Steel Van de Stadt History

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Polux

Van de Stadt was one of the most innovative boat designers from the 50's and 60's specialized in fast light sailboats and racing sailboats, as most innovative designers are. He founded a shipyard to built them, a shipyard that later was sold in the 70's to Dehler.

He leaved the Design firm he created back in 1978 with 68 years of age. The firm today is leaded by Van Tongeren that started to work with Van de Stadt in the late 60's.

Contrary to its innovative spirit that designs become quite conservative and at a given time they specialized in heavy steel designs that they sold mostly to amateur boat builders. Seaworthy designs and designed to be strong no doubt, typically Dutch designs, but less innovative than the designs of another Dutch designer of the 70's, Dick Zall that besides designing at the time Contest boats also specialized in steel and aluminum designs.

Van de Stadt has a catalog of designs that can be commanded, most of them old designs.

They are not a very active firm and if you look at their list of designs you will see that most are really old ones. The last designs, particularly of aluminum boats and the ones designed for Winner are less conservative and more interesting indicating some new blood on the firm.
Van de Stadt Design - Yacht Designers and Naval Architects

But it is rather sad that when most think about Vand de Stadt they just think about heavy conservative steel boat that were not designed by him, but by his firm after he leaved and not on the beautiful creative fast designs that were is trademark, boats like Black Soo, designed with what is still today a modern keel and a modern spade rudder:


and that was almost 60 years ago!!!!!

Thanks Polux, i was expecting you to know something about them

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I looked at building their Caribbean design rather than the Roberts based design I now Have. The problem was that steel boat builders were in short supply in Western Australia and the one I eventually managed to find would not build frameless boats.

Whilst doing the research I found that VDS were the most professional of the lot and their very economic study plans were exceptionally detailed. They also supplied polar diagrams for all their designs and survey societies would accept their plans if one wished to build the boat in survey.

For multi chine or alloy boats they could supply computer discs which allowed every piece of plate in the boat to be cut from sheets using a profile cutter. The individual pieces stayed in the sheet and could be cut loose using a jig saw to cut through the very small retainer tabs.

Their Australian agent was Eddie Rooms in Townsville and I had a number of phone discussions with him over a number of years and found him very pleasant and helpful.

If I had my boat building to do over I would search more widely for a builder anywhere in Australia then ship the hull to wherever I wanted to fit it out. This would have saved me no end of grief and costs over the years with maintenance problems, none of the VDSs I have seen have any water traps built into them.

What are you referring to re 'water traps'?

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by CaptWil

Well I have a VDS Seal 36, steel, multi chines hull built in NZ in 1989 and she is a beauty to sail, safe as anyone would want to be in any weather

I have not seen another 36' as roomy inside as that Seal, with beam of 3.56m and super comfortable for 4 people cruising

I say that Mr VDS was a genius designer well ahead of his time...

Rgds
Will

Mine is roomy open plan 36. Everyone gets a surprise when boarding mine and ive had comments that 'its a bit like a tardis' 😜 Mine sleeps five comfortably With three singles and a small double. It has three chimes each side.

[CaptWil]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

Mine is roomy open plan 36. Everyone gets a surprise when boarding mine and ive had comments that 'its a bit like a tardis' 😜 Mine sleeps five comfortably With three singles and a small double. It has three chimes each side.

Hello Mate

Yes it seems you have a roomy design as well, and not bad for a rear cockpit

Rgds
Will

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=RaymondR;2048176]I looked at building their Caribbean design rather than the Roberts based design I now Have. The problem was that steel boat builders were in short supply in Western Australia and the one I eventually managed to find would not build frameless boats.


Whilst doing the research I found that VDS were the most professional of the lot and their very economic study plans were exceptionally detailed. They also supplied polar diagrams for all their designs and survey societies would accept their plans if one wished to build the boat in survey.


For multi chine or alloy boats they could supply computer discs which allowed every piece of plate in the boat to be cut from sheets using a profile cutter. The individual pieces stayed in the sheet and could be cut loose using a jig saw to cut through the very small retainer tabs.


Their Australian agent was Eddie Rooms in Townsville and I had a number of phone discussions with him over a number of years and found him very pleasant and helpful.


If I had my boat building to do over I would search more widely for a builder anywhere in Australia then ship the hull to wherever I wanted to fit it out. This would have saved me no end of grief and costs over the years with maintenance problems, none of the VDSs I have seen have any water traps built into them.[/QUOTE]

Yup.. only place water gathers is in my bilge..

[Rustic Charm]

[QUOTE=boatman61;2048216]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I looked at building their Caribbean design rather than the Roberts based design I now Have. The problem was that steel boat builders were in short supply in Western Australia and the one I eventually managed to find would not build frameless boats.

Whilst doing the research I found that VDS were the most professional of the lot and their very economic study plans were exceptionally detailed. They also supplied polar diagrams for all their designs and survey societies would accept their plans if one wished to build the boat in survey.

For multi chine or alloy boats they could supply computer discs which allowed every piece of plate in the boat to be cut from sheets using a profile cutter. The individual pieces stayed in the sheet and could be cut loose using a jig saw to cut through the very small retainer tabs.

Their Australian agent was Eddie Rooms in Townsville and I had a number of phone discussions with him over a number of years and found him very pleasant and helpful.

If I had my boat building to do over I would search more widely for a builder anywhere in Australia then ship the hull to wherever I wanted to fit it out. This would have saved me no end of grief and costs over the years with maintenance problems, none of the VDSs I have seen have any water traps built into them.[/QUOTE]

Yup.. only place water gathers is in my bilge..

Yeah, mine too boatie, so what are 'water traps'?

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=Rustic Charm;2048217]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Yeah, mine too boatie, so what are 'water traps'?

Where the internal framing crosses and no provision is made for condensation to drain to a central drain leading to the bilge... result is every so often one has to lift various parts of the boats furniture etc to mop mosquito breeding grounds trapped in various corners.
Or alternatively its what one finds under a sink.. idea is to trap the last of the clean tap water in the draining system to prevent bad odours returning up the pipe..

[Rustic Charm]

[QUOTE=boatman61;2048221]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

Where the internal framing crosses and no provision is made for condensation to drain to a central drain leading to the bilge... result is every so often one has to lift various parts of the boats furniture etc to mop mosquito breeding grounds trapped in various corners.
Or alternatively its what one finds under a sink.. idea is to trap the last of the clean tap water in the draining system to prevent bad odours returning up the pipe..

hmmm yep i know what a 'water trap' in a building is

Mine has small holes about 10mm round in the stringers that let water down to each chime and any water coming in, ALL travels to the bilge.

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=Rustic Charm;2048224]

Originally Posted by boatman61

hmmm yep i know what a 'water trap' in a building is

Mine has small holes about 10mm round in the stringers that let water down to each chime and any water coming in, ALL travels to the bilge.

The Roberts 54 I took to Perth was a bastard for that.. every crossjoint below the floor was a trap..
A Rust Nightmare interaction..

[RaymondR]

The problem with my boat was that it was built with stringers which had only very small limber holes in the stringers. These tend to plug up very easily and water then collects where the stringer crosses the frame. Since there was pretty well always water in the bilge from the stern gland and rudder trunk leaking and it would run out abeam and replenish the water traps every time the boat was heeled sea water tended to collect and lie in the traps.


I have pretty well eliminated the ones in the middle of the boat by removing the stringers this part of the boat is now less of a problem.


The VDS frameless designs have only a few frames to carry rigging loads down into the hull and where bulkheads are installed and these create much less of a problem the a frame and stringer design. The intrinsic strength of a multi chine steel hull of the sizes VDS designs for frameless construction is so high as to not require the stiffening frames and stringers provide anyway.


Having built in steel and maintained one for 28 years I now tend to the opinion that I could now build one requiring very little maintenance but the starting point would most probably be one of the VDS designs.


I went through a phase wherein I thought alloy would be the best solution re durability and low maintenance however having now observed a number of allow boats belonging to cruising acquaintances have gone back to a steel preference.

[Rockyscience]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Mine's a Canadian build but Quebec.. don't know if the yards still going though..
Builder is just listed as Mailloux Leclerc.. Quebec

Interesting.. I will check with a friend up there.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

The problem with my boat was that it was built with stringers which had only very small limber holes in the stringers. These tend to plug up very easily and water then collects where the stringer crosses the frame. Since there was pretty well always water in the bilge from the stern gland and rudder trunk leaking and it would run out abeam and replenish the water traps every time the boat was heeled sea water tended to collect and lie in the traps.

I have pretty well eliminated the ones in the middle of the boat by removing the stringers this part of the boat is now less of a problem.

The VDS frameless designs have only a few frames to carry rigging loads down into the hull and where bulkheads are installed and these create much less of a problem the a frame and stringer design. The intrinsic strength of a multi chine steel hull of the sizes VDS designs for frameless construction is so high as to not require the stiffening frames and stringers provide anyway.

Having built in steel and maintained one for 28 years I now tend to the opinion that I could now build one requiring very little maintenance but the starting point would most probably be one of the VDS designs.

I went through a phase wherein I thought alloy would be the best solution re durability and low maintenance however having now observed a number of allow boats belonging to cruising acquaintances have gone back to a steel preference.

When I had mine sand blasted in November, a small hole was found corrosponding with a stringer inside. When I dug around the stringer I found it was a 'limber' (didn't realise that's what they are called) that had blocked up, which then caused the rust that went right through to the outside. Once cleaned up the stringer was sound, but the plate had to be cut and a 2 inch square patch put in.

My boat was absolutely filthy under the floor boards when I first purchased it. It honestly looked like it had never been cleaned. I found two petrified mice, a condom, several coins stuck to the hull and causing superficial rust, lots of those limber holes blocked with both dirt and paint, a dirty early USB thingy with some interesting pictures on it.

I now keep my under floor boards area spotless, at least in all the places I can access.

Another issue I discovered in November was that in some places the wooden ply interior had been made to sit on the hull, instead of the stringers. Everywhere I found this was built up dirt and again superficial rust occurring. Beneath my gally where this had happened, for a spot where I put the screw driver through, required a length of stringer a meter long and hull 300mm wide to be replaced. All because a limber hole had been blocked by building a cupboard onto the hull.

It's good now though