I have recently found all Roger Taylor's books are now available as ebooks. I love ebooks - my bookshelves are already stocked to overflowing with old friends and until recently, when I came across a writer of books I just have to own, such as Roger Taylor, the only way I could indulge myself was by getting rid of one of my other treasured volumes. No More!! (www.thesimplesailor.com links you to paper books: I bought my ebooks from Kobo.)
Roger Taylor has my unalloyed admiration. I love the way he writes, the way he sails, the way he thinks. I appreciate his attitude of sailing with minimal outlay, but still being prepared to spend money on good equipment to do the job properly. Not economy for economy's sake, but thinking long and hard before parting with money and buying something that has caused even more resources to be wrested from Earth.
One of the more interesting aspects of Mingming is that she is unsinkable. Generally speaking, if you want your boat to continue floating once holed, you'd better have a multihull (and it never ceases to astonish me that people think in such a woolly way, that they will build these essentially-unsinkable craft out of a heavier-than-water material.) Even a lightly-ballasted wooden boat will have a tendency to go glug-glug-glug if she gets a hole in her and of course metal or GRP are only kept afloat by the volume of air within.
Now Mingming, being a mere 20ft long, does not have a huge amount of spare volume to be given over to flotation. On the other hand, Roger doesn't live on board and (it has to be said) does rather camp out. (Forgive me for saying this, Roger, in the extremely-unlikely event you will ever read this.) He also, obviously, has a considerably better mind than I do, and can go for long periods of time with only his thoughts and observations to occupy him, whereas I need my books at the very least. But as he is also prepared for all eventualities that he has envisaged (and his powers of concentration are impressive) and carries the wherewithal to deal with those, he still requires room for quite a lot of gear. Of course Mingming, is so simple that there aren't that many things to go wrong, and he doesn't need, for example, a comprehensive tool kit, spare filters, etc, etc for the engine.
What am I wittering on about, you ask? Well, I'm wondering how much foam I would need to fit in my boat to make her unsinkable. I get the impression that Mingming would stay buoyantly afloat, but that's maybe too much to ask for. Especially in a boat with 50% ballast ratio. But what if I do a bit of weeding of possessions - always good for the soul (but not my precious books!)? I could possibly fill in the space under the forward part of the V-berth and certainly under the two quarter berths. How about putting a floor in the lazarette and filling in under there? No room under the floorboards - that's the water tank. Most of the other lockers are full with food, clothes, tools, batteries, etc. I'm not, I regret, prepared to forgo my engine. This is a shame because it is a large beast and if I filled in all the area presently taken up by the engine and its ancillaries, I could add a lot of flotation. But I day sail, I'm constitutionally lazy and I like being able to motor 3 miles to an anchorage, rather than staying out half the night or sculling madly for hours. So unless I'm prepared to make many more compromises, I can't do a Mingming on my little junk.
But I wonder if even a little foam, a little additional buoyancy is anyway a good idea? Anything at all that helps us stay afloat? Because like the wholly-admirable Roger Taylor, I do not wish to be baled out of my own folly, at the expense of the already-beleaguered taxpayer, and at the risk of endangering other peoples' lives.
We do not need big boats and lots of money to go sailing. Anywhere. Sailing books and articles should be about people and their boats, not money, marinas and meals out. We do not need satcoms, a watermaker or a chart plotter. We should be allowed to be responsible for ourselves, not be made to spend money on rescue equipment. We should buy our own adventures and not beg: aka sponsorship. We can have a small, inexpensive boat, but a vast, wealthy life! DOWN WITH CONSUMER CRUISING!
Found your blog through Dave Z, and I had a thought about maintaining positive buoyancy in the event of a hole. By storing much of your possessions in water tight totes or buckets, these pockets of air and stuff are likely to float on their own. they could even help with organization. Only down side I see is possible mould if opened repeatably in damp conditions, and are never aired out in better weather
ReplyDeleteHi Dennis. I've talked to a few designers about this and the point is that you need an astonishing amount of buoyancy in a self-righting boat, simply because of the weight of the ballast. Your few air pockets would make little difference, apart from keeping stuff dry, which is not to be sniffed at.
DeleteFrom my own experience, rigid containers waste huge amounts of space in small boats and, while essential for loose foods (rice, beans, oats, pasta, etc) are less than satisfactory for tins or clothes or most other things. Your waterproof totes (easy to home make, too) make sense for soft items, but I suspect you'll find yourself expelling the excess air so that you can stow more! Reluctantly, I've come to the conclusion that the loss of storage is too high a price to pay for the reassurance of an unsinkable boat. It's like the cost benefit analysis of suffering all the downsides of having a metal boat, just on the offchance that you are going to hit a reef at high speed.