David Ess
Scraping Paint
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2020
- Messages
- 392
RSLifkin. Right, most dont need the high standards of the fpb boats. We do... high latitudes, rounding the horn, Northwest Passage.
Curious - what is your prior boat ownership experience?RSLifkin. Right, most dont need the high standards of the fpb boats. We do... high latitudes, rounding the horn, Northwest Passage.
They sound expensive. I just purchased 3/8" tempered glass in bronze. 30"x18" was about $300 just for the glass - times 8 for all my windows. No lamination, no mounting, nothing. Just the glass. Plenty rich for my blood.
I personally believe such equipment makes sense on vessels who are either at-risk of impact due to stuff like boom cranes swinging around deck; or have no choice in their scheduled sailings. If you plan to schedule passages for known seasonal weather windows, stuff like this adds an enormous amount of cost with no real benefit.
Just depends on what your plans are. There is no way I could get my wife to accompany me anywhere where something like this might be even remotely needed. I can't say as I blame her/
Peter
Curious - what is your prior boat ownership experience?
Perhaps. I see experience as providing context. Knowing when something is fit-for-purpose. For example, the glass you suggest is likely extremely heavy and requires specialized installation and carries enormous cost. Yet except for bragging rights, offers no discernable benefits to a well made off shelf port/light.Irrelevant to wanting higher standards instead of lower ones. But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards.
I gave the example of the Dutch builder , Damen, and their really high standard windows they use. I'll bet they know about 'context'. And sure, quality costs more, but i never even mentioned cost.Perhaps. I see experience as providing context. Knowing when something is fit-for-purpose. For example, the glass you suggest is likely extremely heavy and requires specialized installation and carries enormous cost. Yet except for bragging rights, offers no discernable benefits to a well made off shelf port/light.
Example. I need new tires. Unconstrained book knowledge without benefit of experience or practical design parameters would lead me to install the same tires that the winning Indy 500 car had, an awful choice for a daily driver. Often exotic materials do one thing extremely well. A boat is a system and does not tolerate highly specialized exotic solutions well. There needs to be a practical vector to equipment selection. Experience is helpful, thus my question on your practical boating background
There's an old saying. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is actually a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.
Peter
"But there could be guys out there with tons of experience who would go for lower standards."
Realistic folks that realize there is a small chance of extreme conditions can create Lexan storm covers that work well as winter insulation , a far more common need.
Folks that like mental contemplation can locate the sea state conditions world wide on their computer.
If I were crossing oceans and had $2m+ to spend I'd also like the vessel to be aesthetically pleasing on the outside. Those options look like research vessels for the study of the reproduction life cycles of jelly fish. Lol
So when do you plan to start your voyage around the horns and through the Southern Ocean. Any thoughts on the Vendee Globe race? Lessons learned?
. Personally think a cruising boat should be able to survive sustained force 8+ and a knockdown. Think CE A is a minimum. Personally don’t like lexan as it scratches. So think strong glass is worth it. Think what it is depends on the size of the opening, where it is and how it’s mounted.
We dont care about the Vendee or any other races. We prefer slow. And we'll start as soon as we get a boat, which will be something like the fpb ones, or say, a Cape Horn Trawler(love those 3" thick steel skeg shoes, and 1" windows.).
So how will you prepare? How do you research? Racers are about the only ones who venture into the Southern Ocean. If you ignore them, then you've pretty well relegated yourself to reinventing the wheel, no?
You see, my strong hunch is a wave doesn't come out of nowhere and smash against your window. Something has happened. For example, my guess is the most common equipment failure in the Southern Ocean is steering loss either by rudder damage or A/P failure, which would be catastrophic.
How would you come to know things like this unless you study those who came before you, even racers? How are you preparing besides specifying a boat? What are you doing to prepare yourself, meaning what is your body of experience from which you are building upon? Sort of sounds like a lot of book reading and not much practical experience which is fine, but just wondering your approach.
Peter
We would have no problem cutting the lines with those Dashew boats, but wont with any flimsy ones flimsy ones.
Here's an example...you mentioned sterering. The Dashew fpb boats have 4 seperate steering systems. Many other boats also have redundant systems.
MWWeebles. Re your comment that " waves dont cone out of nowhere". Yet we know that rogue waves actual do. Thus the name 'rogue waves'. So when in high latitudes especially, we would prefer a boat that is way moreclikelybto handle them. But if others are unconcerned, no problem.
Redundant steering is one of those things at the "more useful / important" end of the safety spectrum. Losing the ability to steer can easily put you in a situation where you need more of the other safety features.
I 100% agree with you rslifkin. Dashew has an interesting setup - he has dual A/P pumps that he can operate individually or combine the two so they have twice the response rate in big seas. It's a cool setup.
I ended up with redundant A/P pump as part of my refit. I decided to have it plumbed in as a warm standby. In the event the main pump fails, I can switch a couple valves, and swing the 2-wire leads from the old to new pump. I realize I don't have electronic redundancy, but this seemed like an easy upgrade for me.
Peter
Weebles...yes Dershew likes to use a euphemism..."larger than normal seas", instead of what everybody else calls them....rogue waves. And i would prefer to be in one of his boats when one hits.
I already said we're fine with the high standards of the Dershew boats, and would take them anywhere. He decided on those 19mm windows, and well trust him. We love...knowledge and planning, and sailing out with a sturdy boat like the FPBs, Cape Horn Trawlers, etc. But if others, even with knowledge and planning, want to sail out with lesser boats, no problem.This is going to sound arrogant but I am going to say it anyway. Very, very few boaters - even those on this otherwise knowledgeable list - bother to learn much about weather and the effect on seas. Instead of learning and understanding, aspiring cruisers prefer to purchase a tank of a boat 'just in case.'
There are only two reasons more people don't make significant passages on their boat: They are either uninspired to do so (I fall into this category - Alaska to Maine are perfectly acceptable for me), or they are in a do-loop of preparation that never ends so there's always an excuse not go tomorrow (or an affordability factor).
David, you are not alone in your thinking, just a bit more brazen in speaking. The risk you are trying to minimize is infinitesimal and can be almost entirely mitigated by knowledge and planning. The Dashew link I sent a few posts above this was for "Surviving the Storm." It's almost 700 pages long. My advice to you and others like yourself would be to devour information such as this, then decide what type of windows you need. You may be closer to leaving on your dream cruise than you know.....
Peter
I already said we're fine with the high standards of the Dershew boats, and would take them anywhere. .
Dashew is a proponent of avoiding bad weather no matter how "stout" the vessel. The book Weebles mentioned is a tome for serious blue water cruisers. As stated in this book (and his others) and by virtue of his various design's speed and the last few decades of en-route weather routing success, avoiding the storm is job one.
We're just like him. And like him we know that IF youre going to sea, THEN, theres a good chance of being caught in storms. We see such testimony every day. And like him, we prefer boats.....just like his. And who would have ever though we'd take so much flak for that! Its amazing.