Making Ex-Racer My Cruiser . . . Am I Mad ?

[smithy09]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

G'Day Smithy,

Good to see another mad man here on CF! And a nice job of conversion under way.

What hull material is your Ross? I couldn't quite decide from the pix.

And I'm curious about your new rig. Sounds a lot like ours, and I'm, wondering if the rig designer gave you any guidelines about windstrength where you could safely leave off the runners? Our designer, Jon Sayer, wouldn't do so for us... kept saying that the rig could stand "quite a lot of wind" sans runners, but absolutely refused to quantify that. This has lead us to using them very conservatively, and it is a PITA for a couple of old farts to deal with at times!

Anyway, I can attest to the quality of Weyalan's work. He and his wife have done wonders with their Insatiable, and it has been good to see all the progress they have made in "cruisability" whilst maintaining reasonable competitiveness around the cans.

Cheers,

Jim

Hi Jim.
Thanks for the kind words. Kevlar over strip cedar for the hull and plywood decks. 40ft and weighs in at about 5500kg, so still fairly light but not in carbon territory!

Yes, for the amount of money I have spent so far on the old dear, I could have had a nice investment property. My Wife keeps reminding me of that fact too! Norths have a lounge called the "Smithy lounge" paid for by my sails... (Actually, I jest. They have been great, good value too).

I went to Halls Spars for my new mast and swept spreader arrangement, as they have a resident engineer who could do the calculations on loads introduced by sweeping the spreaders aft. Their conclusion was that they could heavily reinforce the current mast, or go one section bigger for another US$5000.. I went for the all new mast.

They have not given me a wind range for operating without the runners, but I just look at the rig and see what's happening. If it's bending around, I put them on. I need them for all 3/4 spinnakers and gennikers, but not masthead stuff. When cruising, I leave them off unless we are bouncing around in 30knots plus which is rare. When racing I have them on all the time upwind and just loose downwind. It's nice not having to "make" the new runner before gybing the main, especially when 2 handing, which our last big race was..

The incident that prompted the whole reconstruction was a HARD run aground on an isolated rock at about 8 knots. It tested the keel big time, but the worst damage was when the rig flexed and cracked the chainplates. That led me to reinforce the chainplates, and my boatbuilder said "if you're doing all this, might as well sweep your spreaders".. and so it starts.. I'm sure you know the story!! To all the nay sayers who slag off fin keels and bulbs, we had no damage apart from the bulb, rudder and rig. No cracks inside or outside and no loose bolts. I was impressed!

Some photos of our big prang, and also from the Round North Island race..
We had half the race hard on the wind with a bit of 30-40 knots in there, so it was a good test. Apart from the boom, we had very few issues. The Boom was as old as the boat and the vang was set up wrong which allowed it to drag when hard pressed.. Never good!

Sorry for the thread hijack!! Smithy.

[Jim Cate]

Smithy, thanks for all that. That's a much more radical keel than ours, and I'm quite impressed with it's durability. I assume that you have noted the furor re the Cheeki Rafiki keel loss. That discussion leads me to ask how your fin is attached to the hull... must be pretty damn robust?

Our keel (on a cruising boat designed by a race boat oriented NA) is way different, and allows such cruising niceties as allowing the boat to sit upon it in balance... useful in many ways whilst away from travelifts! (see attached photo). Also holds ~300 L of diesel! But yours offers much higher performance as is fitting for a real (ex) racer. So many choices to make!

Enough... nice boat, and it is obvious that you love her!

Jim

[smithy09]

Hi Jim.
Isn't Jon Sayer a Kiwi? Might be mistaken but he has a rep for designing fast boats. It looks like a nice slippery hull..Your keel is what would have originally been on the Marshall when it was built in 82. They called the Ross 40s "Family frighteners" back then as the keel was all lead but had a high COG. With the new bulb and steel fabricated fin, it is actually more stable and goes better up wind due to the foil shape of the fin. The keel needs to be about another 400mm deeper to be perfect, race wise, but I will leave it as it is for now..
Yes, ours is a diesel tank as well, but only 50 litres!!
The keel is held on by I think (no photos) 10 stainless bolts that come right up through a central carbon channel beam that extends from under the Galley to forward of the heads. All the internal ribs that branch out from this are laminated to this central spine. It is very strong. It also has a flanged "shoe" that slots into the hull and is flush faired. This shoe is considerably larger than the fin.
I was always concerned by the possibility of running aground, but after that impact (It was huge), and finding no cracks around the outside or inside of the hull, I was mightily impressed! My old Dufour 29 with an encapsulated longish keel showed much worse flexing (The liner came away from the hull) when I ran that aground in my youth..
I've attached a better photo showing the chainplate strengthening we put in when we moved the chainplates aft, and also the new carbon boom, which I am still paying for!!!

[smithy09]

And regarding the Cheeky Rafiki Keel, yes I saw the discussion and many others like it. I wouldn't like to speculate, but I have seen the keel fastenings of the Beneteaus (Nick name in NZ "Bendy Boats") and also the Bavarias. The Marshall's construction is substantially beefier than that. The Beneteaus seem to just come up through the bottom of the boat and rely on Hull strength with whatever ribs are laminated to the hull. My bolts come right through the rib structure, plus it has the shoe... You probably couldn't rebuild the Marshall as it is today for much under US$800K, (I didn't pay anywhere near that by the way!!) whereas the Beneteaus are less than half that brand new.. Your boat as well, I'm guessing, to rebuild as a one off would probably exceed $800K, but there's a lot of design work and hand building to make strip cedar boats..

[Weyalan]

So, time for another exciting episode of the Insatiable refit saga...

We decided that we would like an anchor locker. Frankly, carrying about 50 pounds of anchor from down below, up on deck, along the side deck and onto the foredeck is hard work, and then connecting it to the chain is time-consuming - hardly ideal in any decent chop, and in an emergency we wouldn't be able to deploy the anchor fast.

The foredeck originally looked like this


So we cut a hole for an anchor locker


Then we filled in the "gutter" that housed the spinnaker pole with foam and epoxy/filler slurry, glassed over the top, re-painted and, next minute, Bob's yer mother's brother!



Oh yeah, we also replaced the corroded, ugly old aluminium toe-rails with some rather nice teak (ouch), and took the opportunity to throw a bit of paint around too

If I remember I'll post pics of the work below decks too (new chain locker)

Next installment.... autopilot!

[sctpc]

Have you put a anchor roller on and what size chain and length and anchor type for that weed did you get?

[Weyalan]

Originally Posted by sctpc

Have you put a anchor roller on and what size chain and length and anchor type for that weed did you get?

We have fitted a bow roller. We currently use a 45 pound (20kg) plough anchor, and for cruising we carry 165' (50m) of 5/16" (8mm) chain with 35' (10m) of 3-strand rope spliced into the bitter end.

We are considering purchasing a "modern" anchor (Rocna, perhaps) before we cast the lines for long-term, live aboard cruising

[JPA Cate]

Hey, Patrick,

Nice job on the chain locker!

Ann

[Jim Cate]

Hey Patrick,

That looks like another of your good efforts at civilizing your Insatiable. And just think, when you go off to the Cygnet regatta and know that you will be on a mooring, you can leave the anchor and chain at home and fill that big locker with red wine bottles! We will volunteer to then help you get all that weight out of the bow for the racing...

See ya sometime in December ( ... and the creek don't rise)

Jim and the Admiral

[hellosailor]

Hmm...Let's say 125# of ground tackle, with most wine coming in 750ml bottles, maybe 2-1/4# per bottle, twelve per case...The race committee probably would allow you to carry four or five cases of wine up front instead of the ground tackle. You know, keeping the weight of all the usual equipment onboard.(VBG)

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Hmm...Let's say 125# of ground tackle, with most wine coming in 750ml bottles, maybe 2-1/4# per bottle, twelve per case...The race committee probably would allow you to carry four or five cases of wine up front instead of the ground tackle. You know, keeping the weight of all the usual equipment onboard.(VBG)

Ahhh, you clearly don't have experience with race commities in Tassie! If you can show that you emptied those bottles the night before, you get 12 seconds per mile knocked off your rating to compensate for the hangovers. It's a win-win situation!

This ruling came at the behest of all the Tasmanian wine growers who will do anything to increase sales (other than lowering prices).

Jim

[hellosailor]

No Jim, not in Tassie. But racing can't be very different down there. I knew one wise skipper who always made sure to buy the drinks for his competition when there was a two-day series. He figured, if the competition woke up with hangovers, and his crew had been warned to hold back....(G)....What can you say, there's no rule against it!

[Mopsy]

Hi all,

We spent 8 years converting our racer/cruiser into a more cruiser friendly boat and relaunching back in December 2009.
We have been living onboard full time since then and have cruised up and down the east coast of Australia and over to the Louisiades and have also stopped off to do a few racing regattas along the way.
I still love racing, where as my husband is over the racing scene and cruising is more his thing now - but I must say it is pretty cool to have a cruising boat that can transform back into "race" mode too.
We have raced in the cruising division at Airlie Beach Race Week a few times (won it in 2010) and the only real adjustments we made to the boat was lowering the boom back into its racing position for our old racing main and taking off our custom made dodger. We left the davits on to race.
After the race we cruised to the Louisiades and came back to our home port and added more cruising luxuries for long term comfort like a bigger watermaker (100 litres an hour instead of 5 litres an hour) a genset to run the watermaker, and while we were at it we added an air conditioner and washing machine since we now had power
Even though the boat is laden with cruising comfort, we have spent the past 9 months stripping the external cruising items off the boat and getting the boat up to Cat 1 safety so that we can race in the 2014 Sydney to Hobart, and then when we return we will spend 3 months putting it all back together again and begin our cruise around the world (maybe stopping to do some races along the way but don't tell the husband that
Sometimes having the runners can be a little hassle with just the two of us in cruise mode, and although the boat is quite long it is very narrow and has limited space downstairs with the centreboard case right in the middle of our lounge/dining room - but I really like the fact that we can also get the old houseboat back in to race mode for a bit of fun too.
So I guess after that big long winded post, no I don't think you are mad, you have just extended the life of an old racing boat, and that's a good thing

[Weyalan]

Another quick update...
Have completely re-painted the entire deck & transom. 2 to 3 coats of Wattyl UC230 high-build undercoat, White PU400 for the brightwork and PU750 for the non-skid, with International Interlux particles providing the non-skid. It has come up a treat. You wouldn't realise the boat will be having its 30th birthday this year (apart from the rather obvious typical IOR hull shape)

We have replaced the stern pulpits (or "pushpits" as they erroneously call them hereabouts). The new ones are longer (fore-aft) to allow mounting of pivoting solar panels, since we can't mount panels in a typical targa / arch above the transom. The new pushpits also incorporate comfortable seats (laid teak on glassed ply).

More exciting news, from a cruising perspective is the new autopilot. It is a B&G system and works really well. Currently we can only use it to steer to a course, with the standard +/- 1 degree and +/- 10 degree course adjustment. When we pull the boat out of the water we will fit the new speed log, and will fit the new instruments on the mast, so we will be able to use it to steer to wind (apparent or true, apparently).

I think that holding tank is next, and deck-wash pump for the anchor and chain.

Then we have to install the solar panels and controllers (MPPT?) and perhaps look at a wind gen (Rutland 914, most likely). Still, departure date looks closer and closer! Yay

[Weyalan]

Originally Posted by Mopsy

Hi all,

We spent 8 years converting our racer/cruiser into a more cruiser friendly boat and relaunching back in December 2009.
We have been living onboard full time since then and have cruised up and down the east coast of Australia and over to the Louisiades and have also stopped off to do a few racing regattas along the way.
I still love racing, where as my husband is over the racing scene and cruising is more his thing now - but I must say it is pretty cool to have a cruising boat that can transform back into "race" mode too.
We have raced in the cruising division at Airlie Beach Race Week a few times (won it in 2010) and the only real adjustments we made to the boat was lowering the boom back into its racing position for our old racing main and taking off our custom made dodger. We left the davits on to race.
After the race we cruised to the Louisiades and came back to our home port and added more cruising luxuries for long term comfort like a bigger watermaker (100 litres an hour instead of 5 litres an hour) a genset to run the watermaker, and while we were at it we added an air conditioner and washing machine since we now had power
Even though the boat is laden with cruising comfort, we have spent the past 9 months stripping the external cruising items off the boat and getting the boat up to Cat 1 safety so that we can race in the 2014 Sydney to Hobart, and then when we return we will spend 3 months putting it all back together again and begin our cruise around the world (maybe stopping to do some races along the way but don't tell the husband that
Sometimes having the runners can be a little hassle with just the two of us in cruise mode, and although the boat is quite long it is very narrow and has limited space downstairs with the centreboard case right in the middle of our lounge/dining room - but I really like the fact that we can also get the old houseboat back in to race mode for a bit of fun too.
So I guess after that big long winded post, no I don't think you are mad, you have just extended the life of an old racing boat, and that's a good thing

Your story warms my heart and makes me realise that while what we have done / are doing is unconventional, an old racing boat can be cruised, short handed, in relative comfort. Thank you.