Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[Jmolan]

I have grown to LOVE a plywood boat really. My boat was dropped...or fell off from some support stands that were not designed to hold the weight (they were angled for a mono hull) They were attempting to remove trhe trailer and leave it pn support stands. I now have my own trailer and do not do that anymore. One support folded up and another poked right up through the under wing, into two shelves in the galley! (I was not there to see all this) The bow crashed into the trailer they were removing and crunched the keel right where the bow takes the turn under. The boat landed on it's minikeel and the rudder did not touch (just the way it was designed to take the ground. It hit so hard the backstay broke and it broke both bow net wires as they hit the top of the trailer rails. Anyhow......all done, repaired....and no worse for the whole thing.
I did all the repairs myself using plywood and epoxy and glass. No stringers were broke (lucky)...but through this all I came to appreciate how I could probably repair any part of this boat. I scarfed in the new bow skin 8 to 1 after making a sandwich of hardwood on both sides of the keel.
All this being said, I think one thing that is overlooked on many of the new cats is "How are you gonna repair it"? Bumps happen, I like to bump around some as I am always in close looking at the sights and looking for the cool places to hang out. With forgiving draft (a board that pops up, and a boat that will not tip over if you go dry) it is all part of the full meal deal.
I know it is not the latest greatest go fast machine, but is is rugged, very comfortable, and more of a whole package of what we need to enjoy cruising and messing around.
I have some photos but do not knnow how to load them....:-)

[Jmolan]

Roy one thing we have on our boat is all the hatch drains have a cover on the underwing. They are like scoops that face aft. I have to make a few new ones soon and I plan to use a piece of PVC pipe cut long ways on an angle. With the opening facing aft I never get wet in the hatch. I also have them on the cockpit well, but I think it unique to the 34' to have this area.

[Roy M]

Jmolan: I tried the covers you mentioned, facing aft, but in the big following seas they simply funneled the water up. Then when I hauled (in the old days on a marine railway with fore and aft underwing beam multihull cradles) they would get crushed anyway, so I stopped using them. I have some nice little rubber and plastic one-way transom plugs from WEST Marine, but I haven't had time to install them since the haulout last June. It's not a big deal anyway, since waves splashing on deck would sluice into the top of the wet hatch (I've had a few of those in really rough water and crashing waves). I took some pictures today and will try to get them into the thread in the next few days.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by Roy M

I've been using a simple solution for thirty years, now, on a Searunner 40. Simply cut a 3/4" rim of plywood (Baltic birch has more layers than Doug fir) that projects 1" into the hatch opening (which you can trace onto plywood), and has an outer edge 1 1/2" wider than the hatch dimension. Clamp the rim under the deck edge, drill and screw, then close the hatch to confirm everything works. ...

I think I understand what you described but if you happen to have a photo or two, that would be nice also.

[Roy M]

Here are some shots of the wet hatches on my boat. There are two types of rim: the original which I built with 1 X 3 fir stock, and the Baltic birch plywood rims which are more molded-looking. Note the notch in the deck locker holding spare anchor rode. This allows the locker to be closed while line is deployed. The plywood rim is used in my cockpit alley leading to the starboard deck, and contains one bank of batteries. I chose this position to ease the installation and maintenance of the batteries. There is a matching compartment on the port side. Since I'm preparing to repaint the cockpit, no hinge or hatch hardware is installed. Woops! I have to divide the shots to get them sent out.

[Roy M]

These shots show the battery compartment using Baltic ply rims.

[Roy M]

This is the anchor rode wet locker with the line passing out the closed lid. I use the same for my high pressure saltwater hose rig.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Here are some shots of the wet hatches on my boat. There are two types of rim: the original which I built with 1 X 3 fir stock, and the Baltic birch plywood rims which are more molded-looking.

OK, that was not was I was thinking. But I am glad you posted the photos to untwist my mental image and I now understand what you meant. I like the flush deck hatches and I can see why you commented how some water gets in if it comes over the decks.

Note the notch in the deck locker holding spare anchor rode. This allows the locker to be closed while line is deployed.

I liked that; looks nice.

[Rann]

Greetings to the list, especially Searunner owners and fans.

My name is Rann Millar, and I live in Harrisburg, Oregon (between Eugene and Corvallis) with my wife Doreen. We both retired from teaching in the public school system in the greater Los Angeles area and moved from our home in Anaheim about a year and a half ago.

Back in 1990 we bought ETAK, the second Searunner 34 launched I am told. I think she hit the water in early '78. We lived aboard her in the the Long Beach, CA area for two years, then moved into our former house in Anaheim. Sadly, we neglected ETAK but always with the dream of refurbishing her. Now that we are retired and fairly well settled in our new area, we have started the project. Fortunately, we have family members in Southern California and can stay with them when we are away from home. I spent most of March, April and May of this year redoing the infamous wet lockers due to rot, some of the port leading edge underwing, and lots of other small spots of the dreaded rot.

We just returned to SoCal from Oregon due to a death in the family, but plan to be back on the refurb task in about a week or so.

I have read all the posts on Searunners on this forum and have found a number of good ideas. The one area I have given a lot of thought to is the standing rigging. Mike Leneman of Multimarine in the Marina del Rey area advised me a while back that synthetic rigging is great for rotating masts, but not for static ones, so the information I saw on this forum is interesting to see that some are using the synthetic system. How do you deal with the contact points of the spreaders?

I can post pictures of some of the work going on if it is of interest.

I did learn that my rudder needs replacing and am considering building a new one in foam and glass. Is there anyone on the list who has done this?

The skeg will need replacing too, and that will be a haul-out matter, hopefully before the summer is over.

John Marples graciously made me a copy of the pages from the plans relating to the rudder and skeg, as well as a copy of the chainplates page for making them in 316 stainless. I really would prefer doing the chainplates in carbon as is common on the Farrier tris. Has anyone done chainplates on a
Searunner in carbon on this list?

All comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated!

I have lots of other questions, so I will be active on the list.

Fair winds,

Rann
K5KKA

[Roy M]

Hi Rann,

I built mine in Venice, about half a mile from Marina del
Rey, Los Angeles, launching in 1978. Mine's a 40, but the details are basically the same. I used a Baltic birch 17 ply 3/4" in phenolic resin, called FinnForm for the skeg and rudder, using two layers to get the 1 1/2" thickness. I used this stuff because it was the toughest material available at the time (we had used this particular material to build 16 story towers of reinforced concrete. At the the end of the job, the surface was scuffed and scraped, period. Mine has the top of the skeg the same chord length as the rudder. It had been a recent change which I incorporated. Thirty plus years later, having been sheathed in glass and epoxy, I drilled out the holes used for attaching the rudder hardware. Everything was dry. That made me smile. I don't know if I'd use foam for the skeg, thinking that if I hit a reef, I want the strongest stuff going for me.

My new centerboard, however, is going to be foam composite with graphite, and a kevlar leading edge. The existing one has begun to leak over the years (touching bottom before the rest of the boat did).

I am discussing the synthetic shrouds with Fritz Richardson here in San Diego. He is quite familiar with the system. I'll pass along our findings when they get to that point.

I know nothing about the graphite chainplates. The dry rot is just something you excise, and rebuild around it, doing whatever cosmetics are needed to make the problem merely a memory and reminder to keep up the maintenance in the future.

[Jmolan]

I would like to post a few photos but I am not aware of how to resize the photos to 400kb. Any ideas would be helpful. Thnx Jack

[Roy M]

I normally take my pics in 1600X1200, then resize copies to half that size for posting purposes. It's quick and the quality remains pretty good. You can post a number of them, each less than 400 kb, in a single post.

[Steve Rust]

Originally Posted by Jmolan

I would like to post a few photos but I am not aware of how to resize the photos to 400kb. Any ideas would be helpful. Thnx Jack

I use Adobe Photo Shop. You can resize, touch up, and manipulate your photos. It is an expensive program if you have to pay for it, but I think you can download a 30 day free trial. There are probably other free programs out there too. I used to use a free program called LView that did much of what Photoshop did but this was an older program that only ran on Win 95 or 98. I usually take photos at max resolution and then use downsized copies if needed.

[Factor]

Program for Windows called Irfanview, free and really good. For MAc you can write an automator script.

[Rann]

Roy,

Thanks for the reply and information about your rudder of FinnForm. I really hadn't thought about doing the skeg in foam and glass, just the rudder. I will have to remove the centerboard and thoroughly check it out to see what shape it is in overall. What I can see underwater seems okay. I also want to examine the minikeel in detail out of the water when I do the skeg repair. I plan to prebuild as much as I can, then cut out the old and epoxy in the new one while hauled out.

ETAK has three wet hatches in each wing, and one at the stern. In all cases I have replaced the lips (albeit, not with birch as you did when you built your 40), and I will be monitoring the integrity of join. I plan to remove all chainplates and oversize the holes for adding structural epoxy then re-drilling them to the appropriate hole size. We have been fortunate not to have any rot in any of the chainplate areas. I did remove the port galley window and plywood from frame to frame and have replaced the whole section with new wood/epoxy. The entire bottom of the stern wet locker needed replacement (which supports the breadboard table in the sterncastle). It is in place but needs finishing with fillets, butt-blocks, etc.

Thanks for the information on the standing rigging in synthetic. As soon as you know something, please let me know about it.

I may be coming down from the LA area to San Diego in a day or two. If there is a possibility we can hook up and I can get a look at your vessel, I would appreciated that. If not, then perhaps some other time later on. I will be around most of ths summer continuing the work on ETAK at least that long.

One question for the list has to do with the iron genny. ETAK came with a Farymann single cylinder, 12 hp diesel. I had it rebuilt years ago and it is now back in the engine compartment. I converted it from raw water cooling to heat exchanger, added a larger capacity alternator, and am in process of setting up a drive system similar to the Aqua-Drive unit that I made up. While I don't like certain aspects of the engine arrangement (primarily the weight), I do like the hand-crankability of the unit, and its basic simplicity. Has anyone else used this Farymann A-30 engine? Any comments, thoughts, opinions?

Jack, I hope you get the photos loaded, especially since you have a 34 also. My wife and I drove down from Oregon about 13 months ago to look at TRINITY, on the hard in Guaymas, as a possibility of avoiding all the work we are doing on ETAK now. I was not pleased enough with TRINITY to go that route, deciding instead to fully refurbish ETAK. Had I been aware of you and CORAZON, I would have liked to meet you then. We plan to be back in that area someday once I have ETAK seaworthy.