a broad reach actually. I’ve never liked going due down wind if there are any seas because the boat rolls to much, so I tend to takedown wind on broad reach courses.

This rig should be ideal here. The big headsail will balloon out and pull us along fine. I’ve heard people say that it won’t work (and by now we’ve seen it DOES work!) because the “angle of the dangle” (the rake of the headstay) is to extreme. But, if you look at the two of the best examples of small boats planned solely for off wind use; the Arab dhow and the south pacific proa, what do you see but an extreme rake to the luff. The European square riggers were off wind boats too of course but those square sails are a first class hassle. In smaller boats designed for monsoon ocean sailing the Arabs had the right idea. Them and the south Pacific islanders would head out with the trades, sail and do whatever business they had to do until the season changed and the trades switched direction, then sail home again. They do need to do a little tacking in ports, but they’d tow their ship with rowboats in tight spots, just like we use our engine.

In fact, you CAN’T “short tack” with the sail assist rig shown. Somebody has to walk the headsail around the house. But at the risk of being repetitious, it was never meant to be able to short tack, the boat isn’t a sailboat so there’s no reason you’re going to want to short tack, and the rigs I’ve seen that try to make it look more like a sailboat don’t do as well as this one will off the wind (and have the other failingI mentioned) which is the only time you’ll use it. The partial exception to what I just said is the “Bubak Junk Modification you’ll see as an option on several of my designs in the StockPlans section of this site.

In stronger weather you can probably use sail alone, but, I likely wouldn’t because the speed will drop. Again, these aren’t sailboats and the sail area isn’t much to the displacement. Why sail at 3 knots when you can idle the engine and cruise at 7 or 8 knots with the sails up; 8 or 9 or more in the bigger boats. So instead of shutting down, I’d throttle back until the engine is running at just a fast idle. This will make a major difference in the fuel you burn. I was told that a 44 DUCK with one spar, in 12 knots of wind, found the sails added about 1/2 knot as well as noticeably steadied the motion.

C) Emergency Power: There’s always the chance of your engine quitting, prop and shaft getting destroyed, fuel all draining out of the tanks, stopping the engine and finding ALL your batteries are dead so you can’t restart it, or something else unlikely and strange but not impossible happening that stops your engine cold. In most powerboats if that happens you’re out of luck.

Some boats rely on a second engine, but that still makes you dependent on this “thing” actually starting and doing it’s job. In between times you use it, and in practice you probably never will use it, you have maintenance on it. And of course the expense of installing it in the first place. And unless it is a gen plant with a belt drive to the shaft, all it does ever after is sit there looking expensive and needing maintenance.

The belt off a small gen plant (and why do boat owners tend to get carried away there? We have 3.5 KW wired into our house for when the power is out. It runs EVERYTHING except the dryer) is an inexpensive choice, but if what stopped you was a problem with the prop or shaft that won’t help you.

You can carry a spare prop and “puller” and if you’re “feeling lucky” about the chances of ‘ol Jaws not being under the boat, you can switch props. But if the shaft is ruined you’re dead in the water.

Here’s how easy that can happen, and luckily for me it happened right at a marina with a beach I could have careened on if I had to.

Heading into the slip, I set my cocktail down and nonchalantly goosed her in reverse to quickly swing the bow to the left and stop. I was rewarded with a huge “CRACK” sound. I threw the control into neutral as the boat kept going forward and banged into the dock. Odd. I tied up, then looked at the engine. It was surrounded by water! I was sinking! Here’s what had happened.

I hadn’t paid attention to the bolts holding the shaft coupling to the engine, and 3 of the 4 had vibrated out. The last one had held, but, when I threw the control into reverse and goosed the throttle, the prop was pulling against the coupling, and the nut on the last bolt stripped and slipped but didn’t come off.The shaft moved back 3/8″ and was stopped by the nut but the “lips” on the two couplings that line them up were now not together. That meant when the engine rotated the one bolt in one hole of the shaft coupling became the rotation center. As the point was 2″ or so above the CL of the shaft, something was gonna give. You wouldn’t think a 5/16″ hardened steel bolt would be so strong but it was able to bend the 1 1/2″prop shaft, and partially rip the “stuffing box” off the keel, would you. Well, it is strong enough and that’s what happened. This left a big area for water to come in.

I did an emergency patch on the leak by jamming cotton balls (my wife always has cotton balls for some reason) into the opening, then tore up an old shirt, rolled the strips into sort of a cord, and jammed them in using a hammer and screw driver as a caulking iron. I now carry caulking irons on any wood boat I’m on. This got the leak down to a trickle and I was able to leisurely haul the boat. But I had to pull the shaft, have it straightened, remount the stuffing box and shaft log thing (it wasn’t through a heavy keel but rather, bolted to the bottom of the hull; the boat was an old Chris I thankfully now don’t own), re-drill the coupling holes since the threads were shot, find very skinny nuts to re-bolt the couplings together since there wasn’t the room between the trans and the coupling for a normal nut.
In other words, if this had happened out in the ocean, and it could of; you see a bit of “flotsam” and stop to check it out, you’d be dead in the water with a serious leak to fix, and no “belt drive to the shaft” system would help you.
Anyway, feel free to put a more “normal” sailplan on the boats if you want. But think about what I’ve said. I think it makes absolutely NO sense to put a sailplan on these boats that’s designed for pointing, and, while I’m not impartial, I really think the sailplan as designed is the best way to go.

ESTIMATING PRICES: A Few Things to Think About When Planning For A New Boat: I want to keep this one on top of the list. Some of it really needs to be understood before you commit big bucks for a boat….Basic ways of fairly accurately guesstimating materials costs. And, be it custom or production, there’s similar issues you need to be aware of before committing to the deal. 8/4/07

What Reduction Gear do you want? Prop and reduction gear choices almost seems to require voodoo. Here’s some thoughts on it…. (4/2/2012)

You’ll read me talking about “EU Certification”. You might find it interesting to see just exactly what that means….. Click on the above link to see what hoops a builder needs to jump through to get that label for his boats.

The Junk Rig: Comments from a guy who has ocean sailed one a good deal. Alex’s comments are well worth pondering. And of course add credence to the “Bubak Modification”you’ll see on most of my Diesel Duck designs! 7/16/08

Keel Cooling an Engine in a Steel Hull makes sense. You can still use wet exhaust if you want although you’ll need to pump in water to cool the exhaust.The system shown here makes the engine cooling even more reliable than your car’s system. (9/24/07)

Articulated Rudder: This stuff always seemed kind of goofy to me but I recently saw it demonstrated on a newDUCK and I like it! Here’s some photos showing how it looks. 6/23/07

Sail Assist: (I’m moving this file backup to the head of the list because of the 10/06 comments fromMarlene & Benno) These “TrollerYachts” aren’t sailboats or motor sailors. I just got a funny email (5/30/02) from Bill at Seahorse Yachts, who I’m afraid was a “doubter” about the 44 DUCK’s sail plan. I quote: “Surprise surprise (not to me of course!), the sail plan added a min 1/2 knot and good steadying. With her 1300 gal of diesel and keeping her at 5 knots, you could probably power almost around the world…” This was in 12 knot winds by the way!And (10/6/06) Read This! Marlene and I are very happy with the DD 41 and her performance, even under sail alone Between Martinique and St. Lucia a nice 15 knot breeze over the port quarter invited us to cut the engine, feather the CPP propeller and let the sails take over. The duck moved along with 4 knots having George’s original design of 400 sq. ft. jib and main up. Not bad, isn’t it? A nice get me home rig, not designed for winning a regatta, but a good stabilizer and extra speed to save fuel. Whenever we have the chance, the sails are up to smoothen the roll. (5/30/02 and updated 10/06)

Diesel Fuel Lines: I thought the law said that diesel lines had to exit the tank from the TOP of the tank, like a gasoline line. This of course makes gravity feed impossible.So I was pleased to get this letter from Peter, an ex-USCG safety guy, straightening me out. (3/2/07)

Polyester Resin on Plywood: It’s much cheaper than epoxy but will it stick as well? Here’s a “mix”that supposedly will work well and save you lots of money. (8/18/06)

Wood Decks on Steel Hulls: It’s an interesting option for larger boats! (6/13/06)

3 Welders Yakking: I ran a tape recorder while interviewing a couple incredible metal workers during cocktail hour. You’ll learn all sorts of stuff here! (5/24/06)

Darold Brekke is one of the guys interviewed.He could do anything in metal, from welding to elaborate forging.This shot reminds me how long ago we all hung around his shop(now gone). But back in ’82, Darold was the Ballard (Snooze Junction district of Seattle) Calendar Cover Boy!

Welding Sequence: This is important to pay attention to when building a steel boat. You can learn about it in any of the steel boatbuilding books out there, and, anybody who claims to be a pro builder should know all about it. (12/30/03)

Displacement Hull Inboard Rudders: Why the typical yacht doesn’t use the commercial system is probably explained by the fact that few of today’s designers have ever done any maintenance….Here’s some examples of simple and solid rudder installations.(11/09/03)

Steering Systems: There’s no need to re-invent the wheel! Here’s some views of well proven simple systems, ideas that are essentially the same for all sizes of boats. (4/16/03)

Bulbous Bows: I always thought they were silly on yachts. Here’s a letter about them from a guy who knows what he’s talking about.I think you’ll find it quite interesting…..(11/13/02) NEW comments8/9/05

Boatbuilding Shelter: A covered and dry place to work makes things far more pleasant…. (11/8/02)

Epoxy Coating a vertical hull: can be a bitch because the cloth and resin want to fall off before it sets up. Here’s some thoughts about how I’d do it. (New comments 8/28/02)

Thoughts about steel boat building: I’ve never done it myself but here’s some observations I’ve made…..

Revised thoughts about shaft logs: What’s described above is far to much trouble…. And, a new edition, 8/17/02;ANOTHER way thanks to Jared Crane, in Maine.

The Self-Bailing Pilot House: Worried about loosing your windows, filling with water, and sinking? Me too. Here’s some thoughts about a couple simple things that will have this even less likely to happen!

Engine Room & Stack Temperature: With larger engines and real engine rooms, heat IS an issue.

“NC” Cutting Disks: Having all the pieces of your boat pre-cut sounds wonderful, but here’s what you need to think about first (note price change to make disks as of8/1/01).

Simple Fuel Filter Monitoring: This idea lets you see at a glance how well your filters are working.

Sail plans: The choicest are many, I like ’em all, but, here’s why I like the traditional cutter for short handed cruising.

Bilge Keels on heavy displacement power boats: I don’t like ’em…. (3/28/05)

Bucko Buehler, age 5 months 8/05

Things To Think About Before Ordering A New Boat

A recent letter gave me pause. The guy asked, if he commissioned a new boat from a shipyard, how could he know if he was getting a well built boat? That’s a very fair question, regardless if you’re having a custom boat built OR if you’re buying a new production boat.

Over the years I’ve heard many horror stories about boats built both by Overseas and North American builders, both custom and production craft. I’ve seen newspaper in the lay-up of the glass hulls. I’ve seen a planked hull that had knots in some places the full width of the planks. I’ve seen steering wheels pressed to the shaft without key-ways to hold them and engine mounts jump off the hull. I’ve seen deck houses cave in from the mast’s downward  pressure because the compression post was thin walled pipe, toilets installed with pinched lines blocking the flow, a holding tank actually blow up because of inadequate venting, exhaust systems not large enough diameter to work correctly resulting in overheating issues, wiring not color coded, propane lines installed behind cabinetry and leaking. I’ve seen steel that wasn’t sand blasted and primed, and hatches and windows that could not be made to stop leaking. On and on.

Some of these things have been from big time well known builders and others have been from little guys. So while there is no monopoly on carelessness, incompetence, or in some cases, penny pinching to the point of being dishonest, you can, with a little fore sight, protect yourself from the possibility of sloppy work or dishonesty when you have a new boat built. Here’s a few thoughts!

Price: There was a very well thought of builder in Washington who unfortunately became well known for making bids that were well under the price he demanded once the boat was finished.People who knew him said he was such a good man that he tried to bring it in for what he said but things simply got out of control because he was so meticulous in his work. Personally, I thought he was a crook.

A friend of mine ordered a boat from this yard, paid the installments, and when told the final price was way over what he had agreed, said; “I’m a man of my word and I assumed you were too. If you don’t give me this boat for what you said you would, I’m going to break your goddamned neck.” He got the boat…..

A BID means that IS the price. An ESTIMATE means a GUESS at the price. It could be less, but it usually is more. Understand that.Now, in some cases it can actually be cheaper to work with an estimate because that way, the builder doesn’t bid high to make sure he’s covering his butt. This assumes an honest builder, which of course most are. If I was working from an estimate rather than a bid, I would have a clause in it saying “no more than X dollars.” After all, if there’s a chance of the boat coming in at twice what you expect, why start?

The builder will base his bid on the plans, and the more complete the plans the closer the bid will be. You must have the actual plans to expect a decent bid. I get several inquiries a week from guys asking what such and such boat costs to build. I always sayI’m not a shipyard, don’t ask me! They then want the study plans to send to a builder to get a bid. I always say that study plans won’t do it. You need the actual building plans. There’s two reasons.First, a realistic estimate and especially a bid is a laborious thing to put together. Few builders will want to take that time without some sense that you’re semi serious about ordering the boat. The best sign they have that you are serious is if they see you’ve bought the plans. I’m not saying that because I’m in the boat plan bidness either. It’s a fact.
Just as important, an accurate bid can’t be made without the builder seeing the hull lines and some sort of materials list. Few designers will release the hull lines until the plans are purchased although in my case, I will email them to a few builders that I’ve worked with and know are straight, meaning I know I’m going to get paid before they build the boat. But again, if you haven’t bought the plans you can’t expect a builder to spend much time making a bid.
I’ve seen ads by some designers for “bid plans”. I don’t know what those are. If they’re the hull lines and the materials list, then there would be no need for somebody to purchase the actual plans, so I doubt they show that detail and by not showing that detail they aren’t showing enough to get a serious bid! And of course, the bid plans aren’t the full price building plans so the builder is seeing you aren’t serious enough to purchase the plans, which as I said signals him that you probably aren’t going to build the boat.

A custom boat’s price is the result of the materials in the boat, the complexity of the construction which means TIME in building, the degree of finish, for example painted or varnished interior or gloss or semi-gloss exterior (again, meaning TIME), and the outfitting. Production boats are similar with the added expense of national advertising, delivery, and broker commission. That’s why a custom built boat can often be less expensive than a production boat. Unfortunately, custom boats require cash payments up front which is why production boats are so much more common. You can get a second home mortgage on an existing boat just like you can for a big motorhome or beach house. A custom boat requires either cash, or jumping through various hoops until the thing is complete and then you can get the second home mortgage.

So if you can’t get a real bid without the plans and the plans cost several thousand dollars which you don’t want to spend until you know you can afford the boat, what do you do?

You can actually do a pretty decent rough bid on the materials for a wood or metal boat yourself. Glass is a whole separate issue requiring in most cases a mold, and is pretty expensive for a”one -off,” as a custom boat is called. As a result, glass is not practical for a custom boat unless you purchase an existing glass hull, and convert it into a finished boat.

The Old Time boatyard way of bidding was to figure the hull asa rectangle based on the length on deck, the depth from the deck to the deepest part of the hull rabbet, and the maximum beam.This accounts for waste in the assembly. The square footage of that shape is the hull plate. Figure a frame every three feet so add those lengths in. Figure longitudinals at perhaps 16″centers. Add them in. Rough measure the deckhouse and add that square footage. Your plans, or at least your study plans, should tell you what materials sizes are used where so you can use that info to figure how much material you need buy. For instance, fora 45′ steel boat hull plate is frequently 1/4″, decks the same, frames maybe 5/16″ x 5″, hull longs 1/4″x 2″, house sides and roof 3/16″. Using the above system you can get a good guesstimate of how much steel is in her. Any steel supplier can tell you how much it would cost. Keep in mind that the hull materials is the cheap part……

Go the supply catalogs and start itemizing all the stuff in the boat. Engine, prop, galley, steering system, anchoring system, and so on. If you’re purchasing enough to build a boat you can get a pretty decent discount. The amount of stuff required too outfit a new boat is enough to qualify you for wholesale prices, so now you’ll know materials costs, and outfitting costs. Many builders will charge you the same as the discounted price you can get it for, making their money on the installation. It’s a good idea to go this way. It makes the builder look good to his supplier because of the volume of the sale, and doesn’t cost you extra. If the builder you talk to doesn’t want to go for this kind of deal I’d stay away from him because the odds are he’s overcharging you. Getting the prices for these things ahead of time will help you stay aware of what the costs should be and shows the builder you’re pretty serious because you’ve invested a lot of your time in this project.

These two steps, and they’re laborious steps, give a good idea of the actual materials in the boat and gives you a real basis to talk to a builder. For instance, for a 45′ boat that displaces about 60,000 pounds you could say something like: “I figure roughly 35,000 pounds of steel with waste and $75,000 net prices outfitting and propulsion system. She’s a fairly simple hull form.Here’s the Lines plan. So what do you think your labor in building with “X” type of finish (gloss or flat exterior, painted or varnished interior, etc.) it would be?” This is a bit simplistic but actually isn’t that far off the mark and guarantees you don’t come across as some chump. You’ve done serious research and the builder will see right off you’re serious, and more important, knowledgeable.

Labor is the big single expense and varies tremendously based on the complexity of the hull shape and the degree of finish.It also varies depending on the market segment the builder is in. A local builder who had got fat off ridiculous government contracts gave a $400,000 bid just for the steel work in a 57′ design of mine. I asked him if I could PLEASE get into his bidding circle. He never wrote back!

A single chine hull is quicker to build and wastes less materials than a multi-chine, and both are quicker and less wasteful than a full “S” sectioned round bottom hull. That beautiful glossy paint job on many new boats is the result of hours and hours of fairing and buffing and multiple coats, and the first time you bang a dock or hit the anchor to the side gets a nasty ding. Personally, I don’t like it because a flat or semi-gloss finish can be done in much less time (read MONEY) and is easily repaired if scratched. A natural wood interior, aside from being oppressive feeling in my opinion, requires far slower (read TIME which means MONEY) and more careful joinery than a painted one with a little putty in the less than perfect fits and a bit of varnished trim accent. These sort of things make a difference of thousands and thousands of dollars. If you want a cruising boat, you want to emphasize function, but of course it all depends on what you want and how much time and money you want to spend down the road maintaining things.

OK, a builder has given you a price you can handle and you’ve decided to go ahead with the project. How do you know you’re getting what you are paying for?

First off you need a payment schedule. You pay X and they do such and such. You pay Y and they do more such and such. The payment procedure needs to be clearly written in the contract and just like dealing with a shoreside contractor, be firm. Do not make any advance payments until the work that was supposed to be finished is finished, and finished to your satisfaction, regardless of the sob story. Sometimes it won’t be. You see this sort of thing all the time with houses; my neighbor is going through it now!Remember, “no tickee no laundee” or before you know it, you have spent a lot of money and have nothing to show for it.

This is nowhere the issue with boatyards that it is with housebuilding contractors. In fact, Seahorse Marine, who is building several of my DUCK designs, offers full refund of your payments right up to the time of the final delivery payment.

Materials: Wood is the only material you can actually simply look at to learn its quality or suitability for the job. Steel requires some degree of faith although an experienced yard will have suppliers they trust. Back in the 1970s/80s it was said that some of the Asian steel imported into the US had voids in it. I don’t know if that was true or not but I doubt it happens today. Surely there is a certification process for steel and that is a question to ask the yard: where do they get the steel? No reputable supplier would stock steel they even suspect could be flawed.

I lean towards “wheel abraded pre-primed” steel because that way I know every inch has been properly cleaned and primed.True, welding messes that up, requiring spot grinding and priming, but that’s part of the deal and is simpler than blasting the entire boat. However, the use of prepped steel is totally up to the shipyard and on site blasting and priming of untreated plate is very common and perfectly good. Some say it’s better because you can see it being done.

Interior construction can run the range from simple plywood, painted or faced with Formica and a bit of varnished trim, to exotic tropic hardwoods. The price between the two can be enormous.

Exterior paint can be workboat finish or gloss yacht finish. The materials difference is huge and the extra labor and long term maintenance even more huge.

A major consideration is the systems installations. You need to have some sort of standard you can expect the parts of the systems will meet because if things are poorly installed you will be continually subjected to problems. Ideally you will have an outside surveyor to regularly examine progress and report to you. This is impossible with a production boat but here in the States you’re more or less protected by our legal system. Like substandard RVs, if the warrantees won’t fix it you can go after the dealer and the importer in court.Some states have “lemon laws” that you’d think would apply to a production boat.

A custom boat has the advantage over a production boat here because you’ve ordered a specific boat to be built for you and having an outside surveyor examine and report on the progress on a regular schedule is considered normal, and almost always avoids problems that can see a production boat buyer ending up in court to resolve.
Tell the surveyor you want the following to be tracked. This isn’t foolproof but goes a long way towards protecting you from problems down the road. It’s simple, too.

1) Are all systems accessible? This means things like the shaft coupling can be reached, all tank connections are accessible to check hose connections, any propane connection joints are in the open so if they leak you can get to them, and nothing else that might need attention is hopelessly buried behind cabinetry or something. While this seems obvious I have seen horrible examples of it not happening. For instance, a production sailboat that required the cockpit sawed open to be able to reach the shaft coupling. Or the million plus dollar power yacht that required a chainsaw to the main cabin sole to be able to replace one engine’s alternator. This sort of thing is inexcusable. And common….

For that matter, what if you have to replace an engine? Can it be removed from the boat without serious dismantling of the hull or house? There needs to be access hatches at least framed incase the engine has to be replaced.
What if your steering system fails? Can you hook up an emergency tiller? This is a commonly overlooked issue but potentially very serious. All boats used for cruising any distance from a repair yard need a way to steer the thing if the system crashes, as unlikely  as it seems. It’s funny that the old time cable/rope to a drum around the wheel is foolproof because it is so easily fixable.Today’s common hydraulic and/or “push-pull” stuff ain’t.

2) Are confusing things like wiring, piping, and fuel lines clearly labeled? Wiring needs to be color coordinated with a separate color for the “hot” wire to each item or group of items such as cabin lights. It doesn’t hurt to have written labels along the run either. Fuel lines should be labeled with arrows showing the fuel flow direction, off and on position of valves, and anything else to make it idiot proof to deal with. Same with engine and sanitation water lines. Easily accessible shut offs and clearly labeled hoses. This isn’t common yacht stuff but is good practice and there’s no reason a custom boat can’t have it done this way. I learned about it during a brief period doing inspections of small military ships. I was surprised to see that everything was labeled and anybody, even I, could quickly figure out what went where. The US Navy is on top of basic maintenance!

3) Finally, quality of the parts. You look at a prop shaft or a prop or a steering system and it looks fine.But is it? The only way to tell is to see where it is from. Stainless steel is not necessarily any good. It depends on the grade. Carry a small magnet because marine grade stainless (300 series) is NOT magnetic. There are prop shafts from the orient that are so soft they will not “hold true” when spinning. There is no way to stop them vibrating. You don’t want one. The prop shaft must meet international standards for the intended use.Any reputable US provider will offer just that, and many of them export their products overseas.

Same with props. It must be balanced so it doesn’t put undo strain on the shaft and coupling when it rotates. Like the transmission, it must be sized correctly for the specific boat the intended use. A reduction gear and prop for a log towing use will be much different than for ocean cruising, and while some people disagree with me here, I believe BOTH will be different than an all around general use goal.

If you follow this article’s advice you’ll be going a long ways in protecting yourself both from shoddy work, and crooks. Neither are the norm but oh man, after 40 years now as an observer of the scene let me tell ya; they ARE out there, and operating under the radar of some pretty big names in the business.

My friend Jim used to work on seagoing tugs and whatnot; big boats. He and I were out fishing aboard his old28′ Bayliner with a Yamar 27 HP diesel outboard and I noticed how he did the fuel filter. Installed AFTER the filter is a vacuum gauge. A casual glance shows you how much strain the engine fuel pump is using to suck fuel from the filter. If the gauge is reading higher than normal, Jim can clean the filter. This costs about $75 for the gauge but is well worth it as it makes it highly unlikely you’ll ever have a filter clog up and stop you. It’s so sensible,I’m still surprised it isn’t typically installed on all boats!