After lots of exploration, drawing and erasing, I am happy to present a new design! Hand drawn by myself – except for a guiding box grid I 3d modelled and printed in A3 format. This is a 20 meter by 4.15 meter (65′ by 13’7″) full displacement yacht.
My new 65 foot slim cruiser – two perspective drawings of the major features
Side view of the new 65foot slim cruiser – freehand on measured length.
Much more quick and rough sketch – slightly more organic but length not to scale.
The idea is to make a more environment friendly cruiser – adding length to increase hull speed while keeping the narrow beam of a 40ft yacht. The yacht emphasizes enclosed living spaces for the scandinavian climate and weather. Instead of the typical cockpit I envision seating like in a convertible – behind the helmsman in open air. Canopy – or optional hard top!
The interior layout, which I will reveal soon, makes the most of this miniaturized “raised pilothouse” design to provide spacious accomodation for four people – and it might include one smaller single crew cabin.
I figure this should be a diesel elctric hybrid boat, with twin electric pod drives. I have freed up space for solar panels on the top deck by making a nice compact RIB garage in the rounded stern. Put as much batteries and machinery as low as possible, install stabilizers, and I hope the boat will be stable, safe and comfortable despite the narrow beam.
Since I am obviously concerned with feasibility and practicality of the design, I am still thinking of ways to make it easy to do the daily stuff like tying on fenders and docking without side decks. And I have a fancy but hopefully mechanically simple solution for bathing platform, RIB garage and paserelle!
And just to be clear – this design is not “M/V Julie” – the superyacht design project that triggered my yacht interest and which is the underlying theme of this blog. This is just another step towards my goal:)
A month ago, I had a really hard time. I had just had a week of vacation from my day job, trying to focus on my design studies – especially drawing. But I struggled big time with drawing, and procrastination had become a major problem for me. I could no longer stand it – something had to be done. Could I go on demanding more from myself than I was able to deliver? Or could I deliver more than I was doing? And the hardest question – which I had to ask myself: Are you really passionate about something if you procrastinate to avoid it?
So I decided to start really planning and logging my time again. I had stopped because I felt doing it both at work and at home was putting too much pressure on me. But I realized that I had been wrong. Plan, act, review, change. I needed balance between all of them. Managing my expectations – and having a list of tasks to change between was chosen as my weapon to fight procrastination and drive me on.
It has worked. Yes, I am still struggling and I am still frustrated by not having come as far as I had hoped. But I have worked hard to overcome one of my greatest challenges and it is actually working! So, yes, I am still incredibly passionate about my project, it was my approach that was at fault.
I am happy to report that thursdays drawing session was a success. As usual it took a while to complete the drawing – about a work day, but I warmed up doing a quick sketch in just 30 minutes. While I was unable to make straight parallel lines in the quick sketch, I was surprised at how accurate I was.
-
- First a quick sketch…
-
- … then a thorough drawing
So – what’s next? Well as mentioned I was going to draw something from my imagination as well. Nothing to show yet, but I have a very different design idea I want to get down on paper and develop. Will keep at it and post when ready!
Still struggling – both with getting some time to draw and with drawing itself. But last week I was happy to make a little step ahead. It might not seem like much, but this small sketch of a typical sportsyacht was made just from my memory of how they typically look. Drawing what I think about is even harder than drawing what I see. So I hope to build on this very small advancement and improve loads! Also, before the holidays I managed to do the sofa drawing you see here – but that was an exercise in drawing what I see. (and yes – the stuff on the armrests are blankets to protect the sofa from the cat;) That drawing took probably a day of work total, and was very exhausting so I did it on and off for three days. So this is really a struggle.
-
- Small sportsyacht sketch
-
- Shaded sofa drawing
-
- Loudspeaker on stand
The loudspeaker I did late one night last week. Turned out all right and didn’t take very long. It is bent, but I succeeded to at least make good parallel lines (even distance between them along their length). And tomorrow I have set aside quite a bit of time and hope to draw something by sight and something creative as well!
So I “nailed” 3D modelling – in the sense that I achieved the familiarity and confidence I always wished for. By no means a master, but on a good platform. I can do lots of things and have an understanding for what to learn (for example 3D sculpting – which really will set my models and renderings apart) and where to improve. Well set for the MV Julie project!
The last couple of months, I have been trying to tackle something far more intimidating. Learning to draw. For someone logical and skeptical like me, utilizing the “right side of the brain” to simply draw what I see is a real challenge. So is learning techniques for taking measurements by eye and pencil and getting those committed to paper without error and with nice straight lines. No rulers allowed!
I have included some pictures and drawings from my efforts so far. Some finished, some aborted, most with some perspective or rendering errors. I have decided that I have to keep this up. Learning to draw better is for me now the key to moving forward with my project – because it will help me in so many ways.
-
- Older drawings, quite successful!
-
- Started this round with a tp roll. Proportions were wrong, this was much wider in reality.
-
- Practicing with Julies guitar – hard object to get right
-
- Perspective of convertible couch. Quit successful, but major flaw with relative backrest pillow size.
-
- First attempt at our sofa – failed with relative size of pillows
-
- In between drawing what I see, I do of course draw some of what I think about…
-
- Perspective of sideboard, quite successful
-
- Currently drawing our sofa with the table as a guide
-
- To get a good perspective of the sofa. Cat has not approved of this contraption yet:)
These days, I focus on the interior for the Benford 47 foot trawler i 3D modeled this spring. I will not change the exterior much except for adding and changing windows. I like this kind of project. The framework is set by a master, I don’t want to change it too much. Still, his original becomes a reference against which I can judge my own design.
Jays interior layout was a great, classic trawler yacht interior with lots of space. I want to see if I can successfully change it with the main features being a full beam mid cabin, large head+shower compartment, and a galley situated aft next to the cockpit.
Benford’s 47ft Trawler yacht design from his book Small Ships
I can do pretty much anything with the interior within the available space, but for the windows I have to take great care and make something that doesn’t disturb Benford’s excellent design. I have spent a lot of time back and forth, and believe I am getting there. I still feel the windows make it look a bit like a passenger vessel instead of a private yacht, but I don’t have to lock them in just yet.
Changing the windows and adding some for the mid cabin
The black strip is added both for interest and to “hide” the dark glazing I will add for the mid cabin windows. And there are less windows on the pilothouse in my version. But as you will see, this is offset by the fact that I have moved the wheel forward quite a bit – so the skippers view shouldn’t be inhibited by it.
Jay Benford was kind enough to let me show you his drawings with my changes added, for which I am very grateful! After you have read my blog post, you should go check out this page about Jays designs: http://www.benford.us/index.html?opinion.html - and his great book called Small Ships.
My plans for the interior – full beam mid cabin, large head, galley aft
The saloon in Benfords design had the advantage of utilizing areas under the pilothouse bench etc that were not full standing headroom for the galley countertop. I developed this into an area where the settee has sitting headroom but not standing headroom. For the galley I looked at several solutions, but came to something quite conventional and spacious. I worked on including a bar counter and bar stools, but it made the saloon too crowded. The new galley means foregoing the nice midship cockpit doorway, and putting it on the starboard side. On the port side I have an outside serving station with sink – makes it double as a fish gutting station.
Another thing I figured I would want to have was some soft nice reading chairs or recliners in the saloon. It was hard to get space for this, but if I put the saloon <-> pilothouse stair midships instead of at the side, it seems to work nicely. Drawing and 3D modelling will tell me whether I was right or not! This placement of the stair means I might loose the pilothouse berth, but that is an ok compromise. Besides, it leaves space on the starboard rear corner of the pilothouse for any of three things – a flybridge stair (if one were to add a flybridge), a heating cabinet for wet oilskins, or a chart/nav station. The latter would be good, because I have removed the chart table from Jays design to move the helm forward. This was simply done to make space for a good pilot’s chair.
Pilothouse with necessary staircase changes and helm moved forward to make room for pilot’s chair
But does one need a pilot’s chair? It depends on the use of the boat, I guess. When I crossed the Georgia strait, the boat rolled so much I felt more like standing up and rocking with it. Gave me a better view out as well!
With old and small chart plotters, a good working place for charts is a must. However, if you got a 24 inch or larger chart plotter with vector charts and a fast and responsive system you might do with only an emergency solution (like working with charts in the saloon table). Then the oilskin cabinet might be a better use of the rear starboard corner of the pilothouse:)
A full beam mid cabin in a pilothouse trawler forces your layout to have a stair from the pilothouse going down. So I had to change that. It will be a challenge to model that staircase – curves both in the pilothouse and the stair. Looking forward to it.
More on my ideas for the cabins and bathroom later – luxury is the word!
I wanted to discover if my passion for yacht aesthetics and design means I am passionate about yachting as well. And I know that real life experience aboard boats adds to the quality of my design work. Thursday 28th september I stepped off a huge airplane in Vancouver.
For the first time in my not-so adventurous life I had travelled to another continent. I was alone, and I was about to embark on something I had no experience with. A five day course at sea on a boat with people I knew nothing about. All this dawned upon me when I stepped off the plane – and I understood why people at home thought I had made an unusual choice.
Well, I am very happy about my choice now. Pushing myself like this ignited my spirit of adventure, and being so far away from home enabled total focus on the course. My instructor, Colin Denton, has qualities that always resonate with me. Experience and knowledge, respect for the subject matter, but also with humor to make the learning experience fun.
The other students were three great guys – we all got along and were very supportive of each other. The course started off with an evening filled with some boat system/vessel safety theory, with the first night being spent on board the boat before leaving next day by noon. That day was the first of five days spent traveling around the Gulf Islands and Howe Sound.
It started with light sea-sickness but ended with me successfully docking the 46 foot yacht (50 foot total) by backing into a very tight spot in the Granville Island marina. Not without help from instructor and crew, of course, but it did feel like quite an accomplishment and an encouragement after some hard lessons.
The boat we trained on was a “Westcoast 46″. I am grateful that Cooper Boating set up such a large boat – the course only guaranteed a 32 footer. It had spacious accommodation, with nice live aboard facilities and a large aft cabin. Good headroom all through the boat. But it rolled a lot out at sea and the salon and galley had some scary sharp edges here and there. There should have been many more handrails in the roof and on the bulkheads. Midship cleat was placed too far back. Propwalk was to port, while the only side you could step off the swim platform was to starboard. Many of these problems were actually a plus because it meant I can learn from them.
Along the way, we got to do much sight-seeing, and even witnessed a yachting drama unfolding in the middle of the night. The amount of things to think about for safe and efficient cruising was so overwhelming that I sometimes thought it might not be for me, but I was more comfortable at the end of the course – and have now arranged to charter a Linssen Grand Sturdy MkII 410 in Croatia for the last week of june 2013. That will be the real test of whether boating is for us:) So thanks to Cooper boating and instructor Colin Denton for setting up a great course, and to Dave, Chuck and Randy for being so supportive and nice!
I made it!
