Challenge: Sailing Around Britain in a Man-Made Raft - Would Appreciate Any Advice

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SkullDragon

Anyway, I should probably talk a little more about the raft. It isn't a piece of rope, three nails and an oil drum. The 'blueprint' and I use that term generously, has both pieces of the catamarangs consisting of 8 oil drums each, at a length of about a metre each, so she should be about 8 metres long, which when combined with a sail and a massive Diesel engine strapped to the back I see no reason why we can't make at least some progress. Does this change anyones opinion? And might I remind you Jeremy Clarkson crossed the Channel in a Toyota.

Nope. It might (!) float, but it will never be seaworthy. Besides that, it will be very expensive and time-consuming to create any kind of rig or propulsion system, even a bad one. You can't just "strap" an engine onto some floating pile of crap and expect it to work. "Some kind of progress" is not going to do you much good in waters with 5 knot tidal currents and strong winds, and 2000 miles to go.

You will get 100 times the seaworthiness for 1/10 the price, in 1/50 of the time by simply buying a device built for the purpose, that is, an actual sailboat.

This part of your dream is, not to put too fine a point on it, fairly daft, IMHO. If you want to bob around on some floating pile of junk and make people laugh -- fine; go for it, if that's what you really want to do. If you want to sail around Britain, that is a different and incompatible dream. You would want to choose either one, or the other, in my opinion.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Face it... your gonna have to spend some cash... then buy a Tiki21 catamaran... around 2,500 - 4000 quid.... secondhand.. they sail well, have two berths in the hulls and you can fit a two man dome tent on the deck... you did say you planned on anchoring whenever possible.
Fit a 5hp and she'll cruise in good conditions at 7kts with 4 onboard.... no wind of course its good conditions... easy maintainance... low tech...

I wish someone had told me that..........

....better still to go and build one somewhere warm and tropical. Don't really matter if yer "sailing around tropical waters for 6 months or a year" ends up with the reality of a couple of times around the bay.

F#ck it.

I'm off next week

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

F#ck it.

I'm off next week

Off Work... Off Sailing.... or Both....

Is this a subtle announcement of a Voyage mate....

[sabray]

Read this wild book called Seaworthy

Excerpt of review from Amazon.com

In 1953, the 60-year-old Willis sailed a homemade balsa-wood raft over 4,000 miles across the Pacific from Peru to American Samoa, accompanied only by a cat and a foul-mouthed parrot. Novelist Pearson (Glad News of the Natural World) gives a rousing retelling of how, along the way, Willis endured a hernia and a perforated ulcer, sewed up an artery ruptured by a shark's tooth and survived on seawater after running out of fresh. He details Willis's eccentric diets, yogic breathing exercises and mystic spirituality, his half-baked, spur-of-the-moment planning, and the uncanny luck and superhuman hardiness that saw him through the rafting crises.

Here is the link:

Amazon.com: Seaworthy: Adrift with William Willis in the Golden Age of Rafting (9780307335944): T. R. Pearson: Books

I enjoyed the book it may give you some insight into rafting.

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by SkullDragon

Anyway, I should probably talk a little more about the raft. It isn't a piece of rope, three nails and an oil drum. The 'blueprint' and I use that term generously, has both pieces of the catamarangs consisting of 8 oil drums each, at a length of about a metre each, so she should be about 8 metres long, which when combined with a sail and a massive Diesel engine strapped to the back I see no reason why we can't make at least some progress. Does this change anyones opinion? And might I remind you Jeremy Clarkson crossed the Channel in a Toyota.

This guy crossed to Florida from Cuba, so cut him some slack.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Off Work... Off Sailing.... or Both....

Is this a subtle announcement of a Voyage mate....

It should be. but it ain't

Just that I always liked the look of the smaller Tiki's. and the concept of small & simple - albeit I suspect the reality is rather different (more hard work) than the carefree dream.

it usually is


But the idea of scratching that build a boat itch and building a Tiki 21 abroad (where a deck tent is also about keeping the sun off and not snow ) over 6 months / a year has a certain attraction. Kinda like doing SFA in the sun. but with a purpose......with the backstop that if it didn't work out (didn't float . or flipped ) then it wouldn't really matter........

..........but back in the real world............

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

It should be. but it ain't

Just that I always liked the look of the smaller Tiki's. and the concept of small & simple - albeit I suspect the reality is rather different (more hard work) than the carefree dream.

it usually is

Well once I'd finished doing her up I had little to do except change the lashings every so often... mostly it was beer n barbies on various beaches we just sailed onto... mind I only had her a coupla years.... the sprayhood is essential.. when she's flying at 12+ knots...
But the Tiki 26 was a bit more labour intensive...

[SkullDragon]

Cheers for the slightly more positive imput.

A couple of things have changed, firstly we're going for a Trimaran design now, not a Catamaran, apparently it's faster and impossible to sink, or so says Wikipedia.

Secondly, we've scrapped the round Britain idea. Sort of. You're collective negative advice, combined with a few friends who have also had some alarmingly vocal reservations have made us partially reconsider. We're still starting in Devon, we're still buidling our own boat, but we've scaled down the trip. Our aim now is to do the South Coast in a month. Of course if we make good speed and all is going well then we'll continue.

Thoughts?

[RiverRat]

Sounds much better to me. For whatever that's worth! I'm all for you guys challenging yourselves and doing something adventurous. It just seemed like the first plan was a bit 'newly developed' shall we say.

I'm also glad the negative responses didn't run you off the forum completely. We'd love to hear how it goes. Who knows? Maybe you'll work your way up to some variation of the original plan.

Would this be a self-built trimaran or a commercially built one? Just curious.

Good luck and have fun!!

[SurferShane]

Originally Posted by RiverRat

Sounds much better to me. For whatever that's worth! I'm all for you guys challenging yourselves and doing something adventurous. It just seemed like the first plan was a bit 'newly developed' shall we say.

I'm also glad the negative responses didn't run you off the forum completely. We'd love to hear how it goes. Who knows? Maybe you'll work your way up to some variation of the original plan.

Would this be a self-built trimaran or a commercially built one? Just curious.

Good luck and have fun!!

I saw your profile name and was worry I smoked a bit too much and seeing double name like that someone looking for you down the pub end up meeting the whole place

[RiverRat]

Originally Posted by BoxHead

I saw your profile name and was worry I smoked a bit too much and seeing double name like that someone looking for you down the pub end up meeting the whole place

Ha! Your avatar would be PERFECT for me! Or maybe my username would be perfect for you!

[fishwife]

Good progress It may be an idea to think how far you can realistically travel each day and plan for where you will stop. Many of the beach areas on the south coast are not exactly ideal for camping. To make any distance, you will have to give thought to the shape of the hull you build. There is good reason for boats being built with a 'pointy' front. A reliable way of estimating your speed through the water is to take the square root of the waterline length and multiply it by 1.1, this assumes a far from sleek hull A raft made of oil drums, say 6 for each hull, with each drum about 4'6" long and another 4'6" for the bow, gives 31.5 foot, which gives a speed of 6 knots through the water.
Give serious thought to how you will steer, you'll need a beefy rudder.
You'll need to learn a little about navigation and tides, including the difference between speed over the ground and speed through the water.

The very best of luck

P.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SkullDragon

Cheers for the slightly more positive imput.

A couple of things have changed, firstly we're going for a Trimaran design now, not a Catamaran, apparently it's faster and impossible to sink, or so says Wikipedia.

Secondly, we've scrapped the round Britain idea. Sort of. You're collective negative advice, combined with a few friends who have also had some alarmingly vocal reservations have made us partially reconsider. We're still starting in Devon, we're still buidling our own boat, but we've scaled down the trip. Our aim now is to do the South Coast in a month. Of course if we make good speed and all is going well then we'll continue.

Thoughts?

Certainly much better. But still:

1. You'll need propulsion. You'll an appropriate sized outboard motor which is mounted in a structurally sound way. You don't want to rig that up over a drunken giggle; you will need professional help.

2. You will need a rig that will work at least somewhat, if you plan to sail at all. Again, this is not all that simple, and will not be all that cheap, doing it from scratch. If you decide not to sail at all, but simply motor-propel your contraption that will probably be a much more practical choice.

3. You will need basic navigation and seamanship. An electronic chart plotter will help a lot with the navigation but you will still need to learn a few skills before going to sea.

4. You will need enough time to sail from port to port using good weather windows. A craft like that will become life-threateningly dangerous in any kind of weather. It is unlikely you will get long stretches of good enough weather during any season but summer on the UK south coast.


Let me explain a little about the last point: with wind come higher seas, and higher seas will exert strong forces on your craft. Some trimiran made out of oil drums may be theoretically unsinkable, because the drums themselves, if well sealed, are unsinkable. But sinking is not your main fear. You will not be able to engineer the connections between the oil drums on your kitchen table in such a way as to stand up to those forces, and the craft will break apart once the forces get up to a certain level. Clinging to a floating oil drum in a gale after your raft has broken up will not keep you alive very long in cold water.

The key attraction to this whole thing seems to be building your own craft, so I won't try anymore to talk you out of it. But just don't forget that for a fraction of the cost and effort of assembling your own floating junkpile, you can buy an old but seaworthy sailboat like this for example:

Details=&

In that, you could sail all the way around Britain if you had the time.

Here's a Mirror Offshore (like the one the Keep Turning Left guy is sailing around Britain) for 995 quid!

Van de Stadt Boats for sale UK, Van de Stadt Used boat sales, Van de Stadt Sailing Yachts For Sale Mirror Offshore II - Apollo Duck

Here's a pretty fit-looking Leisure 22 bilge-keeler for only 2500 squids. You can crawl up rivers on that and dry out:

http://yachts.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=165768

You could spend 50,000 pounds and and a year of work, and you will still never have an oil-drum based raft which will be as seaworthy as an actual yacht, no matter how crappy, such as the Mirror or the Leisure.

Actually the Leisure is a pretty damn good little boat -- has an inboard diesel engine, and they are built like brickhouses -- at least one has been sailed across the Atlantic.

[lawdawg]

On the bright side, Captain Calamity's Catamaran does have pretty good bridge deck clearance, should help with the wave slapping

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by SkullDragon

Trimaran design now, not a Catamaran, Thoughts?

Ummm far be it for me to ever defend the multi-hulls, but a "catamaran" or "trimaran" that we know is not to be mixed up with what you are saying.

catamarangs consisting of 8 oil drums each, at a length of about a metre each, so she should be about 8 metres long

That is a raft made of 2 lines of drums. Not a catamaran.
Having 3 lines of drums does not make it a trimaran. It makes it a raft with 3 lines of drums.

The science of cats and tri (and monohulls) as we know them is vastly superior and in no way can be compared.

(Sails too, just can NOT be designed and made without the modern science. Vikings even though they sailed for centuries never made an areodynamic sail. Its not that easy.)

So in building your boat do not expect more than the abilites of a raft.

What may be interesting for you to take from catamaran design is the huge loads on the cross members. Its more than what it would appear.

As I am no designer(!) make sure you get someone competant to look over the plans and the building.

Even though you might not be going far off shore it may be of interest to you that I once rescued a fit man who, though he could swim, could not get 10 meters (30 feet) to the beach.

If lashing drums together could sucessfully make a boat then I would assure you there would be looneis out there doing it.


Australias Beer Can Regatta, where all the boats are made of beer cans, is held in knee deep water.