Need Advice About Raising Deck ( via Adding to Freeboard )

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard the forum of many opinions. What you propose is a very major undertaking but it has been done before so I'm certain it is possible. If I understand what you are wishing to do is to cut the hull horizontally somewhere below the toerail and increase the freeboard by a few inches by adding more glass. Is that correct? You say that the chainplates are all through the cabin top? Don't they run down a bulkhead?

Would there be a position over the galley where you stand to cook or do dishes that you might be able to bump up for standing headroom? Just a thought.

kind regards,

[mrm]

I think, that moving mast and rigging up from centre of buoyancy will negatively impact boat's stability (a saying is: a pound up the mast needs a hundred pounds at the keel).

Why not raise a section of the cabin roof aft from the mast only?

[minaret]

I've done a lot of hull extensions, though never done or seen done what you are suggesting. It's totally possible but would be a big undertaking. Deck stepped mast does make it much easier as you say, just need a longer support. It seems to me the big factor is glassing the joint on the inside of the hull. You'll need to have a good 12" of the hull and any bulkheads exposed on the inside, which would mean removing most of the cabinetry/wiring on most boats of that size. Essentially "gutting" it, just what you say you didn't want to do. Doable, but a big project. I think it's an interesting one, though. I can already envision how I'd do it....
If you do it yourself I see at least 6 months yard time under cover.Full time working. One Ballard-ite to another I wouldn't do it.

[STG]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

Aloha and welcome aboard the forum of many opinions. What you propose is a very major undertaking but it has been done before so I'm certain it is possible. If I understand what you are wishing to do is to cut the hull horizontally somewhere below the toerail and increase the freeboard by a few inches by adding more glass. Is that correct? You say that the chainplates are all through the cabin top? Don't they run down a bulkhead?

Would there be a position over the galley where you stand to cook or do dishes that you might be able to bump up for standing headroom? Just a thought.

kind regards,

Thanks for the welcome. Chain plates are attached to deck with 1/4" stainless backing plates underneath. One has an actual strap with 5 bolts, but that is attached to a small locker hanging from the bottom of the deck which would be raised when the deck goes up. Essentially it is attached to the deck.

The deck basically one plane front to back and side to side (slight radius) with the only raised portion being the walls of the center cockpit. Basically a pretty flat deck though. You can't just raise part without it looking funny on top and the kitchen and head are on both sides of the cockpit with the ceilings being the seats above. It would not be hard to cut the deck free, and raise with jacks and block to desired height and then just fill in.

I have corresponded with an architect this morning who I sent pictures and shared my plan and he said it was feasible, and would have minimal impact on stability. But because the freeboards are already 48", he thinks adding to them would affect windage and the looks more than anything. I agree, but the freeboard is already high, and a little more may not make a huge difference in looks. There are certainly boats with higher freeboards, and as I am a cruiser, not a raiser, and do not care about resale as much as living comforatably.

I will be tossing this one around a bit.

[STG]

Originally Posted by minaret

It seems to me the big factor is glassing the joint on the inside of the hull. You'll need to have a good 12" of the hull and any bulkheads exposed on the inside, which would mean removing most of the cabinetry/wiring on most boats of that size.

True for most boats, but not this one. 95% of the exterior wall within 24" of the deck is bare, smooth finished fiberglass. There is a 5" piece of wood trim that runs around the top that I could easily remove, and the kitch is the only place with cabinets at that location. Other than that is is just a couple hanging lockers and bulkheads which are also fiberglass walls with 2" wood trim at the tops. Again easily removable. I would bet everything I own, that I could have it ready for exterior paint in less than a month, with tidying up and painting on the inside for a few weeks after restepping and floating.

[witzgall]

Even so, I imagine that the bulkheads would still be in the way.

Maybe as a compromise, you could consider raising just a portion of the cabin trunk, to provide additional headroom, but only from the companionway forward, ending before the mast? This would require not modifications to the hull, no movement of the standing rigging, and would be a much smaller project in scope. Look at photos of a voyager 26, or a eastward ho to see what I mean.

Chris

[STG]

Originally Posted by witzgall

Even so, I imagine that the bulkheads would still be in the way.

Maybe as a compromise, you could consider raising just a portion of the cabin trunk, to provide additional headroom, but only from the companionway forward, ending before the mast?

The picture in the post above is standing at the companion way looking forward at the front V-berth. As you can tell the mast support is smack in the middle of the main cabin area, so if I do raise the cabin ceiling, it must all go up. There aren't any real bulk heads other than the hanging locker on the left in the picture, and the wood wall to the right of it. There is a similar locker in the back by the rear cabin too. The only bulkheads that go completely across the boat are the walls at the chain locker up front and lazarette at the back. All items are fiberglass walls, with wood trim at the top joints. Easy patches.

I have looked at all options for partial raising already, and the design just wont permit it. It is either raise all, or just put up with low headroom.

[tager]

You are insane. Doghouse is the only option. Boats have them for a reason. I assure you, even building 2 doghouses is going to be less than 1/10th the price of raising the whole deck.

[STG]

Originally Posted by tager

You are insane.

That's another matter altogether.

[tager]

I appreciate your good humor. Sometimes I forget it might be taken as an insult!

[fgd3]

Originally Posted by STG

Can you clarify your comments, and/or help me understand what and why so much would need to change? If the whole deck and everything on it were to raise, why would everything above it need to change? It is all attached to the ceck. I am not trying to debate anything, just trying to understand a little better as the cost and ease of work seem pretty easy to me. It is just the stability I am worried about, and I don't know how much raising everything 6" would affect that but will certainly get professional engineering advice before undertaking. Let me know if I am missing something as to why so much would need to change above the deck to the top of the mast.

Thanks

Is the mast stepped on deck or on the keel? If it is stepped on the keel you would change the geometry of all the standing rigging unless you raise the mast step to compensate for the increase in deck height. If the mast is stepped on deck you would need to extend your compression post and chain plates so they would reach the new deck height. The standing rigging may look like it attaches to the deck, but most of it probably attaches to metal straps that are bolted to the hull and come through the deck. It shouldn't be too difficult to replace those straps with longer ones.

As for ruining the resale value of the boat, most old sailboats aren't worth that much anyway, so you're not taking a big risk there. If you do a nice looking job you might make the boat more appealing to another tall sailor, so that's something you can't know ahead of time.

Fabbian

[minaret]

Something to keep in mind-Cored hulls aren't generally cored all the way to the sheerline. Usually the last 1-2" of the hull below the sheerline has the core taper away to nothing so the sheer is solid glass. They do this partly so there wont be exposed core along the edge of the hull/deck joint, but mostly because they usually mold in a flange for the hull/deck joint to thru-bolt. This means you cant just cut the boat at the hull/deck joint and then lift the deck without having to rebuild the flange-if your boat has one. I would make my cut in the hull about 4-6" below the sheerline and then raise up the deck/top of hull strip and scab in a piece into the hull at that point. That way you retain both the flange for the hull deck joint and it's fastening, and enough hull to give you something to glass too. The problem with this, or any other approach I can think of, is that the 6" wide strip you scab in will have to be perfectly plumb with no flare or shape to it in that plane or it would end up wider than the deck. This will make a 6" wide flat spot in your hull that will be really hard to fair in unless your boat is already extremely slab-sided. Seeig the pic of your interior I think you can do it. But unless you have your own interior space to work on it I still think it would be too expensive to make sense. Too many awesome boats on the market for a song. Sell your's, take the proceeds and the money you'd spend on this project and buy a bigger boat. Unless you really are crazy and a glutton for punishment, in which case join the club and I wanna see more pics!

[roverhi]

Don't do it. The Coronado 35 is based on the Columbia 34 hull which were two of the ugliest boats ever built because of their high freeboard. Adding to that freeboard will make it look even worse and decrease the value. You'll be putting a ton of effort and a bit of money into doing the modification and will be throwing the money and effort down a rat hole. That doesn't address the time involved the months it will take you to do such a major modification

You'd do much better to put the effort into making the boat look as cosmetically fit, as cheaply as you can, and selling the boat. Then go looking for a next boat with the necessary headroom, at least in the galley and head area where you can expect to spend your time standing. Believe the Pearson 365 has 6'5" headroom, looks decent, are way better built and are available fairly cheaply with some under $30K. If you can't find a boat with the desired altitude in your price range, look for a fixer upper that is feasible to lower the cabin sole to get the head room. At least that way, you'd have some hope of getting back some of your 'improvement' costs and not burning your equity.

[Dame.n.Jess]

Outside of the box here, could you lower the floor? also to the others on the sight, lets see if we can find a way that it could be done and leave the decision on the boats looks and weather or not the owner is or isn't insane to him.

STG, could you post side on pics of the boat and some internal pics of the chainplates. Also see if you can get a shot of the hull/deck flange. We have just done modifications to our mast that would work for what you are doing. We had to cut 150mm off the base of our mast due to bad repairs from the previous owner causing lots of corrosion. We built our mast back up, however if you raise your deck (and mast step) 6 inches you could simply cut 6 inches off the mast and have the standing rigging shortened accordingly and this would maintain the current centre of effort in the rig and would require no modification to ballast etc. Obviously this means you lose 6 inches of head room in the cockpit with the boom and you will need to change you vang attachment point but both are minor issues in the big scheme of things. With this done you would only have the added weight of your new 6 inch lift etc to account for, which I would think to be minimal but the designer could work this out for you fairly easily.

I would normally say look for a new boat, however having heard that countless times during our rebuild (and ignoring most of them) we now have a very pretty old boat that is so much the perfect boat for us its freaky.

dont give up, research the bjesus out of it and at the end you may not do it but you will be completely confident you made the right choice for you, and not the right choice for the masses.

Damien

[Boracay]

I'd agree with the above that raising the deck would be prohibitive in terms of cost, time and structural complexity.

Looking at the few photos of the boat that I found on the internet it looks like it may be possible to extend the cabin and maybe also to raise the cabin tip. However the structural changes would require a naval architect's skills, and would degrade the boat's value.

The time, trouble and cost involved would be of the order of building a boat from scratch...

It may be possible to find a few inches here and there that do not involve structural modification by lowering the sole.

The other noticeable aspect of your boat that came out of a few broker's listings that I saw is that these boats have some degree of desirability and may sell for a reasonable price. If that is the case you could be wise to consider putting your boat on the market and going for a decent price.

In the meantime your pressing need is to find a boat that won't remove your scalp and give you concussion every time you stand up. My feeling is that this is such an important requirement that you really need to give it your highest priority, even to the extent of buying an old trawler or a fitted out hull with no mast and derelict engine.

I'm only 5'9" and even on my 44' Boracay I have found the need to strategically place a few strips of that 1" blue gym matting in those areas that have viciously attacked the few brain cells that I have left over from the 60's.

Not being a medical professional I cannot comment on the long or short term effects of repeated blows to the head. I would suggest you seek medical advice in this area.