Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[slowbat]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

Those wind only vanes don't have a lot of power. I find it hard to believe they work on larger wharram a despite the claims. I can see it working OK on boats to maybe 30 feet or so. for larger boats you need the power of a water servo like the Aries or monitor or a trim tab setup.

I think this was hooked to a trim tab, not sure how it worked. My 25 will be light, would this work?

[Boatguy30]

I believe that type usually goes direct to the tiller. check out Rory and Cookie blog for the globe trotting Tiki 21 this is the setup he had.

[Cavalier MK2]

Most go to a trim tab. The vertical vane actually has more power than the rotating one which is why it can be smaller. You would want to use the Searunner tab or a well balanced spade rudder. The large wharrams use a trim tab on one rudder. There is a lot of information out there to sort through. For multihulls some vane systems have more power than they can use because of the higher speeds and lighter weight. A vane system can also be set up to work with a auto piot so it isn't either or. I plan on trying different setups down the road to keep less dependant on electrical systems. On a fast boat the large changes in apparent wind can be an issue, using a small drogue can keep a more steady speed when you don't want to adjust settings more frequently.

[Captryan23]

I have been reading the forum for several months and this is my first posting. I have been so impressed with the knowledge and enthusiasm of the contributors that I just bought the 37 Searunner “Honeywind” over in St. Augustine. I love the design and philosophy behind the Searunner models and look forward to cruising her in the future. Honeywind does need some work, but I hope that I can use all of the knowledge of the Searunner community to get her up to speed. I plan to bring her back to Gulf Breeze (close to Pensacola) soon and start the refit. I have to thank Jeff Goff over in St. Augustine for all of his help and insight. He really knows his stuff!

Thanks again to the Searunner community.

Best,

Stu

[md7a]

Originally Posted by slowbat

One: Water lines!
I know we do not have much or any other SR-25 followers but, I have no idea how to mark out my waterline for paint and booting. a ways out from slash.
Any advise?



@@@Will,
do you have any photos of the side-outboard mount that was on Blue Moon?

I'm trying to adapt some controls to a Yamaha 4hp and keep the transom mount, but is a pain in the ass. it might be faster to build a sled set up and control from the side

Slowboat -
The mount for Blue Moon's motor was extremely simple. Made of 1-inch square stock aluminum, it bolted through the port wing into the cockpit seat and through the cockpit side. Attaching a photo:

That arrangement was good for getting out of the harbor - start, stop and lift the motor directly with your hands, from the cockpit. It was not so good for getting back into the harbor, or for bad weather, because there was no protection for the prop when sailing at speed. I couldn't even push the motor down into the slipstream between the hulls when sailing. When I came back into harbor I would have to round up in the outer roads, drop sail, then drift while putting the motor down and starting it.

I thought about a sled, and I think it could work well on the 25. I also tried a cheap 30lb thrust trolling motor on the other side, which helped with steering in the marina. The midships mount makes turning really awkward - especially in shallows where you have to raise your board.

[Mark Johnson]

Roy,
I like your faired in rudder hardware idea, and considered it carefully...
(Seen some that didn't go so well when NOT inspected, though).

The way you remove it regularly (at haulouts), to inspect for corrosion, it works great for you I'm sure. I must be lazy. I find that stripping the paint & primer, and re-painting, is all I can bring myself to do. Also, with my 5 to 6 year haulout schedule, I'd worry too much. You do have less drag AND less time spent in maintenance, though. Perhaps it all balances out? Mine are such a pain to get the growth off of.

If I had my druthers... It would be hardware made of titanium, with titanium bolts. The straps would be recessed into groves in the rudder/skeg, and with tapped threads in them for "no nuts needed". The heads would be flat head & recessed. It would all be totally corrosion proof, strong, PERMANENT, and glassed over within the foils... for a totally flush setup. Maybe someday???



MARKING WLs:
I like a true/accurate and gently upswept WL. To mark this, (on the hard), get the boat as level as possible side to side, and for n aft, and then tip the bows down 1".

You will need a 1/2" clear hose 30' long, full of dyed water for this... AKA a "water level".

Next put tick marks every 2' all along your chosen paint line, (about 5 or 6" above the true WL), and using a full length scarphed together 1X2" batten, mark a line through these tick marks.

Next hold the aft half of the batten FIRMLY along your marked line's aft half, and secure it with 2 friends, or whatever. Now bend the forward half of the batten up at its forward end, above the first WL mark by 1", and mark it. This is a long gentile curve...

The result (when the boat is trimmed level), will be a paint line that actually starts out 1" higher of bottom paint showing in the front of the hulls VS the back, but with a gently bent additional 1" of upsweep on the forward 1/3rd of the hulls only. The effect is subtle, but pleasing...

The higher paint line forward, with gentile upsweep, is just right to my eye. A truly straight WL, (= parallel to the water), looks to me to be bow down, which always hurts the look of a boat, IMO.



WORKING MODELS:
These are easy to build but VERY time consuming, so building your own is the only way to go, unless you can spend thousands on one.

I built working models of my previous two boats, and both would self steer a windward coarse with windvanes and rubberbands connected to the jib and tiller. The SC28 model took about 300 hours to complete! It would haul ass into the waves off of the beach in Key West, and I would do my best to catch her later in my rowboat, CRASH!. It was great fun.
RC was rare back then, but now, that would be way cool!


WINDVANES ON SEARUNNERS:
A few folks have historically had great success with these, (Mark Hassel's), but most did not. None of the Searunner standard windvanes that I have sailed with, including the first one on La Una, worked that well. (Down wind, or in very light air, not at all).
With all of the trimtab hardware and stuff, it puts more metal in the water to corrode and rattle from the engine's prop wash too. I just wouldn't do it. Technology has changed.

With modern Searunners... I would use an electronc autopilot, like my RayMarine. (They have tiller units too). The boat's house batteries will presumably be on board anyway, right? The solar panel on its rack, (in place of the windvane), and the wheelpilot together, weigh far less than a windvane with its hardware, and the wheelpilot/solar solution is both FAR more useful, and more reliable, with a > 20 year lifespan for most. This one 110 W panel pictured, produces many times the power that is sipped by the autopilot. The rest of the energy is stored for night time steering...

When moored in catagory 4 winds, my solar panel & rack made it, where as my friends sistership, 500' away, lost his windvane. The solar panel has less windage!

I have put over 20,000 miles on this one, and never even replaced a belt! It works on any point, even motoring, in any wind, (or lack of it).

Searunners, FAR more than most boats, really lend themselves to wheel pilots, because of the way they track straight, and their yawing is mnimal. The wheelpilots don't tend to "hunt" on Searunners, and hardly work at it at all. The SRs level platform, VS say, a monohull, means that the steering load, (= power required), might be 1/10th that of the monohull.

When I cruised with a windvane in the 70s, we futzed with it constantly to try to get results. Not so with the new highly developed wheelpilot. On both Delphys AND Mana Loa, they have steered us through thick and thin, in ANY sea state so far, (EASILY up to 15' waves & 40 knot winds). For true world cruising, one might carry a spare, but I never have felt the need.

On a large monohull, or a less well mannered multihull, (without a skeg rudder), OR for a circumnavigation, I would indeed have both.

M.

[rossad]

Welcome Captryan23
That is music to my ears you following this thread and finding yourself buying Honeywind. We all love our Searunners and I have a 37 too. congratulations and if you can post some pic's of her.
We need to get the Owners list up to date wouldnt that be great.

I have a triangle shaped wind vane i got made up of which i copied from another guy whom had an older Tri. I never got to use it because it got wipped away from the stern in a back wave off new zealand.
they are very powerful and take up less room. I havent seem them anywhere but maybe you guys have heard of the triangle wind vane. Made of rod and covered with canvas in a virtical position.

[Kettlewell]

Totally, OT, but yes Mark Johnson, that was me on Echo at Lady's Island Marina in Beaufort. Echo is now based in Buzzards Bay, but owned by someone else.

[sea dragon]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Jeff:

All of this is leading to an eventual boarding ladder, dive platform that will be supported by Spectra or Dux cable, from the starboard float stern to the sterncastle wing deck. Light weight, high strength, and high utility, besides looking very cool, able to be raised and folded flat and secure as a gate across the starboard quarter between the stern pulpit and the float stantion. I'm still modeling it to figure the joints I'll need.

So I'm quite intrigued by this idea,Roy.
Especially after seeing your nice cantillievered stern decks that go dead fore and aft along the aft cabinsides.
It would seem to lend itself perfectly to this idea.
A hinging system along the lines of an outboard sled would be really easy
to build.It's basically a piece of pipe and two brackets.
The entire thing could be built in the shop,and just bolted on finished.
I think it could really "make" a big searunner.
I could really civilize getting on and off,landing big fish,snorkling off the boat,loading gear,loading landlubbers safely for daysails,etc.
In Kona,I've seen nice hinged forward nets on charter cats with actual steps.
A trashcan full of mask/snorkles,and one of fins.
The tourists just put thier gear on and walk into the water.And out of the water.
It's super slick.
I want to build something like you are talking about also.
Maybe I will try some type of mock up.
Please keep us posted on this project.

On the subject of waterlines,the way Mark said is the way I have done it in the past easily and successfuly.
Nowadays, I would just use my laser level(since I have one already)

[Roy M]

Hydraulic jacks under the hulls with plywood pads, stabilizing wedges under the crossarms, until four foot long levels, fore and aft on the centerboard trunk, and athwartships on the cockpit seats register that all is level. Then, out with the laser, scribe the hulls with a vee-shaped parting chisel. Choosing the scribed level is the real trick. Should it be the horizontal base of the transom, as the design waterline shows? Should it be five inches above that to accommodate all the cruising gear and provisions for a long passage? Should it be a couple inches higher than that to keep the space between the boot top and the bottom paint clear of green stuff at the dock? Should the waterline of the floats be one inch higher than the main hull? I've done the leveling several times, but resisted cutting the scribe line because I couldn't decide. I probably never will because I have done all of this and haven't decided.

[Cavalier MK2]

If you're a foot above the designed waterline a larger boat or fewer cruising "essentials" are probably in order. If you know your pounds per inch immersion counting those inches is important A 37 is probably at least 600 pounds per inch and more as the amas go in. 4" down is a long ton and 6-7' is a extra ton, a good way past the design parameters. In a perfect world the boat should sit on its lines loaded.

Measuring the waterline down from the sheer you have to use a leveled square because the angle on the side is a longer line of course if you are looking at the plan profile. And the sheer and the underwing have to have been built correctly, the batten lets you fine tune the line. A laser or the hose are great methods and not dependent on the original construction. But waterlines were scribed for centuries before there were plastic hoses or lasers, a good eye then becomes important. We are still just after utility and run with a roll of masking tape and try not to trip putting a bump in the line. One day as we work through the priority list we'll do it yacht fashion......

[Roy M]

Of course, the easiest way is to do it one way or another, then trim the boat out in the water after all is loaded. Then scribe or mark a reference of the real waterline. I suspect that that is how many of us ultimately do it. The next haulout gets the finished boot top and the bottom paint margin added. I recall that Jim suggested that 2500 to 3000 pounds was the planned "payload" for the 37 to 40's. My current bottom paint ends five inches above the bottom of the transom's horizontal bottom plank. The actual waterline, at the moment, due to a lot of stuff off the boat being removed for the overhaul, is just underneath the transom, and most of the anchor chain hauled aft to the bilge forward of the centerboard. My galley is virtually completely stripped of everything as I wait for parts for the new reefer and new floorboards to be finished, though the fairly heavy compressor and reefer machinery is sitting in its bay forward of the rudder skeg support. Then the new cabinets, new plumbing and new stove go back in, which should bring the transom down an inch or so. Though I will be reusing some of my original cabinetwork in the aft cabin, all of the new galley will be ultra lightweight to offset the 21st century improvements I've made. I'm really enjoying this honeycomb stuff. I can't wait to start on the new sterncastle dinette table made of composites. And I still haven't hauled out yet because my favorite yard recently closed down, along with its 30 foot beam Travel-Lift. When I do haul, the 300 pound+ waterlogged centerboard will get replaced with the new, dusty and forlorn 100 pound centerboard sitting in the corner of the shop. That should help the waterline, as well. The guy holding the centerboard is my friend Bob Dixon, probably the most experienced multihull sailor I've ever known.

[rossad]

I thought I would take a pic of my wind vane. It is more powerful in direct response to the Searunner design one. Because of the triangle shape it can hold directly in the wind much more so. The thin stainless rods are all welded up and it is covered by canvas that is easily removed by Velcro. This canvas cover removed is foolproof in hundred knots of wind i have gone through such a storm. this vane sits under the Solar panel, weather station, Air X generator and ladder. I like to make power and plenty of it. I dont think that the weight is a real issue for the 37 and the whole thing works well. this wind vane connects the same way to the trim tab which did get hugely changed by a big wave once.
so yea having self steering both by electric.. great on windless days and by wind to hear just the wind in your sails and no mechanical sounds. I dream of the day travelling days on the wind vane set ... as Mark Hassell describes in his first book "Love to Sail"
there is another guy i know travelling around the Pacific in his Searunner. Its the best one i have seen.
One of the clever aspects was how the anchor chain .. and only chain went over the bow roller up a PVC hose and down into the midships ... one side of the centre board.. all the weight was placed perfectly. It worked so well possible one of the better idea's with these Searunner. These boats have so much going for them but very few people understand.

[rossad]

Hi Mark
Can you tell us a little about Bob Dixon ... please....

[rossad]

Sorry it was Roy M who mentioned Bob Dixon.
what is his back ground may i ask?