On Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:42:44 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:56:47 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Some interesting discussion points were brought out in any case. It
might be interesting to start another thread on what people consider
to be essential or highly desirable on cruising boats, perhaps broken
out by three or more size ranges: Under 30 feet; 30 to 40; 40 and up,
for example. I'd suggest that we should consider what it would take
for your wife to agree to a 3 month cruise on the boat. :-) For you
guys who aren't married, you'll just have to use your imagination.

Some possible discussion items:

- Type of dinghy, dinghy power, dinghy storage.

- Water tankage and/or water maker?.

- Pressure water?, hot water?, shower?, number and type of heads.

- Number and type of anchors, length/type of rode, windlass?, etc

- Galley equipment, stove type, refrigeration type, microwave?,
blender?, toaster?, freezer?

- Safety equipment, liferaft?, EPIRB?, SSB radio?, Sat Phone?

- Aux power, none?, outboard?, inboard gas?, inboard diesel?,
tankage/range?, fuel filtration and polishing?, oil change system?

- Electrical system, none?, basic 12 volt?, house bank/size?,
recharging capability?, inverter/type/size/switching?, generator
type/size/switching?

- Self steering?, autopilot?, wind vane?

- Electronics, GPS plotter/features, radar/features, depth sounder,
AIS?, DSC VHF?, handhelds?, entertainment systems?, etc.

and so on....

I suggest a criteria for the type of cruising. Maybe, day sailing up
the coast where one stops every evening and spares and supplies are
available. Travel to foreign or remote areas where you are pretty much
on your own for several weeks at a time.


When I originally said "long range cruising", travel to foreign or
remote areas was what I had in mind. I could be wrong but I think the
requirements for coastal cruising are fairly well understood by most
people in this group.

I find storage as being the most important factor in determining boat
size. If "provisions" consists of a loaf of bread and a bottle of
jelly for tomorrow's breakfast and peanut butter and saltine crackers
for lunch because we will stop at "hole in the wall" where they have
that darling little restaurant for supper, it is one thing. If you
aren't going to see land for three weeks it is quite another.

Boat size, depending on use but for a couple my opinion is 35 ft.
minimum and 40 ft. makes a more pleasant living space.

I agree but there are some people who want to go in smaller boats,
usually for budgetary reasons.

Fridge - Damned nice if you are cruising in tropical areas. On the
other hand I would be reluctant to depend on it for long trips as a
failure could be life threatening.

I think most people would agree that they'd consider a fridge to be
very desirable, if not essential. There are different types, some
more reliable and easier to repair than others: holding plates;
evaporator systems; engine driven compressors; 12 volt compressors;
110 volt compressors; portable ice chest types like the Engel, with
and without dual power; different levels of component redundancy; etc.

If you want a fridge on a long distance cruising boat there really is
only one choice - a holding plate system with an engine driven
compressor. Hopefully sufficient tank size to run the engine once a
day.

Water maker - Allows you to sail a lighter boat but failure could be
life threatening. Probably a good idea for long distance but should be
combined with a sensible fresh water management system. In any event
you want fairly large water tanks to allow a water management system
to function.

Water system - for long distance cruising a manual pump system. If you
can build a automatic pressure system for marina use and a manual pump
for off shore you have the best of two worlds.

If the boat has both a generator and an inverter system, you can have
reliable 110 volt power just about anywhere. You can also have
redundant pressure systems - both 110 volt and 12 volt. Our trawler
was originally set up like that but some previous owner removed the 12
volt pump. Fortunately our 110 volt pump is industrial strength.

Stove - LPG. You can get it anywhere, a couple of 9 Kg. tanks lasts
for months. It is easy to light and it cooks good.
Microwave, etc. For marina use only.

LPG is very popular for a lot of good reasons but our last two boats
have had electric stoves which works out very well if you have
reliable 110 volt power. It's nice to not have to carry stove fuel.
There are also some big advocates for diesel stoves which can also
double as heaters in cold climates.

Somehow I think you are talking about a motor boat or a larger sail
boat as having utensils powered by 110 (or 220 VAC in the rest of the
world) is probably not logical without an auxiliary generator as you
are talking about pretty large battery banks.

Autopilot/wind vane steering - YES! A must have item. the vane
steering works only under sail and the Autopilot works both under
power and sail. I see more and more people using autopilots but I'd
prefer both as many autopilots use too much power for reliable use in
long sailing passages.

Battery bank - House and start batteries that are separate. Size
depends on use.

Auxiliary power - Diesel inboard! Shaft drive with no sail drive or
Vee or Zee drives.
I suggest a Baja Filter. I don't have one but I normally refuel from
jerry cans and let them settle before transferring to the tanks.

I still have a Baja filter from my sailing says. It works well but is
too slow for large quantities of fuel.

True, but a better solution then pumping large amounts of dirt or
water into the main tanks. I mentioned Baja as it is a commonly know
name.
Fuel Polishing - I consider a system to "polish" the fuel probably
unreliable however a system to cycle the fuel through a water catcher
is not a bad idea. I have gotten water from both shore tanks and fuel
barges.

Trawler people are big on fuel poishing because clean fuel is so
critical. I built my own system for a fairly reasonable price and it
seems to work well. We've had no fuel issues since installing it but
re-engineered the overall filtration system at the same time so it's
hard to determine exact cause and effect.

The problem is the definition of "fuel polishing". Generally it is
thought of a system that will clean the fuel, and likely the dirty
tank, which just isn't possible with the usual system. A system that
sucks from the bottom of the tank and returns through an overflow will
usually catch small amounts of water and dirt though.

Fuel tankage - A minimum of several days steaming. If you undertake a
circumnavigation it is likely you will, sooner or later, encounter
extended periods with either adverse wind or no wind.

Yes, I think 48 hours is a good minimum, maybe more depending on
cruising venue and how much battery charging time is needed.

My sail boat carried 100 gallons of fuel and burns ~about~ 3/4 gallon
an hour. It is probably "over tanked" as I have never used more then
one tank (or most of one tank) before reaching a spot where I could
get more fuel.

Communication - VHF for inshore and a Amateur Band SSB with a modem to
be able to use SailMail during cruises. More and more Cell Phone is
used to communicate with marina's so a multi band phone with a system
for the areas you are visiting is nice.
EPIRB is probably a must although in much of Asia it is going to be
several days before anyone goes looking for you.

We have an EPIRB along with a SSB and Pactor modem for Sailmail. It
is useful, glad we have it, but as Sat phone prices and availability
continue to improve, that is probably the way of the future,
eventually replacing SSB on a lot of boats.

Yes. A friend considered all the alternate systems and starting from a
bare boat decided that satellite phone was the cheapest system to
install and if you only used it for short e-mail had acceptable
operating costs. He currently has VHF for short range and satellite
phone for long distance and is quite happy with it.

Dinghy - Probably the most useful dinghy is an inflatable however if
cruising in tropical climates it should be Hypalon as other material
fails quickly in tropical sun light. A dinghy cover is also a good
idea. With the usual inflatable a 5 HP engine is useful.

Our last couple of dinghies have been RIBs and I like them, although
probably too heavy for smaller boats. I have no experience with
Portabotes but they certainly have their advocates. My experience
with soft bottom inflatables is that they are easily damaged during
beaching. I like 15 hp more or less since it will get you up on plane
and moving pretty well, seems like a popular size on many other boats
also. We presently have a 20 but that's too heavy for most people.

When I said "inflatable" I was referring to any of the blow-up boats,
such as RIBS or soft tails.

As far as power goes, I was referring to putt-putting back and forth
to shore with the water jugs or bring back the groceries. I can't see
the need for a heavy 15 or 20 HP motor for that. Of course I don't go
exploring with a dinghy either.

But I've always assumed that I would be able to handle the dinghy and
dinghy motor by hand - no davits or rigging a hoist on the main boom.

Finally; lets change the subject name if this thread is going to
continue.

Done !



Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)
Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)