Frequently heard aboard every boat we've owned: "Honey, we need a bigger
boat!" I'll confess - it's usually me who has said it.
One night, we speculated on the maximum size we'd want and came up with an
arbitrary 75 feet; from then on we've joked about the 75-footer. I have
handled larger commercial boats and find that the adaptation to "bigger" happens
quickly; the differences being anticipation time and speed of approach.
That aside, larger machinery and systems aren't the issue for us, it's the
quantity of equipment that's the downside of a larger boat. That's why we'd
never be in the market for some of the new "trawlers." Twelve volts here and 24
there - sometimes half a dozen separate battery circuits, located all over
the boat and then there's two gensets - 480 volts here and 120/240 there. Bow
and stern thrusters, stabilizing fins and hydraulic hoses and multiple
aircons everywhere. That's just nuts, IMO, as their buyers will find out about 5
years from new.
One of the big attractions of Seahorse was the simplicity of the machinery,
typical of her PNW fishery heritage. Although not a conversion, she was
fitted similarly: one main engine, no thruster, and one get-somewhere engine which
doubles as the DC, and only, genset. It charges one house bank and the
single starting battery. We have one inverter and no aircon (don't need it where
we summer). We do have heat and plenty of it. 600 gallons of potable water
make running the water maker unnecessary on passages of less than 20 days or
so.
We think that the biggest downside of increased size is maintaining the
exterior - there is simply too much surface area to rinse and wash and wax unless
you have crew or can afford to hire workers in every port to do it.
Regards,
John
"Seahorse"
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
Frequently heard aboard every boat we've owned: "Honey, we need a bigger
boat!" I'll confess - it's usually me who has said it.
One night, we speculated on the maximum size we'd want and came up with an
arbitrary 75 feet; from then on we've joked about the 75-footer. I have
handled larger commercial boats and find that the adaptation to "bigger" happens
quickly; the differences being anticipation time and speed of approach.
That aside, larger machinery and systems aren't the issue for us, it's the
quantity of equipment that's the downside of a larger boat. That's why we'd
never be in the market for some of the new "trawlers." Twelve volts here and 24
there - sometimes half a dozen separate battery circuits, located all over
the boat and then there's two gensets - 480 volts here and 120/240 there. Bow
and stern thrusters, stabilizing fins and hydraulic hoses and multiple
aircons everywhere. That's just nuts, IMO, as their buyers will find out about 5
years from new.
One of the big attractions of Seahorse was the simplicity of the machinery,
typical of her PNW fishery heritage. Although not a conversion, she was
fitted similarly: one main engine, no thruster, and one get-somewhere engine which
doubles as the DC, and only, genset. It charges one house bank and the
single starting battery. We have one inverter and no aircon (don't need it where
we summer). We do have heat and plenty of it. 600 gallons of potable water
make running the water maker unnecessary on passages of less than 20 days or
so.
We think that the biggest downside of increased size is maintaining the
exterior - there is simply too much surface area to rinse and wash and wax unless
you have crew or can afford to hire workers in every port to do it.
Regards,
John
"Seahorse"
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
