Minimalist voyaging Under Sail: 4-The Boats

Entries 1, 2, and 3 are about boats I have sailed that fit the minimalist category. The following are quicks notes about other voyagers who describe the concept. Books by and about these folks are easily found in maritime book stores and on line.

The old-timers didn't try to be minimalists. There wasn't any "luxury" small boat sailing in those days. A short list old timers.

Joshua Slocum in Spray. He started it all with Sailing Alone Around the World

Captain Voss on Tillicum

Captain and Mrs Crapo on New Bedford

Robin Knox-Johnson on Suhaili

John Guzzwell on 26 foot Trekka

The modern era started with Lin and Larry Pardy with their simple sloops and the idea of "go small and go simple." Others, such as:

James Baldwin on the 28 foot sloop, Atom

Webb Chiles on a variety of sailing vessels including an open 19 footer.

Anne Hill in her book Voyaging on a Small Income

These and many others work on the idea that cruising should be simple and the more simple the more pleasurable. The idea is not to be cramped and uncomfortable but to live outside the boat. To do that they propose a small simple vessel.

Minimalist Voyaging Under Sail: 3

I sail and cruise a very simple boat, Averisera, an Aphrodite 101. She was built in 1984 in Denmark and is hull 264 from a production run of 400 plus hulls. The story is at another blog:

www.averisera.com

Another old race boat with a very simple interior. Averisera is easily cleaned or repaired. Also, fun to sail! As we have gotten older, the lack of headroom has become an inconvenience. Maybe even unnecessarily minimal.

Credit: Mc Cann

Credit: Kinnard

One gets an idea about just how small Averisera's living quarters are in pictures. We have dolled up the interior a bit but there is still only four and half feet of headroom. The sink is to starboard and has an electric fawcett. The stove is an Origo 3000 to port. We find the alcohol stove to be plenty sufficient. The head and forward cabin are forward of the visible bulkhead. 

Restore or Destroy?

A Yankee 30, abandoned in a boatyard, still restorable and a fine example of a good small voyager.  Is it worth the effort to restore or should it go into a dumpster?

Note:  AppliedSailing is not representing the boat for sale.  I work for the boatyard that has title to this yacht. I'm the only sailor at a boatyard full of fishermen and families. The vessel is appropriate because it has several key features starting with a skeg protected rudder and ending with a good designer and builder pedigree.

The boat is a 1971 Yankee 30.  More detailed information is available on line at www.sailboatdata.com

To compare a Yankee 30 to many other types of sailing yachts go to:  http://www.tomdove.com/sailcalc/sailcalc.html

The designer's blog is here:  http://sparkmanstephens.blogspot.com/2011/05/yankee-30-design-1999.html

Those are up-to-date clutches and winches. The traveler looks new.

The galley is perfect for a cruising couple. It runs across the back of the salon, sink and icebox on one side, stove and pantry on the other. There is no quarterberth.

Messy but not dysfunctional. This is the sink and icebox side.

Starboard side on deck. There is a cockpit dodger frame. Don't know about canvas.

Cockpit view, full of leaves. Can be removed easily. I love tiller steering and two deep cockpit lockers for sails, fenders, lines, etc. Radar has been vandalized for innards.

View of the stove side from the hatch. Inside is pretty nice. Needs to be cleaned up.

Hull #29 of S&S Design 1999

Awlgrip is in pretty good shape. There are a few scratches, but mostly it looks good.

Still shiny.

The bottom looks like it was stripped and repainted. Looks pretty smooth.

Nice lines. In 1970, this is what a good ocean boat looked like.

Disregard the torn shrink wrap. 

Get a leaf blower or a shop vac. Teak needs some love. Luckily it has been oiled, not varnished. Can be restored to its former glory pretty handily.

Keel stepped mast, enclosed by head bulkheads below. If mast partners leak, they would leak into the head, not the salon! Nice. Teak collar needs work or replacement.

Forward hatch, plexiglass cracked. Not expensive to replace. Might be nice to get something pretty.

Engine box is on the salon table. Disregard. Salon has dinette to port, settee to starboard. Engine is on centerline behind the mast, which is a really nice feature. Weight is where it belongs.

Messy starboard side of salon. Nice woodwork!

Salon floor is the part that looks icky. Throw out that carpet! Clean it up.

Nanni diesel. Nice! New! Worth a lot!

V-berth forward.

Head. Spacious for a 30 footer.

Hanging locker across from head.

First order of business is to clean the boat. You can see that it has good bones. This was built before the oil embargo, which imputes that the fiberglass will be heavy duty. A solid cruiser.

Voyaging the House-Guests and Neighbors

Voyaging, it is easy to take a break from the neighbors, neighborhood, town, etc.  Pick up the hook and slip off to a new place... maybe busier, maybe quieter.

In the House, the "land yacht" guests are way, way easier.  Pretty much everyone knows how to live in a house.  Guests aboard the yacht have to learn a whole new set of behaviors.

Voyaging the House-Charts and Maps

Paper charts.  Analoge.  In the land-house, we have maps showing topography for hiking or rivers for rowing, etc.  Of course, we still use big road maps when planning trips.  Digital information, GPS and map software/apps are very handy for automobile travel.  On the water, paper charts still rule for planning and even detail.  We can draw on them, annotate with notes.  We use digital charting in many ways.

Voyaging?  Maybe the best way to spend part of an evening with other sailors is with a large area chart spread out and the dream machine running full speed.  Which charts?

Start with the Pilot Charts.  Then move over to the various large area charts.  I have pictures below.  These aren't fancy images of never-been-folded charts.  My charts are marked up and well loved.

The pilot charts show statistical information about expected winds, current, sea temperatures, barometric pressure, ice, and wave heights for a give month on a given ocean.  Planning to sail from Newport, RI to Antigua?  You can get an overview of the conditions at sea for the month you plan to sail.  Invaluable.

These charts came from Chase Levitt in Portland, Maine.  Other sources known to me are Landfall Navigation in Greenwich, CT and Bluewater Books and Charts in Ft Lauderdale, FL.

True story:  Planning a trip to St Maarten in 2004.  Local guy asks if I am going down the coast from Massachusetts to Florida before crossing over to the Caribbean.  I said, "No."  He asked why and I took out the pilot chart, showed him the distances and wind directions.  He asked, "So why do so many people do it that way?"  "Dunno?"  Maybe a long offshore trip is unpleasant.  Maybe they just never looked at a pilot chart.

Voyaging the House-Keels and Rudders

As noted in earlier entries, hull forms of yachts are interesting to view.  Winter, when yachts are hauled, makes for a great time to wander yards and take a look at the part we seldom see during the sailing season.  Planning to go for a voyage as opposed to a coastal cruise, knowing what's under the water is an early part of yacht selection.

Rick and Jasna of Calypso have some good comments about the importance of protected rudders.  Read about it at their blog, SailingCalypso:  http://www.sailingcalypso.com/

What are the pros and cons of protected rudders?  Maneuverability and speed vs security is the essence of it.

A good site for reviewing sailboat designs:  http://sailboatdata.com/firstpage.asp

Pictured above is a Morgan 36 One Tonner of 1973 design.  The rudder is supported at both the top and bottom of the skeg.  Back in her era, most racing boats had skeg-hung rudders.  The keel is an innovation, fast shape but of very questionable strength.  We don't any longer see new boats built with that shape.

The Aphrodite 101 I own.  A race boat designed in 1977.  The skeg is gone as a structural element and the keel is much less swept back.  The rudder is a balanced shape which reduces tiller loading but not shaft load.  The rudder shaft is supported by the tube at the top and bottom, no attachment to the small "fillet."  The folding prop and shaft provide a small amount of protection to the rudder by deflecting flotsam.

Mc Curdy designed 35 footer that shows a good combination of keel shape and rudder with skeg.  The skeg is full length and supports the rudder top and bottom.  The keel has a long root.  A folding propellor, in my opinion, would greatly reduce drag and catch less annoying flotsam such as weed and drifting lines, nets, and plastic.

A very old design, a Cal 30 Mark 1, with a full length keel, rudder supported top and bottom.  These craft are sort of cult boats among the small-voyager crowd.  Good sea boats. Very fast in her day.

The rudder from our Aphrodite 101, Averisera.  The Stainless Steel shaft is strong... but... there are two issues that bear watching.  SS is capable of corroding in the absence of oxygen, deep the rudder. The single point of load is at the rudder shaft interface which may be weakened by corrosion.  The rudder was removed for inspection and there is no weeping, no rust, and no sign of distortion of the fiberglass so back in she goes.

Another thing we like about tiller steering is that the rudder comes out easily.  Wheel steered boats require a bit more effort to drop the rudder.  Drop the rudder once in a while.