So often on Fridays after work I’ve started a bit of a habit watching YouTube videos abut various things that I find educational, entertaining, edverturous… ya know- all of the ‘e’ words. It’s a nice way to decompress from the week.
I just watched a very cool time-lapse video of a couple who spent 5 years building a 38’ sailboat in their backyard, from the very beginnings of buildint the skeleton, to water test trials. It looks, to my unexpert eye, that they did a fantastic job, with really nice interior woodwork. Unfortunately in the description it says they had to sell it in 2017 to finish building their house.
So, my questions:
It doesn’t look like they installed any kind of motor-- don’t sailboats of that size typically have at least a small motor, so it’s easy to putt-putt into the dock, or in case they get caught in a complete lack of wind?
They have a ship’s wheel that seems to allow the sailor of the boat to turn it on a dime in the water trials. I know little to nothing about sailboats, but I thought most of the navigating was done by adjusting the sails (hoist the mizzenmast! Turn the boom! etc.). It seems like a wheel / rudder situation would fight the sails. But I’m sure there are many, many types and configurations of boats under sail.
What kind of return would they get selling a boat like that? Would it compare with a sailboat of similar size made by a well-known boat builder? that is to say, would quality (assuming it was of good quality) give it as good a resale value as a comparable commercial build?
You definitely steer a sailboat with the rudder. In fact, minor adjustments make a significant difference. The sails are maximized (typically) for propulsion.
If you like watching highly skilled and enthusiastic people (re)building a wooden boat then you should watch the series about the re-construction of Tally Ho by Leo Goulding.
This is ep 100 of a great many which recaps the work so far. They are currently fitting out the not-yet-launched boat at Port Townsend.
Right. It takes sails, keel, and rudder for a sailboat to move in a specific direction. The rudder is used to line the keel up in a specific direction, and then often combined with the motion produced by the sails the keel generates lift so the boat moves at some angle relative to it’s alignment. The term lift seems to be borrowed from aerodynamics, but I’m sure the concept must have existed before flight was understood.
Having been a sailboat owner I can answer most of those or amplify on the ones already answered.
Sailboats always have motors. Smaller boats will typically have an outboard, larger ones (typically from around 26’ and up) will have inboards, very commonly small marine diesels expressly made for sailboats.
More or less already covered. The wheel or tiller is used to steer the boat. The placement of the sails, and the size of the jib and reefing (if any) of the main is determined, respectively, by wind direction and wind strength. When going directly downwind the jib might be removed entirely and replaced by a large, colourful sail called a spinnaker.
Fun fact: sailboats are often pictured heeling at what appears a fairly precarious angle; it’s unsettling to landlubbers but completely safe and stable as the wind pressure is counterbalanced by a very heavy keel; the more the boat heels over, the more leverage the keel has and the less pressure the wind can apply, so it’s a self-balancing dynamic. However, there does come a point when you want to put up a smaller jib and reef down the main just to avoid putting huge stresses on everything.
And perhaps counter-intuitively, maximum heeling occurs NOT when the wind is coming from the side, but when tacking into the wind and the wind is coming mostly from the front. The interesting dynamics of tacking into the wind involves an interplay between the sails and the keel, and this is the configuration that puts maximum pressure on the jib and tension on the line (called the “sheet”) that is holding it taut.
Hard to answer that one definitively. One of the members of the marina where I kept my boat set out to build himself a 35-foot sailboat, so very similar to the YouTube video you watched. He was a prof at the local university, so not a boat-building expert, but definitely a knowledgeable sailor.
He didn’t build it in his back yard, he rented some sort of facility to do it in, I think possibly part of a boat manufacturing facility. A bunch of friends chipped in to help. I don’t remember how long it took him – I wasn’t avidly following the proceedings – but he did eventually complete it and proudly sailed it into the marina. It was a beautiful boat, closely modeled on the C&C 35*, and the consensus in the marina is that it was a quality build.
So it’s hard to answer the question about resale value, but if I were buying someone’s homebuilt, I’d want to do a great deal of inspection beyond the ordinary and would have a lot of questions, but I’d be open to the possibility that it might actually be a better boat than comparable commercially-built ones.
