On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:03:07 -0400, Michael Porter
wrote:

wrote:

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:26:10 -0400, Michael Porter
wrote:

wrote:


Hey! Isn't the Roger Long who designs boats?

Now you know how the rest of us feel when we discover that to save
space, make the hull a better shape, or some other trivial reason you
can't get THAT nut off until you remove THIS thing over here :-)





Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

chuckle yep!

but that's usually the fault of owners who want everything including
the kitchen sink in a 30' boat but won't accept the loss of
accommodation space to a proper engineroom. Or of marketing types
ditto.

Cheers,
Michael Porter
Michael Porter Marine Design
mporter at mp-marine dot com
www.mp-marine.com


Do you mean that 3 staterooms, en suite, is not standard in a 30
footer? And the lounge wouldn't normally seat 10 for a formal meal?
And where will the crew's quarters be?
My goodness, what are you people doing with all that computer help it
should be simple. =:-)




Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Yeah, well . . . most designers are a little brain-damaged, I guess.
why else would we be in a field where you have to do a lot of work and
make very little money?

I have spent far too much time upside-down with my head in the bilges
of gold-platers trying to fix something I could deal with in 20 min if
I had it on a bench in front of me to have a very good opinion of
production "yachts", especially the fancy ones.

No doubt a pernicious conspiracy between marketing people and owners
with the express purpose of frustrating designers and boatyard
workers.

Cheers,
Michael Porter
Michael Porter Marine Design
mporter at mp-marine dot com
www.mp-marine.com


From all the articles about "how to design a yacht" I've always
assumed that the first task was to design a hull having the desired
properties; second, design a rig that wouldn't't fall over; third,
figure our how to house the crew; and lastly how to cram the motor in
.... somewhere.

Logical, perhaps, but highly frustrating when you can see something
but can't reach it to adjust it...


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

On Aug 17, 4:06 am, wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:13:57 -0400, "Roger Long"





wrote:
I went back down to the boat for something I forgot and decided I wanted to
play around a little more.

I've been telling myself since I got the boat that I should try hand
starting the diesel. Better to climb the learning curve at the dock than
while drifting down towards a steep lee shore after some electrical system
disaster. I also have the hand start ability factored into my battery
management strategy. Thanks to this newsgroup, I know that hand starting a
20 hp, twin cylinder, diesel is near the edge of feasibility but doable.

I pulled the big forged or cast iron starting handle out of its handy
brackets next to the engine and put it in place. HUH!? The fiberglass
structure of the engine compartment enclosure makes it impossible to turn
the handle more than a quarter turn. Since hand starting requires getting
it spinning rapidly with the cylinders decompressed and then using the
inertia of the flywheel and engine to (hopefully) kick it into life as you
continue to assist with the crank, there is no way this could begin to work.

I can categorically say that no one has ever hand started one of these boats
unless they were originally delivered with a special handle that the PO
perhaps replaced with the stock item (judging by the paint) not realizing
that it couldn't possibly start the engine. This design defect has
persisted through multiple models of a 1980 boat without ever coming to the
notice of the builders or being noted on the owner's group web site. This
is the most common engine installed in the class.

It's a perfect lesson of the test-everything-and-assume-nothing principle.

I now have a conundrum. I can spend more money to have the handle cut apart
and an extension welded in. The leverage of the cranking force working over
the longer length makes proper functioning questionable unless some
structure with a bearing is provided. I just spent a couple hundred dollars
on insurance in the form of chain so I'm not sure a starting handle for an
engine that can just barely be hand started is the wisest next expenditure.
I may just remove all of the hand start apparatus, which is pretty extensive
and in the way on this particular model, and join the ranks of larger boat
owners who live with the fact that their engines are not going to start
without a functioning battery and electrical system.

Hey! Isn't the Roger Long who designs boats?

Now you know how the rest of us feel when we discover that to save
space, make the hull a better shape, or some other trivial reason you
can't get THAT nut off until you remove THIS thing over here :-)

Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Come on Bruce, boat designers know what they are doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_GW1ep5ls

Joe

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:34:00 -0700, Joe
wrote:

On Aug 17, 4:06 am, wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:13:57 -0400, "Roger Long"





wrote:
I went back down to the boat for something I forgot and decided I wanted to
play around a little more.

I've been telling myself since I got the boat that I should try hand
starting the diesel. Better to climb the learning curve at the dock than
while drifting down towards a steep lee shore after some electrical system
disaster. I also have the hand start ability factored into my battery
management strategy. Thanks to this newsgroup, I know that hand starting a
20 hp, twin cylinder, diesel is near the edge of feasibility but doable.

I pulled the big forged or cast iron starting handle out of its handy
brackets next to the engine and put it in place. HUH!? The fiberglass
structure of the engine compartment enclosure makes it impossible to turn
the handle more than a quarter turn. Since hand starting requires getting
it spinning rapidly with the cylinders decompressed and then using the
inertia of the flywheel and engine to (hopefully) kick it into life as you
continue to assist with the crank, there is no way this could begin to work.

I can categorically say that no one has ever hand started one of these boats
unless they were originally delivered with a special handle that the PO
perhaps replaced with the stock item (judging by the paint) not realizing
that it couldn't possibly start the engine. This design defect has
persisted through multiple models of a 1980 boat without ever coming to the
notice of the builders or being noted on the owner's group web site. This
is the most common engine installed in the class.

It's a perfect lesson of the test-everything-and-assume-nothing principle.

I now have a conundrum. I can spend more money to have the handle cut apart
and an extension welded in. The leverage of the cranking force working over
the longer length makes proper functioning questionable unless some
structure with a bearing is provided. I just spent a couple hundred dollars
on insurance in the form of chain so I'm not sure a starting handle for an
engine that can just barely be hand started is the wisest next expenditure.
I may just remove all of the hand start apparatus, which is pretty extensive
and in the way on this particular model, and join the ranks of larger boat
owners who live with the fact that their engines are not going to start
without a functioning battery and electrical system.

Hey! Isn't the Roger Long who designs boats?

Now you know how the rest of us feel when we discover that to save
space, make the hull a better shape, or some other trivial reason you
can't get THAT nut off until you remove THIS thing over here :-)

Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Come on Bruce, boat designers know what they are doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_GW1ep5ls

Joe


Well, of course you are correct - HOWEVER - what they are doing is
perhaps not what I wish they had been doing when I am working on a
boat. For example, I'm sure that America's Cup boats are designed to
be the most efficient sailing boats in the world, but I doubt very
much that the designer gave much thought to changing the filters on
the auxiliary engine.....

On the other hand, if I were paying for the design of an America's Cup
boat perhaps I would have less interest in how to change the
filters.....

As an aside, the first Farr 40 my wife saw didn't impress her one
little bit. No back on the cockpit and a stupid little one burner
stove?




Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

wrote in message
...

As an aside, the first Farr 40 my wife saw didn't impress her one
little bit. No back on the cockpit and a stupid little one burner
stove?

Women are the primary reason why so many sailboats today are such poor
excuses as boats. The little woman does not have any idea about what
things should take priority. About the difference between a good boat
and a poor boat. To women a big apartment-size galley is a must have.
And a big bathroom with hot shower and vanity and lots of lights for
putting on make-up. Also a very large dinette is a must so she can cook
and entertain. And a refrigerator/freezer (stand up, of course).

Never mind the boat won't sail. Never mind the cockpit's impossible
large. Never mind the tankage puts the boat well below her lines. Never
mind you can't get to the motor because kitchen cabinets are built all
around it. Never mind you have to ship two thousand pounds of batteries
and inverters to run her blow dryer, clothes dryer, and microwave. Never
mind all those large dangerous windows she's just got to have so it
looks like a house from inside. Nope, just built a boat like a floating
apartment and the women will say. "That's the one I want." You know
what's really more disgraceful than this? It's the man who knows he's
buying a piece of crap but does it anyway just to please the little
woman.

Wilbur Hubbard

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:59:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

Never mind the boat won't sail

The old lady might be happy with a decent powerboat, and you don't
need high speed or big thirsty engine[s]. If you can install them low
enough to serve as useful ballast for your displacement hull boat,
then by all means have a ton of batteries. I am sixty years old, with
a bad heart, and I dont't want a sailboat, although they certainly
have their place.

Casady

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:59:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .

As an aside, the first Farr 40 my wife saw didn't impress her one
little bit. No back on the cockpit and a stupid little one burner
stove?

Women are the primary reason why so many sailboats today are such poor
excuses as boats. The little woman does not have any idea about what
things should take priority. About the difference between a good boat
and a poor boat. To women a big apartment-size galley is a must have.
And a big bathroom with hot shower and vanity and lots of lights for
putting on make-up. Also a very large dinette is a must so she can cook
and entertain. And a refrigerator/freezer (stand up, of course).

Never mind the boat won't sail. Never mind the cockpit's impossible
large. Never mind the tankage puts the boat well below her lines. Never
mind you can't get to the motor because kitchen cabinets are built all
around it. Never mind you have to ship two thousand pounds of batteries
and inverters to run her blow dryer, clothes dryer, and microwave. Never
mind all those large dangerous windows she's just got to have so it
looks like a house from inside. Nope, just built a boat like a floating
apartment and the women will say. "That's the one I want." You know
what's really more disgraceful than this? It's the man who knows he's
buying a piece of crap but does it anyway just to please the little
woman.

Wilbur Hubbard

Willie, you know so little about boats that it is very difficult to
discuss them with you.

I mentioned in my post that this was a Farr 40, which is one of the
most successful boats that have ever been designed,

It is an all out racing boat.

It has an open cockpit, nearly a third of the length of the boat to
give the helmsman and rope handlers plenty of room.

It has a small galley because these people are racing, not eating
gourmet meals and extra equipment makes the boat weigh more.

There are large areas of the deck where carbon fiber is used and they
don't paint these areas -- to save weight.

The running back stays have the cover stripped off the kevlar core
from just above the height that a crew member can reach up to the mast
because the cover has weight that isn't needed and as one of the crew
said, "that cover missing up there is equal to one more man sitting on
the rail.

Their battery bank is just large enough to keep the nav lights and
instruments going for the length of the race.

The tanks are as small as possible and in the better crewed boats the
length of the race X an adequate amount of water per man per day is
all that is carried.

The better crews also weigh each man's gear before they bring it
aboard and if you are over weight you take out enough to get the load
down to the limit - say, 5 pounds - or they don't load your bag.

But then, as Malcolm Forbes said, "The dumbest people I know are those
who know it all."



You must have some rather odd fetishes as you seem to like to put your
foot in your mouth so much.

Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Wilbur Hubbard wrote:

Women are the primary reason why so many sailboats today are such poor
excuses as boats ...

I will be sure to ask Florence Arthaud about this the next time we do lunch.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://home.comcast.net/~kerrydeare

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:06:55 +0700, wrote:

Thanks to this newsgroup, I know that hand starting a
20 hp, twin cylinder, diesel is near the edge of feasibility but doable.

Of course not. The limit is ten times that. Gardner 250 hp six. You
have to buy the boat to get one.
I used to crank start a 110 horse flathead gasoline six. I kicked a
small crank. I actually started that engine with the crank out of a
3/8 drive socket set. Drilled the end for a crosspin. It broke the
third time, so we went to the junkyard and got an old cream separater
crank. We had trashed the starter. and a replacement was taking a
while. If you think 20hp is the limit then you have a setup that just
barely works. It doesn't have to be that way.

Casady

There's a world of difference between a gas engine and a diesel.

I have no doubt that larger diesels can be hand started but, as you said,
set up has a lot to do with it. Working in the confines of the typical
small boat cabin without being able to use your body effeciently and the
crank at an angle is going to make a big difference.

The real world, reported experience, here and other places, is that with the
typical sailboat set up, 12 -15 is a bear and 20 can be done but not
reliably. I talked to a fellow yesterday who got his 3 cylinder going once
but was never able to duplicate the feat.

I'm sure there are exceptions. With the boat and installation designed from
the beginning to make hand starting a priority, starting a larger engine
would be possible. Problem is, it is generally an afterthought if it is
given any thought at all.

--
Roger Long

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:59:37 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

The real world, reported experience, here and other places, is that with the
typical sailboat set up, 12 -15 is a bear and 20 can be done but not
reliably. I talked to a fellow yesterday who got his 3 cylinder going once
but was never able to duplicate the feat.

When hand starting a diesel a wee shot of starting ether can make all
the difference, emergencies only of course. If you can get enough
flywheel momentum to take you through one or two compression strokes,
that is usually enough.