A 22 1/2 foot Cruising sailboat design

There are many excellent programs available now to help you design your own boat. It's much easier than when I first looked into doing this nearly 30 years ago. The main tool I have used is FreeShip plus. This is a boat design tool that is totally free and open source. It is powerful but unfortunately a bit buggy and crashes regularly (so save often!). However it allows you to design a multi chine plywood hull and generate plots of the plywood panel shapes that you can use to build the boat. This last feature is invaluable if you are working in plywood and want to make a hull where you can fiberglass tape/epoxy the whole thing together using the stitch and glue technique.

Here are some initial plans for my boat:

Lines plan of the proposed boat

The first picture shows the boat from the side, back, front, and overhead. Not shown is the centerboard and skeg below the waterline. The design is similar to a stretched simplified Welsford Penguin.

Side view showing windows and other interior details

One of the really useful features of modern boat design CAD software is the ability to view a 3D visualization from any angle. I made a short video of rotating one view of the proposed design.

It will be a while before I begin construction of this but I have printed out templates for the plywood sheets that make the outside of the hull and the interior supporting bulkheads at 1:12 scale (1 inch - 1 foot) to test out if it looks OK in 'real life'. I tried to assemble these using cereal boxes and light bristol board with limited success but I did confirm that the boat will likely come together from the dimensions that the CAD software produces.

One of the really fun things about the design process is learning stuff that you would not normally be aware as a sailor or even a boat builder. For example how does one determine how stable your design is. Where should one should locate the mast to help avoid excessive weather helm, and what shape and size a centerboard should be. I have learned that most boat designers when creating a design begin with a proven similar design rather than completely starting from scratch. One piece of advice I see on boat design forums is to have a look at what has worked before and start there. Good advice!

Some possible designs for the small trailerable coastal cruiser

In my last post I listed the requirements for a small trailerable coast cruiser that I would like to build. It was a fascinating experience examining the dozens of possible designs and learning about small cruisers and the people who build and sail them. One general term for such boats used to be 'pocket cruiser', but more recently there seems to be a consensus that divides smaller boats into Micro cruisers, less than 18 feet and mini cruisers that are usually under 6.5 meters (just over 21 feet). Meeting all my requirements in a micro cruiser is probably unrealistic, so I focused on Mini cruisers and slightly larger designs. The following are a few that would probably work.

 Redmond Elver

This is a canoe yawl - a type of cruising boat popularized in the Victorian era as a way for adventurous sailors to get out on the water on a limited budget. Some amazing voyages were made in canoe yawls including those described in The Voyage Alone in the Yawl Rob Roy

 

Steve Redmond's Elver

Elver is 20 feet long and weighs under 1000 lbs empty. She is however a bit small inside to satisfy the requirements for easy sitting headroom and a separate berth for a guest. She has no ballast either, which makes her more susceptible to remaining upside down and ending up that way in a knockdown.

An Australian Elver

A major step up from Elver is Oughtread's Eun Mara. A lovely little lapstrake sailboat, she would meet all the requirements except for ease of building and having 2 separate sleeping areas.

Ian Oughtred's Eun Mara

Takatani - a wonderful example of this design

I found a build blog for this boat and the estimated hours and elapsed years put me off building her.

The runner up for my favorite design is by South African Dudey Dix, specifically his Cape Henry 21, which is constructed in plywood laps but is less complex than Eun Mara.

Cape Henry 21

The Cape Henry 21 is an extended version of a popular 19 foot fiberglass design by the same designer. She has a sensible layout, a lovely appearance and good performance. The main issue I have with her is her very low freeboard and headroom in the cabin as you can see in the following plan snapshots.

 

Cape Henry 21 Plan view and side view

The boat design I most like is by a New Zealander names John Welsford. I first heard of him this summer during a cruise to Jedediah Island where I met up with a few other sailors. One of these sailors was sailing a diminutive but seaworthy little 11 footer called a Scamp. This is Welsford's most famous design and it impressed me in how well thought out it was both in terms of easy construction and also seaworthiness. It also sails amazingly well for such a short tubby boat and could go to windward in 30 knots according to its owner.

The Welsford design I chose is his Penguin, a 21 foot trailerable plywood lapstrake design. She is the largest boat I looked at in terms of interior room and while the construction is not simple, it seems to be very well thought out. She ticks most of the boxes.

Penguin's gaff rig sail plan

Clearly she is trailerable

I ordered Penguin's study plans and mentally went through what it would take to build her. However as I am afraid many people do, I began to see a few things I would like to change in her. I didn't like the slightly short cockpit and the very high cabin sides. I wished she was a little longer to take advantage of 3 full eight foot sheets of plywood. I also wished she was a little simpler to construct - maybe just 3 chines rather than 5 planks and maybe stitch and glue construction rather than lapstrake ply. You can see where this is going? I decided to design a boat sort of similar to Penguin, borrowing many ideas from her including her excellent layout and overall concept but changing the construction method, and modifying her shape, lengthening her and putting on the higher aspect 2 foresail rig that the Cape Henry has. I will talk more about this in the next post...

Considering building a small cruising sailboat

 

I have been feeling a hankering to build a small coastal cruising sailboat. Various previous attempts to build something - a gypsy wagon, garden room, and house have fizzled out for one reason or another. Given the permitting and general hassle of construction around here, I am back to looking at building something mobile. 

 

Chebaaco 20 I helped build about 30 years ago

It makes absolutely no sense financially to build a small sailboat when the bays and marinas of our coast are full of such boats that can be had for between free and $5000.  I figure it will cost around $20,000 just in materials and equipment to build a 22 foot boat and probably take me about 2000 hours. So obviously I had better enjoy the creative process since I will not be getting paid for a minute of the work involved!

Sonic 23

Here are the requirements I have set for the project:

1. Attractive - If I am going to create something it had better look good (at least to me) when I row out to it on it's mooring. I prefer classic boats with a nice sweep to the sheer line.
   
2. A decent sailer upwind and down - don't need a race boat but it should have respectable performance to windward
   
3. Buildable in under 2000 hours over 3 years - So it should not be too large or complex
   
4. Trailerable behind a 6 cylinder van (<3500 lbs including trailer) - Again this limits the maximum sane size or at least the displacement. This also means it will need to have shoal draft and make use of a centerboard or lifting keel to achieve decent upwind performance. Being trailerable will allow me to take the boat out in the winter here rather than risk leaving it on a mooring in inclement weather. It will also save on yard bills and reduce maintenance by keeping her under cover in the winter.
   
5. Capable of cruising locally and with care as far as Alaska and around Vancouver Island. I won't be crossing oceans, but I do want to explore the local coast and parts of it can be quite a challenge. I also don't want to camp out, having been spoiled by cruising on bigger boats. The boat will need to be self righting in the event of a knockdown - say to 120 degrees.
   
6. 2+ berths in 2 separate cabins - I sometimes cruise with a friend and it is nice to have some privacy. It will mostly be me and Rani on board with friends for day sailing,
   
7. A functional galley - I want to be able to cook under cover
   
8. Interior heads (toilet) - Having been caught in the cockpit once I need a private space down below
9. Full sitting head room in the main salon and v-berth area for my 6' plus friend. It would be lovely to have standing headroom, but making such a boat that is either easily trailerable or half decent looking would be well nigh impossible.
   
10. Easily maintained - not too much annual maintenance and a minimum of brightwork.
    

The original Trekka under sail

I have owned and/or cruised on a number of boats between 20 and 24 feet that satisfy many of these requirements, but all the more capable ones have been keel boats that were not (easily) trailerable. The Chebacco 20 I shared with my friend Fraser was easily trailerable but falls down on being capable of sailing it safely on exposed shores as well as being a camp cruiser with no heads or galley. The Sonic 23 I sailed on my first big cruise was owned by my friend Dave Besonette. It was a perfect boat in most ways other than being a fixed keel boat and took us in safety around much of Nova Scotia. I later owned an Abbott 22, a Laurent Giles Trekka class, a C&C 24, and most recently, A Farr 727. All these boats are around 21-24 feet long and weigh in the vicinity of 1.5 to 2 tons. None of them are easily trailerable but they are all capable of great adventures.

In my next post I will look at some of the designs that could meet the above requirements.