What are your thoughts on this hull design?

[Kduvey]

Hey guys, thanks so much for all the effort put into the reply’s. Awesome. Very much appreciated

Interesting - seems as though the consensus is that this is a pure racing boat. However it’s marketed as a world cruiser and is certainly outfitted as such. Also, to my very untrained eyes many aspects of the design remind me of the more modern and new boats being marketed as cruisers - they pretty much all have fin keels, spade rudders, pointy noses, flat bottoms, wide sterns, aluminium hulls, double wheels, ect

I think I have many things to think about, thanks again guys

[elandra65]

This looks like a bare bones racing boat that has been partly been modified for cruising. My comments:

The hull has virtually no insulation and will be very uncomfortable in anything but mild weather. Forget the tropics!

There is very little storage which is essential in a cruising yacht that has to be self sufficient.

The work that has been done to the interior to make it more liveable looks very crude with cheap plywood finish. Most cabins are bare aluminium!

The twin wheels appear to be a recent modification, maybe to modernise it and remove what was probably a huge wheel.

This boat will require huge amounts of time and a lot of money to make it liveable as a cruising yacht.

An old aluminium boat can have a lot of corrosion issues which may be hidden under all that paint. The finish looks good so probably recent. BE VERY WARY!

The asking price is far too much for what it is. You could buy a nice larger beautifully finished French production boat for the asking price.

The resale value of this vessel is likely to be low and also hard to sell when the time comes.

Now to the design and construction.

It is obviously built to be a racer and exhibits typical later IOR characteristics. This may be fine but some later IOR designs used ratings that favoured high COG which were unseaworthy and relied on rail meat for stability. Without knowing the original design considerations it is hard to be specific.

With regard design suitability don't get hung up on the numbers too much and whether it is full keel, protected rudder etc etc. You will get a lot of opinion here. Read Dashews books about design which are the polar opposite of the heavy full keel brigade but are very fast and seaworthy vessels. In fact his cruising encyclopaedia book was the main reason I bought a Macgregor 65 years ago.

The construction is what concerns me most. It may of been built very light to be competitive or it may be quite robust. At least with aluminium you can determine the plate thickness and framing sizes to determine this. However you may need a marine surveyor to make a proper evaluation.

I think you would be far better off buying a more recent fibreglass production boat for a similar price which would far more suitable for the purpose and much much easier to resell.

Andrew

[Kduvey]

Thanks Andrew for the thoughtful and reasonable words of wisdom. I share many of your concerns and it’s nice to hear get some confirmation. It’s been on the market for a long time and these are the reasons it hasent sold ( I think mostly the high price, don’t think I’d touch it for anything more than 50-60% asking)

[JPA Cate]

Kduvey,

If someone prefers a modern construction French boat over a custom alloy one, that is a personal preference. Like all boats, those have compromises, too.

Especially if the vessel in question was built for racing, in the Southern Ocean, she would have been "sturdy enough" for those conditions, when new. What elandra rightly points out is the necessity to consider what I consider her "bones": are the frames sturdy? is there pitting? How are the welds? At the right price, you could have a lot of fun with such a boat. One-offs can have a lot going for them, but they do really require you to have a sound grounding in boats to have the confidence to go for them.

It may be possible to add ballast if you find her too tender. It is not something one would do all at once, and certainly not before becoming aware of how tender she is. Of course, it will also slow her, but for us, we found that sailing at 25 deg. of heel day after day is fatiguing, and we changed boats, not just for that, but it was a factor. ....And we're the kind of people who keep boats a long time, not 5 yr. turnovers, at all.

See if you can find out who did the interior fitout on her, and then check their reputation.

Ann

One thing we saw years ago that is why you either need to be very knowledgeable or have a really good alloy surveyor is that one guy had an alloy boat and all the welds were cracking. He had the boat bogged, and painted and sold--no effort made to make repairs, so just be aware. People sometimes do despicable deeds. CAVEAT EMPTOR!

[Selfsufficient]

This is a Phil Curran Design. He was originally from Western Australia and his first famous design was the Parry Endeavour (renamed) which John Sanders used to do his triple circumnavigation record in 1986. All his sail boats were originally designed for racing. Now days he mainly does mega yachts.
Phil Curran | People | Australian Register of Historic Vessels | Australian National Maritime Museum
https://www.boatinternational.com/pr...-curran--18163

and listing to boat for sale
https://www.tradeboats.com.au/detail...uminium-513314

[roverhi]

The running rigging looks to be set up for a large racing crew. Relocation of the various clutches, winches, etc to make it short handed friendly are going to leave a lot of holes in the deck and may not work at all.

[Kduvey]

Originally Posted by roverhi

The running rigging looks to be set up for a large racing crew. Relocation of the various clutches, winches, etc to make it short handed friendly are going to leave a lot of holes in the deck and may not work at all.

Thanks mate - any chance you could elaborate on that? I thought since all the lines seem to lead to the cockpit that is ideal for single handed sailing?

[Don C L]

Well, she will certainly fly, especially off the wind. Upwind she'll likely bang a lot.
Everyone has touched the main points.
In cruising you run into (literally and figuratively) lots of different situations that don't come up with racing. The "maxi" I crewed on, back in '82 when this boat was built, had a very similar hull, though much bigger. The owner wanted to win the China Sea race with her and he did, and he wanted to cruise with her too, so the interior was very nice for that. That was my only experience with a big spade rudder, or any spade rudder, so take this with a grain of salt, but ours happened to get snapped off while beating to windward in the middle of the night. We didn't hit anything, it had some weakness in the rudder post that finally gave way after a few days of banging to windward. I know there are many boats crossing oceans with spade rudders, but now I eye them all with suspicion, for cruising anyway. For racing they are a must. That said, I would certainly consider this boat, I can certainly understand why she makes your heart skip a beat (I like going fast too!), but I'd be ready for upwind discomfort (make sure it has a good aft cabin or quarter berth,) a lot of attention to the helm going downwind, and have a good spare rudder along
BTW how is it set up for anchoring?
Also, that transom is not very friendly to a self-steering windvane, which a lot folks use often, so it will need a good autopilot (and a back-up), and if that goes out, be ready to sail full time of course.

[Jim Cate]

A comment about slamming when going to windward:

Our boat isn't really flat forward, but rather more so than traditional hull shapes. She will go pretty fast to windward in a breeze, especially when the tanks are not too full, topping 9 knots close hauled if we want to push her. And in such a breeze there are usually some wind waves and sure enough, Insatiable II will pound a bit and it's noisy and a bit jerky. But the thing is, if we back off a bit, drop the speed to perhaps 7 knots, the pounding goes away and we are still going faster upwind than most more traditional boats of anywhere near the same size and in reasonable comfort.

It's nice to have the option of speed and and good sailing angles when you need or want it, and nice to be able to opt out for more comfort when you don't. Old racers offer this option.

Jim

[roland stockham]

For the stuff I do this would definitely be a no but we are all different and sail different waters. The reaso this would be a no for me are;

High aspect unsupported and keel & rudder. In a collision or grounding this is both vulnerable and probably impossible to repair or jury rig in the water. It also means she probably would be a nightmare to dry out alongside or get out of the water except in a travel lift. If out of the water she is likely to need a cradle or at least lots of props and someone who really knows how to position them. If you cruising ground is in well traveled waters with high tech marinas that may be acceptable but if going to more remote places could be trouble.
Flat forefoot and heavy reliance on form stability. With a full and skilled crew she will likely be fast and responsive. In rough weather and short handed she will quickly exhaust the crew and then likely not want to hove too so you cannot stop for a rest. She also looks like she will slam which is tiring and prevents sleep. So again could be a yes or know depending on your plans.
Cockpit is large an exposed especially to the stern. What will happen if it fills with water? It is also built for a large crew. If you a double handed most of the time this is a huge wast of space. It can be altered but that is expensive and affects the resale value.
Weight and ultimate seaworthiness. Look up the reports on the Fastnet disaster. Many boats of this style became impossible to live on in a severe storm. Crews took to life-rafts which broke up an lives where lost. Yes people do the Sidney Hobart and race similar designs across the southern ocean but they have large professional crews and even larger shore support teams.

I would not want to cross the Tasman sea two up in her but if you are mostly marina hopping don't expect to use exposed anchorages, relatively young fit and experience and don't mind paying for experiences crew for the odd long leg she could be exactly what you want, fast and exhilarating to sail. If you are a retired couple I would run now.

[JPA Cate]

It just might be possible that roland stockham is painting a tad too dark a picture, just from this one small point: while she may not be able to heave to, she (a) can fore-reach under shortened sail, which can be almost as good from a rest perspective, and (b) could possibly be fitted with eyes for a Jordan Series Drogue, when you really needed to sleep and let a storm move over you. Getting new weldments is not all that dear, in the scheme of things. But, I still think that although the hull looks slippery, what is essential are the bones, and those are sort of hidden, needing exploration. I would not make an offer on the boat until I had had a very good look for the condition of the frames, weldments, and for pitting.

Ann

[torgersende]

She looks like she would get around the cans pretty well, but "long" offshore passages may present some possible issues. Discounting whether you can sleep at night (or during the day) with the noise associated with such a sporty hull shape, I noticed that the rudder is a balanced spade. You might consider a skeg-hung, or partial-skeg-hung rudder for durability.

While in the Galapagos this year, we were anchored next to a Bavaria which had to be towed 180 miles back to the islands due to an issue with their rudder (the shaft broke and they lost it completely). Coincidentally, while on passage from Galapagos to the Marquesas, we noticed an issue with our rudder as well, (Upper bearing shot so the autopilot was behaving badly), so we turned around, and sailed the 750 miles back to mainland Ecuador where we are now to drop the rudder and effect a repair. On the way back, we passed within 25 meters of a surfaced sperm whale during the morning shift. We have had untold numbers of close encounters during our offshore passages, and a few encounters as well. A skeg will protect the rudder from a collision, a balanced spade rudder has a higher potential for being damaged, and rendered inoperable in the event of a collision. The 180 mile tow took 5 days (against wind and tide), and was described by the owner as pretty awful.

Our boat is a Passport 43 (Robert Perry), and pretty bullet proof. The peace of mind goes a long way toward making up for the miles we don't cover each day on passage.

[dstraton]

More information here. https://www.tradeboats.com.au/detail...uminium-513314

[ewitts]

I have owned an aluminum cruising boat for 16 years . As a professional captain most of my miles were done on other people’s boats. My design is different than that as she was designed to cruise fast without considerations to ior handicap rules. I loved delivering fast boats,. My wife since sailing mucho doesn’t want to cross oceans on other boats. Big feature of a boat with a deck welded on is she is really water tight.
Www.muchogustosailing.wordpress.com

[ErnestV]

May I point you here: https://www.morganscloud.com/series/...offshore-boat/
Lots of good stuff inside, certainly worth the money.