Even as you talk about a motor sled I'm thinking flat nosed cargo canoe :-)

But a warning before said silence might be nice. maybe. I was worried I might have said something.

  Good point.  For what it's worth, I didn't think there was going to be a delay -- each week I meant to take more time out for friends, boat discussions, and other fun activities, but then work kept blossoming.  Family came first with the free time I did have and everything else was put on the back burner.  Then all of a sudden it was 20 weeks. 

And I thought you wanted a 60'?

  That's my wife, not me.   :-)

  She's actually on board with the Ex40 as well, but she does admit longing for the C60, or a Seawind, or a Lagoon 450.  To which I have two responses:

    A.  If I wanted to stand up and drive a bus, I'd drive a bus.  But if I want to sail, I'd like to lean back with wind in my face and a tiller in my hand.

    B.  She's welcome to come up with the $500K purchase cost and the $4k/year boatyard costs if the big boat really is important.

  Point A falls upon deaf ears because my wife doesn't really care about sailing.  Though she does enjoy hanging out on a moving sailboat as long as someone else is pulling the strings.

  Point B is pretty effective.

I wanna have a go at this, with the understanding we are beating up an idea, not a person.

  Understood.  I promise not to be fragile.

But, if a under ww hull sled were to be long enough to raise the engine outside the beams, you could have all the safety of outside venting, no lost space in the cabin and simple open and close.

  That's precisely my plan. 

  Kind of like the Wharram's, but with the outboard exposed, sitting out there aft of the edge of the beam/cockpit.  I actually like the silver Hondas, so I wouldn't mind one poking out back there. 

  With electric start and remote controls, it would be even easier than my current cat, where I have to manually raise and lower the motor by walking over to it and hanging off the boom end, and then squat on my heels in the middle of the 8' wide cockpit any time I want to adjust the throttle.  A 20 hp long shaft would be roughly 110 pounds.

I suggest the ex40 tender is very different to a 'dinghy on board'. It's integrated and invisible, stupid easy to deploy and retrieve, and, like a dingy, adds a backup in case the boat is, somehow, disabled.

  It is certainly all of those things.  I love it.  I just don't want one because I don't know if I'd ever use it.  Plus the additional weight and expense it represents. 

  Multi's are very sensitive to weight, and one of my many goals with the proa is to sail when others don't even bother going out, and/or move with wind in my face while others sit and sweat.  (I don't /want/ to watch others sit and sweat -- I just want to avoid their fate).  I have both of those in the current catamaran, but it has no real interior, it's not seaworthy, and it's a lot of work to sail.

  Also, the dinghy we currently use is a 12' double-hulled rotomolded polyethylene boat because:  a) it fits within the size limits of our community dock, and  b) it bounces off granite shoreline in a way that fiberglass and aluminum do not.  Most of our shoreline is granite up here.

I think Rob addressed this.  Rob, 01 Nov "a single line would winch the boat in and out, with the tender locked in place.  It could then be lifted lowered as required.  Or, the boat could be telescoped with the stern down, even while motoring."

  It could happen.  There have been several times when Rob, Steinar, and Mark (pre-2008) have achieved the impossible, so maybe the integrated dinghy could come together in a way I'm not envisioning.

  That said:

    - I still don't want the weight
    - The tender is too long to be allowed as a dinghy on our community dock
    - I like the "fixed" motor with one set of permanent controls
    - There's nothing to adjust, switch, or re-fit when expanding or collapsing
    - There's no need to figure out how to move the dinghy in rough water
    - There's more under-cockpit clearance
    - It would use a simple trailer with two sets of bunks (one for each hull)
    - And it would allow external telescoping beams in the ww hull, with the inner beams on the lw hull
      (side-by-side beams and up-down beams aren't on my personal radar).

  I'm probably also influenced by winter storage because the yard fees for this boat would probably be around $2,500/year at the lowest, even if collapsed.  Some yards charge 50% more.

  So the ability to haul the boat myself, single-handed, with a single trailer, is a major goal for me.  If I can get help, great, but if not, I know I could handle an Ex40 that collapses on the water.

  I'll also have two other boats to haul each fall -- a 23' monohull and a 26' power dory, and the nearest ramp that works at all tides is 10 miles away.  I could conceivably get all three boats in one long day,  provided it's just one trip each.  Adding a fourth trip for the dinghy would be problematic.  Particularly if I'm alone and have to figure out how to separate the boats and put them on two different trailers.
 
  But again, this is not a mark against the design, which is perfect for its goals.  I just have a slightly different set of goals.


HYBRID APPROACH

  As I mentioned, as long as one design could be configured either way, it works for me.  I wouldn't question someone's preference for the integrated tender.

  But...  What if one did both?

  I currently don't care about the tender because we're not cruising.  Though if we were go to cruising, it might be nice to have the sled and the tender:

    - Two 20 hp motors would provide enough power to plow into a pretty good wind
    - If both motors had remote controls, you could spin the boat in place if needed
    - There's a redundant motor, which is a plus if you're going to be in the middle of nowhere
    - And then all the benefits of the integrated dinghy design.

  Granted, now we're 100-150 pounds heavier with the addition of the second motor, but if I'm cruising, that's fine.  I've already accepted the weight of the tender, so what the heck.

  This way I could have a fast minimalist multi  for daysailing, while still having the option to add on an integrated tender later.  Or alternately, remove the sled and use the original motor on the integrated dinghy.

        - Mike

 

Mike Crawford  wrote:

|  Many apologies for the delay.  November through March is normally my busy season with software development, and this year I inherited two additional projects.  Email, group chats, and anything of the sort has taken a back seat.  Now that things have eased up, I have time to ponder fast-and-light multihulls.

de nada.

But a warning before said silence might be nice. maybe. I was worried I might have said something.

>    So, after five months of time to ponder, I've flip-flopped several times before coming back to my original position.
>
>   My personal goal: 
>
>     - A permanent retractable motor sled underneath the ww hull, with the motor itself being aft of the cockpit when retracted
>     - A simple winch, crank, or even set of blocks and a cleat, to raise/lower it
>     - The motor is accessible for basic maintenance from the cockpit
>     - Tramps between the cockpit and the lw hull
>
>   Reasoning:
>
>     - This is the lightest, fastest, cheapest way to go
>     - I'll daysail 95% of the time without a dinghy on board
>     - I'd like to be able to expand/collapse on the water without changing motor controls or moving the tender
>     - There's more under-cockpit clearance this way than if we try to cram the tender underneath
>     - And drive a single unit onto a bunk/multihull type trailer at any launch ramp

I wanna have a go at this, with the understanding we are beating up an idea, not a person.

I object to a motor in the cabin.
1 It is a danger for fires and explosion, assuming gas motor
2 I think most regulators  (not strictly relevant to us), for good reasons (see above) do not want enclosed engine compartments.
3 Objectionable fumes for humans in the cabin. Some more than others.
4 Prime cabin real estate regulated to low value engine space

>     - This is the lightest, fastest, cheapest way to go

While an enclosed, well sealed and externally well vented engine hole seems easy, it adds complexity and small cost.
Add the blocks and tackle and experimenting, and I am not sure its much cheaper or lighter than a tender.
A simple sled should be easy though

>     - I'll daysail 95% of the time without a dinghy on board

I suggest the ex40 tender is very different to a 'dinghy on board'. It's integrated and invisible, stupid easy to deploy and retrieve, and, like a dingy, adds a backup in case the boat is, somehow, disabled. That gives me a comfort.

>     - I'd like to be able to expand/collapse on the water without changing motor controls or moving the tender

I think Rob addressed this.
Rob, 01Nov "a single line would winch the boat in and out, with the tender locked in place.  It could then be lifted lowered as required.  Or, the boat could be telescoped with the stern down, even while motoring."

>     - There's more under-cockpit clearance this way than if we try to cram the tender underneath

I don't understand. the tender would only be underneath while trailering, or deploying, right?

Rob, you had said "The above assumes internal (ww inside lw) telescoping which will mean some changes to the deck layout."
Did you mean lw inside ww? so the tender, between the lw beams would slide under the ww hull?
Or would the ww inside the lw mean teh boat would need to attach to the bottom of the lw beams?

If we did the 'side by side' beam layout, and then canted them at an angle, such that, when deployed (opened), the boat attached beams could 'lift' the tender for wave clearance at sail, if needed, and still fit nice under the ww hull. Of course the retracted boat might sit at a funny cant.

More details to work out.

With a simple loosing of a line to deploy the tender motor, and clear line of sight to it, clear space to work on it, and it well vented and away from the cabin/guests, it seems perfect to me.

But, if a under ww hull sled were to be long enough to raise the engine outside the beams, you could have all the safety of outside venting, no lost space in the cabin and simple open and close.

And I thought you wanted a 60'?

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