Challenge: Add How Much Flotation?

[Captain mud]

Very funny!!

[cal40john]

You're going to have a hard time undoing the keelbolts because there aren't any, the Cal 25 has an integral keel. You're going to pretty much destroy the hull to get the lead out.

John

Originally Posted by captainmark

An other old sailor and I are planning to sail the Cal25 to Europe summer of 2010. We are not planning on taking a lifeboat, but make the boat be her own lifeboat.

We would be glad to sacrifice considerable creature comfort for increased tendency of the craft to stay on top of the water.

Hey, someone joked about airbags and jettisoning the keel. I've toyed with the idea. There are no doubt some dead sailors out there who would have preferred to be wallowing around post storm without a keel. I don't see any practical way to dump the keel. (I have this image of trying to back off rusty bolts in the bilge while the water level rises in the cabin.)

What I would really like to do with the keel is figure out how to replace the lead with lead acid batteries running a 90 pound electric drive instead of relying a 500 pound stinky diesel.

md

[bobola]

From this web site; Batcat Catamaran Sailboat


"A local Tamworth fibreglass fabricator was Len Surtees who sold water tanks and one off bits and pieces to farmers and businesses for hundreds of kilometres around. He also had another talent, designing fast multihulls.

Readers of sailing books would know the late Tristan Jones as an expert sailor, adventurer and a prolific writer of numerous classic ocean journeys. Tristan, in one of his books, (possibly 'A Star to Steer Her By', but I may be wrong), praised Leo Surtees, as a "brilliant young engineer." Leo, or Len as he is known here, designed and built a 'cool tubes' water ballast system on Tristan's then new trimaran 'Outward Leg,' one of a range of ocean going multihulls Len built in the 70's and early 80's.

Tristan had both legs amputated after many years at sea and adventures around the world. After the loss of his first leg, Tristan looked to Outward Leg as his saviour in what was his graduation from monohulls to multihulls. He never regreted making the change to a multihull. (In fact in a Multihulls Magazine article some years back Tristan on his first sea trial of a multihull couldn't get over the lack of heel and the fact his coffee remained in his cup and not over him...but I digress).

Len Surtees had designed Outward Leg to be extremely light, fast and seaworthy and in a first--to be self-rightable. Outward Leg was launched upside down and left like that for one week before being self-righted, stocked with provisions and sailed off around the world by Tristan. At the time the boat was hailed as the first re-rightable trimaran in the world."

I read this book years ago, and have it in my library. The water ballast tube idea worked well on the tri, but I don't know why it was necessary considering how inherently stable they are. On a monohull it makes a whole lot more sense.