On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:01:58 +0100, GK wrote:

I am thinking about to build a Bruce Roberts 340 because I like some
details of it and I am close to order his plans (but not the cutting files).
Before taking any decision I would like to get some more information of
others because BR makes a lot of advertising and he is talking about
thousands of boats built, however
the little information in news list and others are mostly not very
favourable on the quality of plans and the saling quality and on BR
himself.
This makes me a little suspicious.

So it should. I've seen some beautifully done BR designs...but I don't
know how they sailed and credit for the nice builds has nothing to do
with BR.

Also, I've seen a lot of total crap low on its lines and with a finish
Ray Charles would criticize. BR designs are like Hyundais of 15 years
ago...ok for getting around, but not taken seriously in some quarters.

The Spray class in particular gets a lot of criticism for taking a bad
idea (19th century oyster boat) and assuming that the design, and not
the skill of Slocum, got the thing around the world. I hear they are
total pigs to sail.

I cannot find any of his boats on the secondhand market.

That's odd. I went to Yachtworld.com, and put in "Bruce Roberts" under
"builder/mfg" and 25 to 55 feet in size and "All" in the country slot,
and got 70 hits, ranging from 345,000 euros to 20,000 euros.

Frankly, they are very common, as both home builders and boatyards do
them as custom jobs. That's why there is probably the biggest range in
quality in these boats: skill set of the builders.

R.

Hi

You are quite right ,but please remember that the skills of the builder
can also compensate for bad plans. Now I have no experience with the
plans you discuss, but I know about a very famous shipyard who bought a
serie of very expensive plans for serie of steel boats -- these plans
was so bad even the boats displayed very nice, but the making of the
plans simply produced ribs for boats that could not be build, hull
surfaces that would not meet the frames and after more than halve a
year just trying to build one of the designs the shipyard was nearly
broke.
I say so from knowing a very skilled metal worker working with this
project --- he figured out what was wrong and scrapped all the lofted
frames and took the measures from the sheets and just the few frames
that acturly followed the lines in the plans. The space between the
projected ribs in the plans and the panels turned out to be up to 12
Cm. apart, ------- now one boat was finaly made and please bear in mind
that this shipyard was among the top profesional ones ,but the plans
was scrapped money thrown out of the window , and what's more to say ;
sure one boat was build but it was oly possible becaurse a few very
skilled craftsmen could make it work and not from the plans but from
experience and hands-on experience, still if you measured the ship
produced up against the plans you would say it was not the same ship.

Eh --- please let me add, that the worse foult with those plans you
could acturly see right away in the plans ; it was two or 3 chine hulls
and not one single frame showed the curve that a singe curved paneling
_will_ show when sliced seen from front.
No rib or very few ribs, will be strait in real with two or tree chine
hulls unless we talk about very clumpsy designs, but these ribs in
these very expensive plans all showed as strait lines in the front
view, ------ offcaurse the shipyard shuld have notised from the start,
but they belived in that when a world's famous designer made plans,
then they would work.

On 22 Jan 2006 05:09:30 -0800, wrote:

sure one boat was build but it was oly possible becaurse a few very
skilled craftsmen could make it work and not from the plans but from
experience and hands-on experience, still if you measured the ship
produced up against the plans you would say it was not the same ship.


Well, the designer should have been sued, because it is his/her
responsibility to ensure the measurements and lofting, etc. will mate
together to a specified tolerance in the real world.

If not, all that steel is just an abstract sculpture. CAD can and has
done this sort of thing for decades now...there is no excuse and the
yard has a strong case for putting the designer out of business,
unless a third party fabricated the steel improperly, perhaps.

R.