Want to change boats but what?

[kpinnn]

We presently have a 36 ft Gulfstar. We have owned it for 9 years and it has been a nice boat needing usual maintenance and repairs. We want to switch to another trawler. Why? Well, we want something with a walk onto the rear deck from the swim platform. Presently we have to walk up a ladder to reach the rear deck. Also we would like to have a little wider side deck. Our present side deck is on the narrow side. Those are the two main reasons. While making this change I would like something a little less rocky. The Gulfstar does not handle beam seas very well. This weekend I had to tack in 4 ft 4 sec beam seas. Sailboats and other power vessels, some smaller than ours were making their way in a straight line while I was tacking to have some degree of comfort. Maybe this is common with all full displacement hulls. Any vessel suggestions or comments would be welcome.
Ken
P.S. Getting ours ready to sell then buying. Another comment I noticed one Down East style hulled boat moving parallel to the beam seas at a reduced speed. I would have thought a force vector diagram would have shown more speed to be more stable in beam sea conditions.

 

[DBG8492]

We looked at a Gulfstar when we were first in the market, and I said at the time that it felt like a sailboat - very narrow. When we opened up the engine room, I could see what I thought was the spot for a mast step glassed into the keel between the two engines. So I looked them up and found that for at least a time, Gulfstar produced sailboats and powerboats using the same hulls. The only difference was which deck was mated to them - trawler or sail.

I put the whole brand on the no list after that because I couldn't imagine being in rough seas in a trawler with a sailboat hull. What you describe sounds like what I feared.

Having said that, if you're looking to eliminate the steps down to the swim platform and still get a double cabin and a decent boat, we looked at several Bayliner 3870 models and surveyed one that didn't pass.

However, everything is a tradeoff in boats.

The 3870 is a twin screw, semi-displacement hull double-cabin with an aft deck like a fishing boat where you open the gate and step onto the swim platform - and from there, most floating docks. However, you have to climb a ladder to get to the pilothouse instead and, while I have seen some mods to the pilothouse ladder that make it more like stairs, the lack of room on the aft deck makes it appear difficult to do effectively as it would need to be removable to access one of the aft deck hatches. And the main cabin is nice, but it's in the bow. And it has two heads, but the shower is a bathtub shared between the main and guest cabins. The galley was about the same size as the one on my Marine Trader, but there was no dinette - only the settee with a table. There is also ample room to move forward and aft on the side decks - something our Marine Trader doesn't have - it was swapped for more interior room.

We are full-time liveaboards, and what we finally bought reflects this more than anything else. It's the boat that fits our needs.

I'm sure a lot more folks will chime in here with advice about other boats that fit the profile you outlined - the 3870 just happens to be one that I seriously considered before finding my MT.

Good luck with the sale of your current boat, and acquisition of a new one. My only advice is to hold out for something you really know you want that will fit your needs.

 

[kpinnn]

I see that the MT still has a ladder from the swim platform. How are the side decks for walking room? I believe it is a full displacement hull but how is it different from the Gulfstar. I have a 13 ft beam, is full displacement and weighs about 18,000 lbs empty. Full keel that is supposed to be ballasted. I do not think it is.
What are the specs on your MT?
Thanks Ken
This is very interesting subject and as you said, everything is a compromise. I agree totally with your analysis of the Gulfstar.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. kp. As well as the various models of Bayliner/Meridian have you considered a cockpit motor yacht?

 

[Nick14]

What is roughly your budget? Are you looking for used or new?

It sounds like you might be looking for a 'Europa' style sedan, with the aft deck level with salon, and wide and protected walk-around side decks.

 

[DBG8492]

I see that the MT still has a ladder from the swim platform. How are the side decks for walking room? I believe it is a full displacement hull but how is it different from the Gulfstar. I have a 13 ft beam, is full displacement and weighs about 18,000 lbs empty. Full keel that is supposed to be ballasted. I do not think it is.
What are the specs on your MT?
Thanks Ken
This is very interesting subject and as you said, everything is a compromise. I agree totally with your analysis of the Gulfstar.

As I said, what I know about the Gulfstar is what I saw and what I read - and no matter what you do, if you're sharing hulls between sailboats and trawlers, it's going to cause both to suffer, in my opinion.

As I said, we are full-time liveaboards. Our plan is to live on the hook as much as possible and our needs as we saw them fit the Marine Trader better than the 3870.

Our MT is a 36 Sundeck model. It is a single screw powered by a 136 hp American Diesel with a 13' beam and 3.5' draft full displacement hull. It will do about 8 knots at 1700 RPM - which is admittedly slow compared to the Bayliner's top speed, but part of the tradeoff we were willing to make.

Yes, it has a ladder to the (very tiny) swim platform. Our long-term plan is to move the gate from midships to the port side and build a set of stairs with a small platform at the top along with a longer, partially folding swim platform. I have a picture somewhere of another MT Sundeck with the same setup and plan to mimic it. The only difference is that their steps were all aluminum, and I plan to go with something using stainless and coosa laminate. I'd also like to add a small pipe crane so we can store the dinghy on the sundeck and get rid of the custom (not very nice looking) davits installed by the PO as they would just be in the way of everything else.

As I said - she has less than ample room for moving forward and aft on the side decks - especially the steps to the sundeck area. That was a trade-off for more interior room. The engine room is nice, but you still end up crawling around on your knees to do anything in there unless you pull up all four of the floor hatches in the saloon. And even then, it's only access directly around the engine. Getting to the genny or anything aft of the engine requires crawling. Access to the bilges, seacocks, water, and waste tanks as well as the anchor locker is all very good. However, fuel tank access is terrible - but we knew that going in. They're not leaking - yet - so knock on wood as the decks would need to be cut out in order to replace them.

What we wanted was - in our price range - a roomy double cabin with a walkaround bunk in the aft compartment. The admiral also wanted a bathtub. We got all that. Because the plan is to live on the hook, we also wanted a generator and ample fuel and water storage. To that end, she has a genny, two 75-gallon water tanks, and a 40-gallon holding tank. She also carries a total of 350 gallons of diesel in two 175-gallon tanks. Not on our list, but as a bonus, we also got a very large, very nice covered aft deck. And if we wanted to pull out the dinette, there's room for a freezer and lots more counter space. But the admiral is resistant to that.

Lastly, the v-berth in the MT is very nice. The bunk is almost full-sized, it has its own head, and there's more storage in that one room than we had in total on our old sailboat.

None of this would have been possible on the Bayliner - which is why we decided against them after looking at five or six and surveying one that failed horribly.

We figured someone was trying to send us a message...

 

[Jeff F]

Another comment I noticed one Down East style hulled boat moving parallel to the beam seas at a reduced speed. I would have thought a force vector diagram would have shown more speed to be more stable in beam sea conditions.

Yep. But you can't always trust the skipper to know that [emoji3]. Might get wetter going faster.

 

[kpinnn]

Thanks DGB for the info. A lot of the specs are the same as the Gulfstar. I have in the past had similar discussions regarding the rolling. There have been many suggestions regarding make and model. What I find is those mentioned have some sort of stabalizing device. Just discovered the military puts stabalizers on some of their largest vessels. Still I notice many vessels traveling with beam seas while I am tacking. I want to stay with full displacement hull. Looked at a Kadey Krogen the other day. It had fins to reduce roll. Is this a common malady of a full desplacement hull?

 

[Snapdragon III]

My experience and belief is that any hull will roll like crazy in a beam sea. As the boats get bigger, it takes a slightly larger sea to get them rolling, but there is no magic hull shape that will prevent it. Stabilizers help a ton. In my experience with Paravanes and active fins on my last two boats, they do not stop the roll, but make it way more manageable. On both boats a cup of coffee left on a non skip pad would end up on the floor immediately with the stabilization turned off, or not deployed, but would stay put in all but the very worst weather with them on.

I recently watched the linked video below of a guy with a very beamy and heavy full displacement steel Dutch trawler that I would have thought would do better in moderate beam seas that it appears to. It made me feel good about my own boat.

The good part starts at 7:40min
https://youtu.be/E2g6axdCRXw?t=468

 

[PierreR]

kpinnn you do not state the reasons you want the boat layout that you have described above. There may be other solutions available besides what you are considering.

My wife has Ehler's Danlos and walks with a cane. She cannot step up over 8" and needs double hand rails on everything. The boat that I found workable was a Hatteras 42 LRC Mark !. It has 18" side decks and I built stairs to replace the short ladders the boat had. She can get everywhere on the boat. One of the added bonuses for us was what I call the menopause layout in the master stateroom. Twin beds with the AC blowing onto only one of the beds. We have a set of boarding stairs that stay level on the dock and roll on wheels. We have not figured out the dinghy problem yet even if the swim platform were walk out.
With a heavy load this boat is pretty stable and has stabilizers. The boat is what I would term a near full displacement boat. The boat is listed as full displacement but has harder chines in the aft third of the hull and will do slightly over hull speed. At full throttle it will do an S/L ratio of 1.5 at huge fuel burn. Slow it down to 7.5 knots and it burns 1/4 as much fuel. In beam on 4' seas of 4 seconds its uncomfortable for us but most things would stay on the counter.
One thing about other peoples boats is that they always look like they are getting a better ride than you.

 

[mvweebles]

..... Looked at a Kadey Krogen the other day. It had fins to reduce roll. Is this a common malady of a full desplacement hull?

Roll is indeed a common malady of all boats, displacement boats a bit more due to round-ish hulls (or at least soft chines). There are some other factors - my Willard 36 carries a relatively high percentage of ballast and has a very low profile so is less prone to roll, but I still wouldn't coastal cruise without stabilization (I have hydraulic fins). Of course, the tradeoff is accommodation - a Manatee 36 is 3x the interior size. For those who have owned a stabilized boat, a common refrain is that they would never go back. On a 40-ish foot boat with space for them, hydraulic fins are a $60k retrofit so there is value in a used boat with them already installed.

Stabilization is a Top 10 topic on TF. Chances are it's not that you have the wrong boat, but it's just how it is. Also likely that the boats you see that appear stabile are in fact rolling, just seems worse when you're inside.

Good luck.

Peter

 

[DBG8492]

Thanks DGB for the info. A lot of the specs are the same as the Gulfstar. I have in the past had similar discussions regarding the rolling. There have been many suggestions regarding make and model. What I find is those mentioned have some sort of stabalizing device. Just discovered the military puts stabalizers on some of their largest vessels. Still I notice many vessels traveling with beam seas while I am tacking. I want to stay with full displacement hull. Looked at a Kadey Krogen the other day. It had fins to reduce roll. Is this a common malady of a full desplacement hull?

My 79 Irwin Citation sailboat was terrible with the seas on the beam when motoring. However, we had the benefit of raising the main and using even a little bit of wind to work with the keel and stabilize her. That's why when I found out they shared hulls at Gulfstar, I passed on the whole brand. That doesn't mean I was right; I was just hedging my bets based on my experience - because all I could think of was motoring in that Citation without either a keel or a sail to raise - once bitten and all that...

As others have already said, rolling is part of owning any boat. Some roll worse than others, but they're all going to roll. It's a cost of doing business. If you can't mitigate it, you have to find another way to deal with it. But all of them come with a cost - usually monetary and some amount of speed.

You can tack to keep an angle - monetarily cheap but costs time. Some trawlers have a mast and boom and put a small sail up. Some oceangoing trawlers have paravanes. Some others have large (and expensive) stabilizer fins. There is a post here somewhere about someone retrofitting a glassed-in "chock" to their boat. And if you've got a huge wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, you can get yourself one of these setups:

https://triseakeeper.com/seakeeper-price