Hovercraft

[oceanblue123]

Perhaps I am misinformed, pardon me sir for not having been exposed to boat culture, shame on me for taking the initiative and asking questions and making mistaken assumptions.

Boat spray would be expected where some boats are anchored if people are using speedboats and jetskis.

[atoll]

you really want to think solar and electric for your hovercraft......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vzK5wr1e6Y

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by oceanblue123

Perhaps I am misinformed, pardon me sir for not having been exposed to boat culture, shame on me for taking the initiative and asking questions and making mistaken assumptions.

Boat spray would be expected where some boats are anchored if people are using speedboats and jetskis.

Spray from other boats means that the operator of the boat spraying is a grade A expletive.

Anyone who operates a jet ski or a speed boat in proximity to moored vessels at the speeds required to spray them deserves what they get.

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by oceanblue123

Perhaps I am misinformed, pardon me sir for not having been exposed to boat culture, shame on me for taking the initiative and asking questions and making mistaken assumptions.

Boat spray would be expected where some boats are anchored if people are using speedboats and jetskis.

Uh, no. Just no. Speedboats and jet skis do not fill the air for tens of yards around them with spray. Nor do they closely approach anchored boats if they know what's good for them. And it is generally a lease violation, a civil offense, and sometimes even a criminal offense to operate at speed within the confines of a marina, as well as nearly physically impossible.



Basically, just starting to mess about in boats, FORGET about hovercraft. And don't try to reinvent the wheel. Do what you see established and experienced and mature, sensible boaters doing. You do NOT have a better idea just because you are new. The opposite is actually the case. When in doubt, emulate those who obviously act with knowledge, experience, and good judgement. It is not boring. It is CORRECT.



Your best entry is a trailer sailer so you don't need a marina slip and the expenses that go with that. Also, when the boat on its trailer is "docked" in your driveway, maintenance is dead easy, and the bottom never needs cleaning. When you want to go for a sail, simply head out to your local boat ramp and launch. Once you get the routine down, you should have the mast up and rigged in well under a half hour. Mere minutes with some boats. Then, go sail. As a newbie, I would avoid the complexities and expense of an inboard engine. Mount a 4HP Tohatsu outboard on her, and LEARN TO MAINTAIN IT, for get home when the wind dies power.


You could also go for a cartoppable dinghy. A well used and loved dinghy can often be had REALLY cheap, and can usually be sold for not much less than what you paid for it. You will truly learn the mechanics of sailing faster with a dinghy than any other type boat. Plus they are just great fun. Go sailing in a large pond. Almost anywhere. I sailed a dinghy across a flooded rice field once. No wind? Row. Oars are your propellor, and you are the engine.



If you want the marina experience, it is gonna cost you. The purchase price of the boat itself is the least of your concerns. You can pick up something ready to sail that you can sleep aboard and maybe even cook aboard, for as little as $2k. In this class of boats, about $12k is as high as you need go. This will likely be a fiberglass boat built late 60's to late 70's which coincidentally is when the toughest hulls were laid up in low to mid range production boats. You will of necessity learn a lot about maintenance. You will have something that you COULD live aboard and that you could easily sail off in for a weekend. Or go on a coastal cruise. Cross an ocean? Er... it has been done but a beginner should stick with baby steps before going for the marathon.


MOST IMPORTANTLY, you need to LEARN a LOT of stuff. How much time have you spent learning the Rules of the Road? Can you identify a dredge at night from two miles away? Or a tug and tow? A trawler, trawling? Another sailboat? A big ship? Can you instantly and instinctively react as needed to avoid a collision, firm in the knowledge of what the other guy will be doing? Do you know the requirements for what day shapes and lights you must display? What sound signals to use? There is no room for error here. None. This is serious stuff. Even a jetski must follow the rules, and failure to do so has been directly the cause of fatalities because people think they are toys and they need no special training to use them. RULES is the top of the list of things to learn and KNOW, without exception or compromise.


NEXT is safety. Safety regulations. Safety procedures and practices. How many fire extinguishers, and what size and type, are REQUIRED on your vessel, and how many extra ought you to have, in practice, and how do you use them and inspect them? Whistle/horn. Bell, gong. Flares. Radio. No, a cell phone is not "good enough". You need to be able to contact a vessel with which you have risk of collision whose intentions are unknown to you, or to signal your intentions.



Navigation? Meh. Your initial forays will undoubtedly not extend out of sight of land. This is piloting, which is different, in that it relies on the use of visual aids to determine position and identify areas where you can go and cannot go. So you must have a good understanding of inland/inshore pilotage.


LASTLY, how to actually handle your boat. Do not even presume to leave the dock as the person in charge of a boat until you have a very good knowledge of all the above, ESPECIALLY Rules of the Road. Otherwise you are a menace to the lives and safety of others as well as yourself, and legally liable for the inevitable consequences of ignorance. Actually learning to sail the boat is the easy part, anyway, and can mostly be learned in a day, even self-teaching with youtube videos and "Sailing for Dummies" books.


As for where to learn all this stuff, the same books used by candidates for small boat deck licenses are appropriate. Your local marine chandlery or bookstore or Amazon.com will hook you up. Supplement with wiki, google, and youtube. If you have studied and studied and still don't understand something, come back here and ask. There are some here who don't suffer ignorance gladly, as you have seen. But hardly anyone would refuse to help someone who is obviously genuinely trying to learn and not being ignorant of sound advice. If you are in the UK, contact RYA.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GrowleyMonster

...
MOST IMPORTANTLY, you need to LEARN a LOT of stuff.

...

NEXT is safety.

...

So you must have a good understanding of inland/inshore pilotage.

LASTLY, how to actually handle your boat. Do not even presume to leave the dock as the person in charge of a boat until you have a very good knowledge of all the above, ESPECIALLY Rules of the Road. Otherwise you are a menace to the lives and safety of others as well as yourself, and legally liable for the inevitable consequences of ignorance. Actually learning to sail the boat is the easy part
...

More words of wisdom that should be given to every aspiring cruiser. Much more valuable than the "just do it" responses we see all too often.

[jalea]

Better be prepared for the fuel bill!!!

[oceanblue123]

Atoll that is not a bad idea actually, that looks pretty good.
A more powerful motor would be nice but that is neat.

So to people saying they are not used around boats, this video would say otherwise.
I am not saying go right up to them and I keep myself to myself anyways so no-one going to be bothered be me.

People use jetskis around anchored boats, not moored/berthed, imagine tha yacht with others near ti and that guy with some rich friends playing with their jetskis and other toys. Doesn't seem to odd to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR1Sg5eWgzM

[oceanblue123]

Growley, thing is I have nowhere to store a trailer, there is no space to have a trailer, I have nothing to to a trailer with either

You mentioned sailing in a pond, I actually have done this, for some reason I wanted to go on a school trip (was a waste in the end with unpleasant people), we did sailing there though the wind was low, I did get the idea of it, I have not been ocean sailing.

I have read that fiberglass is 50 years and then unsafe, I would want something newer so it lasts longer and the bavarias and beneteaus have the lines accessible from the wheel which I like, that appeals to me.

I can not identify those boats from that distance but I would learn through doing and I know that radios exist so I could ask if necessary, I know mobile phones are not used, that is just weird to imply that I would use a mobile phone.

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by oceanblue123

Growley, thing is I have nowhere to store a trailer, there is no space to have a trailer, I have nothing to to a trailer with either

You mentioned sailing in a pond, I actually have done this, for some reason I wanted to go on a school trip (was a waste in the end with unpleasant people), we did sailing there though the wind was low, I did get the idea of it, I have not been ocean sailing.

I have read that fiberglass is 50 years and then unsafe, I would want something newer so it lasts longer and the bavarias and beneteaus have the lines accessible from the wheel which I like, that appeals to me.

I can not identify those boats from that distance but I would learn through doing and I know that radios exist so I could ask if necessary, I know mobile phones are not used, that is just weird to imply that I would use a mobile phone.

Okay, then I guess you better just buy yourself a hovercraft. Make sure it is one with no unsafe 50 year old fiberglass on it, and just drive it home over the roads since you have no car to tow it. Or else find a marina that will lease you a slip, and you pay the slip rent and just leave it in the water. Your money. Do what you want with it. I am outta this thread.


BTW you don't learn the Rules by "doing". That would imply learning from your mistakes, which can be fatal for you and/or for others as well as put you in very serious legal trouble. You haven't even opened up a copy of the Rules yet, have you? <HINT> you can find a PDF online and view/study onscreen, or print it out. The trick is, you have to actually care enough to look for it.


One last bit of advice. ALL STOP. FINISHED WITH ENGINES on the boat purchase, because you are not listening. Find someone who needs race crew. Super easy. You just sit at the rail as human ballast, watch, and learn, on your first few outings. You need some grounding in practicality. You seem to be deliberately spouting IMpracticality though I know you would never do such a thing on purpose. But do some actual sailing with actual sailors on actual boats that actually do something. Get your head out of, errr, the clouds, or wherever else it might be. See how things are actually done by people who regularly do those things, and what they use in the doing of them. Or go back to plan A and buy a hovercraft. Whatevah. Like I said, I am gone. Wasted enough time here. Some people, you buy them books for school and they just chew on the covers.

[AndyEss]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Also would remove any cargo carrying ability

True, but that can be solved. And the solution is so brilliant, it could deflect the
hovercraft prop noise from the neighbors.
To pick up the lost displacement from the sound deadening hovercraft teak decks, you would build two side floats and turn the hovercraft into a trimaran, in effect.
The beauty of this, is the inner topsides of the side floats would be taken up quite high, maybe as much as 2 meters freeboard, to deflect the horizontal propagation of the hovercraft prop noise.
This solution will increase hull drag, as the two side floats would not be floating on air, as is the center hull, but all that needs to be done is increase the size of the hovercraft engine.
The OP might have already considered this requirement, as he seems to agree that teak props would be quieter than the aluminum original props. The teak prop should resist corrosion better than the aluminum ones. And us long keelers know just how much esthetic features, like acres of teak, add to boat enjoyment.
Teak props might necessitate larger engines even before the 2 side floats are considered.

[Jim Cate]

^^^^
Oohhh yes! And with the added buoyancy of the amas, it would be possible to quiet it down further by discarding the noisy ICEs and replacing with smooth, silent steam engines. And to reduce the prop noise even further, the steam engines could be directly coupled (VERY efficient, that) to large paddle wheels to provide fore and aft propulsion... obviously, these would be made of teak.

The possibilities are enormous!

Jim

[AndyEss]

Amas, I knew amas, but just forgot. Floats I could get out. The ride across the Mogote to shore for dinner is a bit stressful on a windy, cloudy night ( blocking the full moon ). My neural network must of jammed.
Now, if I had a hovercraft, instead of my dink, I could have come across in style. A steam hovercraft would be especially sweet. Actually having worked on a coal fired, steam engine, rail car mounted crane in my youth, and having people come from miles around to watch my crew drive that crane up and down a railroad spur/mainline track, I know it takes two-three hours of pre-heat to get the system to power levels, so I would have had to miss my nap to feed the hovercraft steam boiler. I bet there’s no anthracite in La Paz either.
Now, if we used a LiFePo house battery system to heat the water, we could get around the anthracite problem. The ama arms would be perfect mounts for lots of solar panels. We would need the proper BDS, LVLs and bus architectures to optimize the system though:

[Jim Cate]

Andy, be realistic: we're in a new age now, and flash boilers have been around a while. With technology swiped from Doble, we could get steam up in less than a minute. The secret is Nitrous Oxide enhancement... it really speeds up the preheat!

I don't know why someone isn't selling these great boats... there's an obvious market for them!

Jim

[oceanblue123]

I have already said I am not going to buy a hovercraft.
If they are not seaworthy, they are not for me.

I will download the rules and have a look, it's not like I want problems with my boat, I just want to enjoy myself in sunny places.
Carbon fiber ones would be nice for a hovercraft.


Andy ummm I was joking about teak propellers

[Jim Cate]

Andy ummm I was joking about teak propellers

there is at least a small chance that he and I were joking too, mate... despite the excellent engineering we proposed, our schemes might not be workable.

Jim