Cruising on $500 per Month . . .

[callmecrazy]

Re: lead lines

Thanks, I think I'm cool with the simple weight+string version. I just so happen to have a 1" bolt lying around

I have an echo sounder, but it's as old as the boat and I'd rather not get stuck in the mud if it decides to fail at just the right moment.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

Re: lead lines

I have an echo sounder, but it's as old as the boat and I'd rather not get stuck in the mud if it decides to fail at just the right moment.

this is how it starts...

seek clear water

[capttman]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Depends on how you want to use it. For use in reasonably shallow water and at rest or going very slowly just about anything will do... the aforementioned 1/2 inch bolt, etc on a marked string.

But if you want it to really replace a sounder, ie use it in deeper water or while under way, then something a lot heavier is required. To use it under way you must throw it far enough ahead so that the vessel does not move past where the weight is when it has reached the bottom. Thus enough weight to carry some distance and to sink rapidly was necessary. A considerable degree of skill was involved in being a leadsman...

And Zee is right -- the traditional lead had a recess in its bottom that was usually filled with sticky tallow. This would bring up a sample of the bottom for inspection... sometimes useful in determining one's position in the old days.

Me, I like an echo sounder!

Cheers,

Jim

Used my version for 20 years it works fine all over...Have you used one?????

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by capttman

Used my version for 20 years it works fine all over...Have you used one?????

Only at rest to check the sounder calibration! But even at rest, when I tried it in 30+ feet depths I needed a significant weight. With a light lead it was really hard to feel when it hit the bottom, and any current swept it away from being straight up and down.

Cheers,

Jim

[osirissail]

One of the best depth sounding devices I use often is my West Marine 14ft collapsible boat hooks. I extend it and use a laundry marker pen to mark off 1 foot increments. Any depths over 10 to 14 feet I don't really care about, but for shallow areas it is nice to have a solid pole to be able to really "feel" the bottom.

[goprisko]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

Re: lead lines

Thanks, I think I'm cool with the simple weight+string version. I just so happen to have a 1" bolt lying around

I have an echo sounder, but it's as old as the boat and I'd rather not get stuck in the mud if it decides to fail at just the right moment.

ABI used to sell a lead line weight. It was nothing more than a 6" long piece of 1" hex bar with a hole drilled into one end for the line. The bottom end was hollowed so it could be armed with beeswax to pickup a sample of the bottom.

In use, the weight is swung in a vertical circle and thrown ahead of the boat at least as far as the expected depth. The line is marked every fathom with dark thread so the depth can be measured.

INDY

[goprisko]

Much is made of the need for RADAR to see objects at night. Why not simply make your passages during the full moon? The moon makes things sufficiently bright that you can see far ahead of the boat.

With practice, given normal eyesight, you will be able to see on starlit nights too.

Regarding fog.... the D/S is more helpful than you think. By running a chain of soundings (soundings at a given distance interval) along your track and comparing them to the chart, you obtain a LOP. By listening intently to noises heard, you can identify headlands, lights, and bouys.

Running with the engine off, under sail, this works so very much better, since the boat makes no noise, enabling even the faintest sounds to be heard.

I remember navigating thus through the Straits of Mackinac from Beaver Is to Detour Passage. Hit the passage dead on.

INDY

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by goprisko

. . . In use, the weight is swung in a vertical circle and thrown ahead of the boat at least as far as the expected depth. The line is marked every fathom with dark thread so the depth can be measured.
INDY

Don't forget that after heaving the line and reading the depth you need to sing out loud "Mark Twain" and the bottom material . . .

[goprisko]

Much has been made regarding the desirability of trampolines by the multihull crowd....

Thirty years ago, I cruised the south end of Lake Michigan in my Tartan 27. The boat made lots of friends with the ladies because it's shallow draft permitted me anchoring in 4 ft of water just off the beach, and the kids could use a line off the boom to swing into the water.

Since, I used a pawl instead of a windlass, the foredeck, while none too large, was clear of obstructions.

One particular lady friend of mine appreciated the boat so much that she bought a tiny red and white bikini to wear when she was aboard. She liked the symphony and ballet too. One weekend we sailed to Chicago for the ballet on saturday evening. Returning Sunday evening on a brisk SW breeze from off the beach, the boat roared along in flat water lit by a full moon.

I liked that girl very much, and that night we made love on the foredeck as the boat roared along, swimsuits tied to the lifeline. As we lay together afterward, our view upward was of the curve of the sails carrying us home, softly lit by moonlight. That night started one of the greatest love affairs of my life. I still remember it fondly.

So, it matters not whether yours is a foredeck or a trampoline, what matters is what you do with what you have.

INDY

[goprisko]

Originally Posted by sailronin

I don't know if it's been mentioned (didn't read all 1698 posts) but go to roryandcookie.com to see the ultimate in micro-budget cruising.
Rory CIRCUMNAVIGATED in (or on) a 21 foot Wharram Tiki catamaran which he built for 5000 Sterling (about $8000). He spent 3000 Sterling ($5000) for the five year RTW in which he visited 27 countries.

By my math that works out to about $83.33 per month!

Dave

A boat of that size fits in to the nano-budget cruising size. I remember going off for months in the Canadian sub-arctic in a 17' grumman canoe. I spent about $300 for the summer including the cost of the auto trip to the trailhead and back. At that time folks were lashing two canoes together to form cats. I believe the total cost for everything was about $1000. Like the wharram, you slept on deck.

Of course, if you'd like a little more comfort, why not get a Dovekie?
They go for between $3-5k.

They have about the same accomodation. You can bring it home and store it in your garage when the season is over. There is an active owners assn, too, and they are popular with known resale value and an active market.

INDY

[goprisko]

Let's look at the tiki series of cats, since the legend is they cost nothing to build.

A little research mentions they cost 8000 GBP to build, That's about $16,000 USD. It's a ply epoxy boat. Look at the photo hard. There are NO OPENING WINDOWS. There is the forehatch, which you can't keep open at sea for several reasons. Jim's plans call for a very simple box hatch, and you'd have to modify them to make a Griffith's double coaming hatch instead. (Not hard to do, but the low freeboard, means that hatch will be wet, very wet unless closed). So you've got the cabin top hatch for ventilation. Look carefully at the size of each ama. they are about a meter in beam. So, your cabin is about 1 meter wide. If you put two bunks into each ama, you have where to cook? Wash dishes? Store stuff?

The photo shows clearly what I meant when I said that you must build two hulls and three decks so you get a space the size of a coffin to live in.

Take a look at the plans for a StoneHorse about similar size. This boat is available in wood or GRP, and there are project boats for sale at about $5k and boats in good condition go for $15K. About 200 boats were built professionally.

Also in this size, the benford dories..like sourdough at 23 ft

Look hard at the plans for Sourdough. The boat is flat bottomed, with flared sides. Cheap to build, because you can use ply or aluminum and there are a minimum of seams with no compound curves. You get more interior room and only need build one hull!



INDY

[sailronin]

The Dovekie looks interesting, I'd never heard of one before. Not sure I'd want to circumnavigate in one ( or a Tiki 21 for that matter), but the Tiki does have a bunk in the hull, you wouldn't have to sleep on deck like the two canoes lashed together.
I'm in my 50s so camp/cruising has lost it's appeal, fun for a weekend but that's about it.
Around 28-30 feet would be my lower limit now days and it would have to be a "big" little boat, like a BCC, which would take me out of the micro budget range.

[w1651]

Originally Posted by tgzzzz

Thanks for the link Dave, but you have little standing here if you haven't fought, suffered, cried, whined, pontificated, been lectured to REPEATEDLY, asked to get off the thread, and start your own ... ad nauseum thru all 1700 wonderful posts. Get with the program.

I want to say YA WHAT HE SAID! But I don't know if you can take a joke so I'll Digress for now...

I'll definitely check out the link it fits right in here.

[w1651]

Want to make the boat bigger? I learned this little trick this weekend.

Get rid of the table. It opens up the salon like you cannot believe. I took mine and put it into the vee birth which I won't use but for stowage anyway. It's like having a dance floor in the boat there's so much room.
Now I can have that decent sized bed I need for comfort.

[Doodles]

Indy, the Dovekie is a very cool boat but a coastal cruiser at best. The Tiki 26 was raced in the OSTAR, a very tough race across the North Atlantic, and it did very well. I don't think anyone here would consider sailing a Dovekie across the North Atlantic or any ocean and I thought we were taking about boats that could cross oceans.