!Steel!!!! YYuuuukkkkkk!!!!! (backs away brandishing crucifix)
You couldn't *give* me a steel boat. I was in the Navy.


rhys wrote:
Yeah, but wasn't it spec'd by the same minds that ordered a $1,900
toilet seat and a $300 hammer? G

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Actually, the Navy takes rust prevention very seriously and invests a
heck of a lot of time & money on it. And with a great deal of success,
but not from an aesthetic standpoint.

... What can I say...steel DONE
PROPERLY (bulletproof coatings and ease of interior hull access) and
MAINTAINED SENSIBLY (don't drop pennies down the bilge...keep a pot of
touch up paint for deck and topside chips) can last decades

Sure.

... and
provide a safe and easy ride in the 40-50 foot range.

Sorry, you're dreaming. There is no "safe & easy ride" for a small (say,
less than 20 tons) sailboat in conditions likely to produce 40 to 50
foot seas, especially if they break. The material the boat is made of is
less important the it's overall design characteristics... the more like
a submarine, the better for such... but the worse for everything else.

But again, I digress. A big part of my objection to steel as a material
for small sailboats is that it's not inherently suitable. Too heavy and
too limp. Unless you're building a boat that's at least 20 tons... and
50 would be a more likely margin... there is no sense, engineering wise,
in building it out of steel.




Maybe that's why I like steel: liveaboard, multi-year cruising
requires in my mind some of the same thinking that goes into
workboats, if not the actual "look", mind you. Everyone admires the
plush upholstery...I'm looking for the lashing points for the lee
cloths. G Most folk like the marble inlay in the head...I look for
the shower sump and the runs to the battery G.

One of the steel boats I've had experience with was owned by the Great
Lakes Naval training Center Sailing Club. It was a 40-ish foot ketch,
very heavy, an empty box with no accomodation inside. The empty space
was necessary for sail & tool stowage. I don't know how many sails the
boat carried but it must have been 30+. We used to entertain ourselves
by experimenting with mizzen staysails, of which there were at least a
dozen. It also had padeyes welded all over it for tying stuff down, all
seemed strong enough to lift the boat from.


.... Given the current market
conditions, I think we'll see a lot of racing boat conversions over the
next few years.


I think that's very dodgy, because if you put weight in a race boat,
you just get a slow race boat rather quickly.

That greatly depends on how it's done. The racer starts out with better
hull lines, a higher ballast ratio, stronger structure. You could a
significant part of the boat's weight before degrading the stability and
performance unless you add it all at bow or stern, very high up, etc
etc. The real problem is that such conversions are too likely to be
undertaken by people who don't know or don't pay much attention to such
details, and may not have chosen the basic boat wisely in the first
place. However I've seen a couple of pretty nice ones.



But it's an interesting question: "If you had a cool $1/4 mil to spend
on a sailboat, what would you get?"


For that cash, you should get the IDEAL 42-45 footer custom-built or
semi-custom built on the interior.

???

I don't think you're to get a custom 40+ footer for that kind of money.
Double, maybe. You could always buy the design, contract the hull and do
much of the fitting out yourself... not my cup o' tea.


... As a future world cruiser, I can
live with heavier, less space-age materials, but I want my systems and
stowage simple, accessible and as robust as is reasonable for cost and
weight. The cherry veneer is irrelevant in a Force 10 blow.

Agreed. But I like a boat that looks good, and how much time do you
spend battling gales anyway?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King