We've been thinking about what kind of boat would make most sense for us to see the world in. We'll try to lay out our basic thinking here. We'd very much like to hear of your feed back, ideas, critique and comments?
Firstly, we should state that we're not really sailing enthusiasts, as in, we're not going cruising for the sake of sailing as a form of sport. Sailing is simply a means to an end for us. Alike living the a life of hermit crab, Chloe will be built to allow us to travel with our home on our back. That is her primary purpose.
We don't want to race along with other boats and we don't really get excited about the idea of squeezing an extra half knot out of her by trimming sails. And, we don't care about speed as a travel requirement other than to avoid heavy weather systems.
Chloe will simply be a wind & solar powered traveling home. Perhaps more akin to a lumbering RV, but without the resultant pollution. And perhaps quite a bit bigger than an RV, so we're comfortable living on her for years... with a Cat.
Although not super fast, this is not to say that Chloe won't be a performance boat. We do want to be able to see the whole world in comfort and safety. So we also need her to perform well in this sense, as an exploration boat. We also want to travel without leaving a huge CO2 pollution trail behind us. A solidly built sailing boat seems to be, at first glance to be the only practical answer to this requirement.
An alternative of driving from hotel to hotel, hauling a suitcase around, or sitting spoon-fed on a huge cruise liner, packed full of thousands of retired people - didn't seem to offer any of the challenge, versatility or the level of accomplishment we are hoping to find.
OK, that's a very high level swagger; but some big questions immediately pop up.
Where actually do we want to go in Chloe? What kind of places?
If our goal is to 'sample' the world, the question arises as to whether everything to see is accessible from a sailboat? What about inland cities? How would we see Paris and Dijon? What about Vienna and Frankfurt? There are certainly a large number of cities perched on the edge of the sea, easily reachable by sea craft but what about those many cities that are not. History is somewhat on our side, in this respect. Most old cities were built with the aid of boats being a primary way of getting goods and materials in. The result is that most cities are very accessible: either by sea or by large river.
To go to see these inland cities, one solution might be to leave Chloe docked, moored or at anchor, while we might then rent a car or take a train into the cities to see them. But, would that always be ok? To leave a boat unattended? Who would feed 'the cat'? And what if the boat's anchor dragged? Or worse, the boat ran off on her own and collided with other craft? And do we really want to be dragging suitcases around; doesn't that defeat the hermit crab principle?
This solution would most likely be reasonable, and many cruising people do this - but is it the best way?
Instead, could we actually move a boat by river into these inland cities. We would never have to unpack. We would sleep on our boat home in our own beds and perhaps just 'hop-off', down town, to see the sights? Is this a practical consideration or a reasonable request?
One such solution might be to somehow get a boat that is small enough to find it's way to these cities by river? We needed to quantify whether city's rivers would be deep enough and wide enough to accommodate a sailing boat that would be in turn, large enough to both live abroad comfortably and cross large oceans with?
Chloe's Ideal Size
The question of ideal Boat Size becomes key to our thinking.
We started to explore our options for a true 'go anywhere' boat design. We studied maps of European, South American, North American Asian Rivers. How deep are these rivers? What about bridges? Can we squeeze through their narrow locks? How long can the Chloe's hull be? What about river currents?
Chloe's size spec started to firm up for these river boating considerations... but we also needed Chloe's size to be driven by other sea fairing factors.
Chloe needs to be safe enough in the high seas as we wanted to sail her over the largest oceans. She also needs to be small enough to be handled by two aging people in a strong wind; one of whom may be asleep. And she needs to be large enough to store all the equipment, water, provisions, spares, bit and bobs, needed for long ocean passages.
After meeting these 'primary' requirements, we'd then have to judge how comfortable the resultant size would be. Would there even be enough space for a bed? ... AND for our mandatory cat?!?
Luckily, it turns out that many canals were built, centuries ago with some form of almost standardized canal boat sizes in mind. The locks, placed along the canals were in large part designed to offer a minimum beam. The adjacent canal's are dredged to maintain a minimum depth. And the length of canal boats is usually a huge number.
French and Canadian canals will allow a 5 meter wide boat to pass. But only Just. With fenders dangling from her sides, this would be tight. So Chloe has to have a beam of less than say 4.5meters and be built tough enough to take lot of the bangs and dings that lock's walls offer up.
Chloe's size specification firmed up nicely from this perspective.
Beam < 4.6m (15ft )
Draft < 1.2m (4ft)
Length : 12 to 15m (40 to 50 ft)
Air Draft : < 5.8m (19 ft)
hmm.. perhaps a Sailboat is not going to fit. A 50ft sailing boat with a 20ft mast is "Odd" to say the least. And don't sailing boats have ~6~7~8 ft keels?
So did we need to give up on the river boating idea?
No!! Then what would be the point....
Chloe's Design
Our final realization was that we needed Chloe to have a retractable keel. Or a Centerboard. This way, we could simply raise the 'keel' and run up and down shallow rivers without running aground. Many such sail boat designed with centerboards, will allow for beaching. This too would allow for servicing of propeller or rudder, hull cleaning and thru-hull inspections. A hinging Centerboard would be best, as it would prevent the need for a large object to be hauled into a case, inside the salon. To involve a centerboard design was really a key factor for Chloe's versatility.
Many in-land rivers are also notorious for being full of junk, trash and potential entanglements. We we needed Chloe to be protected underneath. Her rudder also needed to have some form of protection so that it didn't get tangled up in rope or fishing net. And, two rudders would be better than one in case of such a problem.
Her propeller needed to fold, so that it was less susceptible to tangles.... and a rope cutter integrated; although we were somewhat skeptical as to a propeller shaft rope cutter's practical performance. We didn't want a fouled propeller as we were negotiating strong currents, half way up the river Seine. We needed some kind of back up motor too. For that little 'nightmare' situation.
Given the beam constraints of 5meters, the length specification naturally fell out nicely. Sailboats maintain a general ~3:1 ratio of length to beam. So this in turn set Chloe's length at 15 meters.
A 15 meter boat is considered by many cruisers as an ideal length of boat fro a cruising couple. At 45ft long, her sail's power will be manageable by a couple and she should be reasonably maneuverable in a tight docking situation.
Safety
We wanted Chloe to be 'safe', sure, ... but what does that actually mean, 'Safe'?
Reading though a whole stack of boating books, written by admirable people who had sailed around the world multiple times, we drew some conclusions. We distilled these main points down to represent the real meaning of the word, 'Safe':
Strong - able with with standing the crushing forces of green water, landing on top of her. To be able to with standing bashing into locks and concrete piers. And Whales!
Waterproof - with all the hatches and vents shut - she can roll around and not allow water to get in.
Simple - to sail by a single person - no over powering of lines or dangerous sailing positions needed
Unsinkable - she wont do a Titanic on us. We'd like to stay 'on top' of the water.
Anchorable - Able to anchor solidly in a strong storm
Fast - enough to get out of the path of a hurricane.
A Solid Motor - that is powerful enough to deal with currents, solid & reliable.
Considering the material choice for a boat's hull, all paths seemed to all point to Aluminum as being the strongest material with a reasonable weight. Yes, expensive. And perhaps that's why most sailboats are not made of Aluminum. The requirement for a centerboard required that the hull strength would be engineered to handle the considerable moments involved in a hinging ~8ft centerboard. This again, pointed to Aluminum as being an idea choice for construction material.
Go Anywhere Safe Exploration Couple's boat. Aluminum does have it's well know issues with Electrolysis (Aluminum will dissolve when in electrical contact with a less reactive metal), but like many products, technology has improved. Alloys have been progressed to resist electrolysis and with both modern electrical system, far better isolation techniques and anodic protection; we concluded that strong Aluminum construction was by far the best build approach for a
We wanted to make sure Chloe was very water proof. Most sailboats start to leak as they age. The Deck to Hull joints start to leak and many of the deck fittings start to seep water as their bedding inevitably becomes loose in time. A seam free, welded Aluminum hull to deck interface with welded stanchions seemed to offer a clear solution to this problem. We also are looking for well engineered, water proof companionway doors such that huge solid water waves would not flood the salon when pooped, nor would she leak if ever rolled.
Safety in a sailboat is in late part dictated by collision avoidance. The ability to see the surrounding sea is clearly an important factor. We liked the idea of a pilot house design. These designs offer a raised platform, inside the boat with windows surrounding the platform. In other words, a pilot house boat is a boat that you can see out of. Most sailing boats are designed to drop the internal salon to a level way below the water line. This has the consequence of removing the ability to perform a good look out function from inside the boat. In bad weather it is ideal to be able to perform your lookout from the comfort of a protected pilot house.
Chloe's Design
We wanted to find a well known boat designer with many years of experience under his or her belt.
Looking for Strong, Aluminum, Pilothouse, Centerboard Cruising Sailboats in the 45~49ft range led us to a rather short list of boat builders. Oddly, but in a sense, luckily, these Al boat builders all seemed to reside in one place in the world. The West coast of France & Holland
We firmed up our land travel plans to head for Western Europe.
Our Short list of boats to become "Chloe" is:-
Atlantic yachting
Garcia/Allures
Boreal
Alubat/OVNI
Cordova
