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Reading too much of the Pardys' books creates fanciful ideas of what to do with the engine room if there were no engine components and the sailing vessel were a true sailing-only vessel.
- Hot tub. Should work great. Curvature of the hull works nicely for plenty of legroom with narrow benches on each side. Water jets optional, depends on shore-side power hookup. Shower heads from cockpit floor. Possibility to convert into a dry sauna for humid climates, also works well for dehumidification, so has utility value.
- Office. Need somewhere to put my laser printer and laptop. Captain's swiveling office chair mounted to the hull would work nicely.
- Stern windows. First thing to install! Would be great to look out backwards at the following sea. Probably two would work nicely.
- Dressing room and walk-in closet. To keep the ladies happy. Hangers on both sides, lounge seating in the rear.
- Laundry room. The real necessity.
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rofl 🙂 I love the options for the space.
I am sold on the skills to be competent to sail a boat with no engine. However I am a big fan of usefulness of engines if not the engines themselves. They add a huge number of options of places to go that would not be possible without. Under certain circumstances I can see dispensing with an engine and doing well. Where we are currently docked and live it would be practically impossible to use our boat without some sort of auxiliary power. High currents in multi-mile narrow channels to access the ocean and a marina that restricted in space with often high winds coming through. I have actually sailed to and from and into the slip here in a tartan 10 and a F235 beneteau. Both of them are fin or wing keels that turn on a dime and can be tacked on a dime also, both of them much more windwardly than a cruising DE. Even with them there is very little space for an error of any kind in docking or leaving the dock and trying to navigate into or out of the marina under sail. Lots of other peoples much more expensive boats to get blown into if you make a mistake and not enough room to throw an anchor in time to keep you from hitting someone.
I have thought that a bigger battery bank and a electric motor for getting into the marina and out would be a decent half way compromise.
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The Pardy's claim to be able to "go anywhere" with their sculling oar mounted on the transom (even in "very tight quarters"). I believe one quote mentions being able to oar at up to 1.5 knots without too much sweat. Of course that's on their boat which is smaller and lighter (28'?).
The other good bet for the new living space is a greenhouse. Replace the cockpit floor with 2" clear bulletproof acrylic,then tomatos could get great light! Alternatively turn it into a brewery with kegs and cookers;use the deepest part of the bilge for seawater-assisted refrigeration,a great re-use of the engine raw water intake thru-hull.
For those truly jealous of split-stern (walk through transom) dive accessibility on ahem Catalina's or Hunter's ahem,a dive hatch could be mounted stern instead. Unlatch to eject or retract the personal submarines. Just be careful to clear the rudder by inflating to positive buoyancy first.:-D
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I know of people that sail engine-less boats up to just under 100 ft but they also keep the boat on face docks or moorings etc.. that are fairly accessible. I think boats under 30 ft such as the pardey's or even smaller are good candidates for sailing without an engine. They would need to be really good sailing boats that are very weatherly and move good in light air's.
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I see that this is a really old post but here's another take on engine less sailing; I live and sail on the intracoastal. Plenty of times the little 8 hp diesel on my current boat (just upgraded to a DE 38 ketch) has overheated and left me needing to sail into the slip. We've gotten very good at it but it's almost always downwind and we use the last little bit of the roller furling jib, judging the speed and distance just right. Those times are fun and interesting but there's 32 bridges between us and Miami and the bridge tenders have gotten into the habit of telling me I have to douse my sails before going through or any damage will be on my head.
That and while it makes me feel good to be able to sail everywhere, only using the engine for bridges or breathless days, the next guy to buy my boat when that inevitable day comes, will be a rare one who wants to sail everywhere.
I too want to be just like Joshua Slocum
And then there's reality.
I also think there's a strong argument for a large engine that will punch through the big stuff when you need it to.
I do like the idea of using that space for living, however.
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Hmmm tub under the companionway.... with deck over it and berth on port on ledge under propane tank 🙂 Tub could also have hangers for wet fowlies to drip into it from overhead there. Take and convert companionway to open ladder without backing plywood that the heat insulation is mounted on to open it up a bit and also move hinge from top to starboard side. So that it is quick and easy to open to grab your foulies or hang them up.
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Once the engine is removed, the space used for the diesel fuel tank can be re-purposed as well. The tank can be removed and the space below the floorboards can be refinished, with a new floor hatch added for accessibility. The best fit would be a sub-zero deep freeze compartment for storing frozen food, especially frozen fruit and ice cream. The freezer compressor would use the keel for cooling, of course. Then the ice cream would be a one step reach for the galley and companionway to the cockpit at all times. An ice maker would also be mounted at the topmost position of this new under-floor-freezer. Ice is critically necessary in this age of global warming, the beverages must be kept super cool.
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hah…. I have an empty space between the fuel tank and the aft water tank that I have halfway cut an access hatch to. I have thought about a basket that hangs in the opening for galley stuff or canned foods etc… Under that maybe another battery bank in the upper bilge, or move the one in the engine compartment there.. That would really help the tendency of the boat to sit lower at the aft waterline than the bow. Those 440lbs of batteries above and aft of the engine were never a good distribution of weight to start with.
I would be giddy if I had that and the space the fuel tank is in to re-purpose. LOL.. if the engine ever died and I couldn't afford to replace it we could try the engineless sailing thing with a more powerful dingy motor to tow the boat around if needed or to push it. 🙂 Then we could go crazy ripping engine out, fuel tank etc.. lots of extra space and lots of extra capacity to carry more 🙂 or would she sail that much better with 500 lbs of engine and 600 lbs of fuel missing. 🙂
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During my ownership of my 1962 Cal 30, I was as poor as a church mouse and had a lump of iron that some called an Atomic Four located where engines would normally reside. Unable and unwilling to pour money into an engine, I became a "purist". For a little over sixteen years I did it, but it was difficult to fit my "normal" life around my sailing life, of which I spent living aboard and cruising Southern California and Mexican waters.
Biggest hurdle was time. I got real, real good at ghosting along at under a knot but quite often I would get becalmed or get in a wind shadow that would keep me, sometimes within a mile of my goal, for hours and even sometimes DAYS out at sea, waiting for the wind. My office got used to getting that "This is the Marine Operator calling..." phone call when I would be stuck at the islands due to lack of wind. It also kept me from getting into favorite or even safer anchorages due to wind shadows and currents.
I filled the space with Four 8D batteries, as this was when solar panels where very expensive, that would provide two weeks of having everything on 24/7. Of course I did not have much in the way current usage back in those days of Pre GPS.
I got a hold of an eighteen foot oar from a local boatyard and tried a variety of ways to use it. Lucky for me the old girl had a low freeboard which helped keep the oar in the water and found that by using the main winches as a oarlock, most often the leeward side, I could get some power to the water and steer with the tiller between my legs. I tried doing the sculling like the Pardeys but I believe the oar was not long enough to get any real speed of A knot. By the way, they had displacement and a long full keel on their boats and still got around pretty good. They knew their boat very well and are great sailors. I met them a few times and was always amazed on how calm they seem to handle things.
I have to say the best part of owning a pure sailboat is how much better of a sailor it made me and I got real good at reading the weather, all things I use today. I was proud of doing it "old school" but overall an engine, as much as I hate them, Oh... and I do hate them so, is the thing to have. Just like the old saying; You don't know what you have till it's gone.
If I could afford it I would love to go with some of these Green Motors and go all battery power but the cost at this point is beyond my dreams.
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I have drooled over the battery powered electric motors.... for the DE38 though it gets into some serious money for a system powerful enough to even half way replace the stock engine. For a 4000 to 10,000 lb boat though they have some pretty awesome setups that aren't anymore expensive than a diesel. Also you can 3/4 hull speed on a 2kw honda generator on deck for those smaller boats if needed. With Some sort of power catamaran or long rectangular river/canal boat design you could put a few thousand watts of solar on the roof or a canopy and run hull speed just off the panels during a sunny day. Mast, sails and rigging tend to mess up the ergonomics of putting lots of solar panels on a boat. On Valkyr I have put 500 watts of solar and it is pushing the space limits.. With really high efficiency panels I could probably get as much as 750 to 900 watts crammed in but it would just over run the boat with panels and still not be enough to provide realistic motive power.
I have thought about a yuloh but with the high freeboard on the DE boats think it would have to be huge/long... what do you think?
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