Tin Can

[CapnK]

Saw this posted on the Ariel site. Interesting... take a gander:

http://www.esquire.com/features/sailing1207

[Zen]

whoa, grab'n gusto, good luck Dude!

[AdriftAtSea]

What worries me is that this guy uses Ken Barnes for inspiration... Also, if you've read the article... he's trying to build a 50' LOA trimaran for just $25,000.  Most of us on sailfar have done enough work on boats to know how expensive they can be to build, repair and maintain. 

Can you see him being able to outfit a 50' boat that is seaworthy for $25,000.  I can't—not at least without him getting some major donations or sponsorship of some sort.  It doesn't look like he's looking for donations or sponsorship either... he really seems to want to build the boat for $25,000.

The two EPIRBs, two VHFs, two GPS and satellite phone are going to cost at least $2,500, or 10% of his budget.  A 50' trimaran is going to have some pretty large sails, especially if he wants to be able to make the voyage in as short a time as he is planning.  Even used, those sails are going to be expensive... as are the winches to handle them.

I wish him the best of luck, but really feel sorry for the poor bastards who are going to risk their lives rescuing this guy when his "unsinkable" trimaran runs into a problem he didn't think of. 

BTW, most multhulls are unsinkable due the the materials they are constructed of, not the fact that they have multiple hulls.  Having multiple hulls helps, especially on a trimaran, where each hull usually has enough buoyancy to support the boat as a whole... but as his boat is going to be made of steel, even foam-filled, doesn't guarantee that they will stay buoyant.

[CapnK]

He's using aluminum plating mostly, not steel. IIRC, some of the framework is made of steel tubing, but not the whole shebang.

[CharlieJ]

I can tell you  this- in 1980 I spent $15,000 on my trimaran, FROM THE DECK UP. Masts, rigging, sails, etc. I can only imagine what it would cost today. Hey- the pair of sails for our 25 foot monohull cost $1300 as kits!!!

Now if he can find a gimme mast and some used sails, plus some galvanized wire and turnbuckles which can be had very cheaply, and will do the job, along with nicropressing his wire ends, again which will work fine,  he may be able to stay inside that figure. But I bet it runs way over $25,000 all told.

[AdriftAtSea]

Welding Aluminum is quite a bit more difficult from welding steel, and more expensive to boot.  It is also much harder to weld and keep any serious strength, since heating aluminum will generally weaken it quite a bit, since it removes the tempering that gives it the majority of its strength.

He's using aluminum plating mostly, not steel. IIRC, some of the framework is made of steel tubing, but not the whole shebang.

[Captain Smollett]

Welding Aluminum is quite a bit more difficult from welding steel, and more expensive to boot.  It is also much harder to weld and keep any serious strength, since heating aluminum will generally weaken it quite a bit, since it removes the tempering that gives it the majority of its strength.

Welding aluminum is no big deal if you know what you are doing.  Part of that is having the right equipment.  There are a BUNCH of aluminum boats out there; one that I know of has voyaged to Antarctica (as in Souther Ocean).  I think it is safe to assume they have at least some welds on them.

I choose to be positive and assume that if he undertaking this project that he knows how to weld aluminum.  And I wish him fair winds.

(Ken Barnes as his inspiration is a bit puzzling, tho...but maybe that started before Ken got rescued.  Maybe this guy got inspired while Ken was still ramping up).

[AdriftAtSea]

Capn Smollett-

The metal trimaran guy knows what happened to Ken, and talks about the batteries busting loose on Ken's boat... so it can't be that he doesn't know what happened to Ken.  I know that aluminum can be welded safely, but I also know that it has to be done with the right equipment and skills.  A guy who has such a limited budget doesn't strike me as one who would have that kind of equipment IMHO.

From the article, he's going to be using steel and aluminum... steel for the structure, and aluminum for the hull plating.   

I think it is a bad idea to fill the hulls with foam.  Most foams are really all that waterproof and will eventually get water-logged.  Filling the hulls with foam may sound like a good idea, but if there is a small leak, the foam will make it almost impossible to really do a proper inspection. If the foam isn't waterproof, and changes are very good that it won't be, and the amas are taking on water... that becomes a serious problem, especially on a steel/aluminum metal boat, since the only stability it has is provided by the buoyancy of the amas and hull. 

BTW, my favorite quote from the Esquire article, which you apparently didn't read, is:

Ken was well prepared and knowledgeable, and he had the proper equipment aboard to survive the conditions. But he was also getting impatient. He was catching the edge of a storm to ride it around Cape Horn, sailing at fourteen knots, surfing past his hull speed, which means his very heavy fifty-thousand-pound boat was coming up out of the water like a surfboard. He was sick of the slow sailing, of not making any progress, so he wanted this speed. Sailing around the Horn, at the tip of South America, is the most famously dangerous passage in the world. Whalers and other ships tried for years to get around, only to be stopped over and over.

Also, while I haven't done much welding in years, make that decades.... :) I seem to remember that there's an issue when welding steel to aluminum that causes major headaches.  There were some neat strips that were developed to facilitate this IIRC, which were aluminum on one side and steel on the other.  Don't remember the details, but I doubt this guy can afford them, so how is he going to connect the amas to the crossbeams—BTW, he says he's going to weld them.

[Captain Smollett]

Capn Smollett-

The metal trimaran guy knows what happened to Ken,

For the love of Pete, I never said he did not know what happened to Ken Barnes.  I said maybe his inspiration to embark on his own voyage came before Ken's rescue.  It was just a random thought, and certainly not something to get all agitated about.

Good Grief.

[CapnK]

My 2 aluminum rivets worth:

He has some previous experience building in aluminum, according to the article:

<snip>...Tanton is letting me put the frames inside the stringers, so that only the stringers touch the plate. I asked for this with the ninety-foot catamaran I designed and built in 2004 for charters in the Caribbean, but I was told it couldn't be done. Tanton is much more open-minded, though, flexible and smart.

Building that larger boat, which weighed ten times as much and had ten staterooms and ten bathrooms, I learned to weld, grind, cut, and fit, and I figured out how to get by with no infrastructure. A shipyard usually has a jig for a boat, a platform that holds the pieces in place, but I used five-dollar car jacks from the junkyard, cheap clamps from Home Depot, and scrap steel pipe welded into stands. I'm a low-budget builder, and I can't build pretty, but I can build strong.

90 ft cat? That's a whomper. Wonder what she looked like. :D

But the article is pretty scarce on details as to how he is actually joining and constructing things, what's welded and what might be mechanically fastened, what's used where and how, etc..., so really, there's no point getting wound up in conjecture.

Let's just hope that all goes well for the guy, and he has fun doing whatever part of the journey it works out that he is able to do, whether 240 miles, 2,400 miles, or 24,000.

I'm in the middle of reading Webb Chiles "Storm Passage", and there's a guy who had the experience, and a production boat he thought worthy, who had to detour to Tahiti, then return to San Diego for a year to fix his boat again before setting out on a trip that at last allowed him to make it like he'd wanted to do originally.

One point stands out from the article, re: Ken Burns: "He left."

Good for him for that, regardless of how the rest of it was handled or turned out.

Here's the same to this guy. :) His boat should be at least as capable as some others that have done it. The rest is up to Fate, Destiny, the Gods, or Whatever.

And, as it has been said, "Luck favors the man who is prepared". :)

[AdriftAtSea]

Update on the Tin Can:

For anyone who is interested:  LINK

[BobW]

Another update, from today's 'Lectronic Latitude (scroll down to the second item):

http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2008-02-13&dayid=72

[CapnK]

Hmmm - Used sails on an untested boat, for a circumnavigation via the southern capes, with a late departure that's gonna put him starting into the 40's at the beginning of Fall (and that's if he makes good time getting there)?

Sorry folks - I like to dream as much as the next guy, but this, well, let's just say that I think it's stretching it a bit to think he has an even chance of making it. Or maybe as some have said, it's being done purely for the publicity.

This really does not seem to me to be a truly serious attempt at making it. Certainly not non-stop.

He has said in his blog that he'll pull into port if he has to, or feels endangered.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/blog/tincan

I'll copy Lat 38's sentiments: "We wish Vann luck and hope he lives to tell the tale, no matter how it turns out."

[CapnK]

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2008/dream%20on.htm

[CapnK]

http://saildivebvi.com/serendipity/archives/2008/02/12.html

BTW, he sailed away last night, out thru the Golden Gate at about 6-7 EST, I think.

[skylark]

So I'll definitely launch next week, most likely waiting until Friday, since I've arranged a tow out to the bay for Saturday (Feb 9). Bob Sansone, a single-handed sailor who now has a trawler, has kindly offered a tow, which I'll need, since I have no engine or anchor. This boat was made only for the open ocean.

Going to sea with no anchor?  A fool.

[AdriftAtSea]

The engine I can understand not having, especially given the way the boat was built.  Not having an anchor is just plain stupidity.  If he does have to come into a harbor for an emergency, most will not have facilities to dock or moor a 50' x 30' boat, so he would probably be best off with an anchor to hang off of... and getting an anchor large enough for a boat that size is not that simple.  Finally, if he doesn't have an anchor on-board, he probably doesn't have the ground tackle to attach a borrowed anchor to.

[Leroy - Gulf 29]

Kudos for him going... I think?  Going out there in an untested design is at best a bit foolhardy IMHO.  I don't know I've never been "out there."  But I wouldn't go out in some slapped together POS.  I kinda look at it this way.  If he want to do it, fine.  But why should the Coast Guard risk their lives if they have to go fish him out of the drink.  At a minimum, he or Esquire magazine should be required to post a bond to help defray the rescue costs if something does go amiss.  These adventures are all fine well and good, but why should they expect to be bailed out at no cost if something goes wrong.  Just my $0.02 worth

[AdriftAtSea]

Leroy—

I think that is an excellent idea... having people doing well-publicized stunts like this should be forced to post a bond or get an insurance policy to pay for the costs of their rescue. 

[AdriftAtSea]

One thing I just realized after seeing a photo of the aka attachment point on the boat—the akas aren't continuous... they're four separate pieces. Now, I have even more doubts about the akas being able to resist the forces they'll encounter in his sailing the boat.