Small boat big big project!

[Fishboy]

Hardchines,

I just spent an afternoon reading this thread, I missed it in real time because I'm new here. Very entertaining and an excellent story well told. Thanks! and I'll be looking forward to following your future adventures.

Doug

[hardchines]

Doug, that's very kind of you, fingers crossed that a good vaccine if available for all of us soon. It would be great to get back to a normal life again, looking forward to a long trip to Florida and a even longer trip back home! lots of projects ahead but all on hold till fall as I am about to get my left shoulder joint replaced, and it is not a good situation, hoping life is mostly back to normal next summer as I may not have that maney years left to do this kind of cruising!

[hardchines]

Well hello to everyone, I have not used my giant Carver yacht in two years, 2019 no go because of surgery, 2020 well you know nasty 19. I am now looking forward to 2021 with a optimistic attitude with that said I have not worked on the boat in one full year, time to finish up some jobs and do others I have not even started. I read my last note from 10-19 I had installed the new AC and just had to finish up the duct work and I estimated a couple of hours to do job, well i was close I finished the duct work, it took 2 full day, three trips to hardware store and one trip to lowes. I did however just finished a project I felt I needed to do for this rather unique boat, I will explain and post some photos on my next post, stay safe but live your life!!

[hardchines]

This project has been on my mind for a while, first let me say I have never seen one of these items on any boat , yacht or regular ship, the only ships that I know normally have this Item are the Battleships! Battle ships are heavy and have little forward free-board and even less reserve boyency so they tend to go through heavy seas and often take blue water over the bow. To prevent this blue water from hitting and getting into the main gun turrets and I am sure for other reasons such as washing seamen over board the ships are equipped with with a bulkhead on the fore-deck to act as a BREAK WATER ( probably has a official name, but I do not know it), this bulkhead is not very high 3-5 foot, (not positive on that), the shape is that of a chevron or a VEE shape laying on deck point forward! As the ship take water over the bow it hits this wall and is deflected on a aft direction out to the end of the deck and over board keeping the rest of the deck free from fast moving water waves!
Well my little 26 foot carver does no have any gun turrets (yet) to keep dry, but I do have large thin glass windows (34 inch by 44 inch by memory) I have buried the bow on my boat twice in three one thousand mile trips to date. My boat is slow so I can not get the bow up high when going through large wakes and waves, my little boat is very heavy for her size as it has allot of equipment for her size, the boat started life with a v8 volvo out-drive , the book said it was around 5400 lbs my weight if just north of 7500 lbs completely empty and dry, loaded and wet trip departure weight is very close to 9K, had to replace the springs on my trailer to bring the axle weight up to 11K from 9600 as it was too low, just did the springs last week so if I need to rescue my boat next year off the ICW because of hurricane threats of mechanical failure far from home, it will be in good shape for towing!

So I gave allot of thought to building a break water for my boat "VENTURE", I know it looks like a 2 hour job but believe me it took a long time to get it all together and built finished and usable, your comments are always welcome, hope you enjoy my rambling, photos below.

[hardchines]

break water photos!

[km1125]

Cool! Those must have been some interesting trips when you stuffed the bow!! Probably didn't need any coffee that day to stay awake!!

I've only come close to stuffing the bow once on Lake Erie and that was enough for me.

[hardchines]

KM first stuff! was on my maiden voyage on the Hudson river north bound for the Eire canal trip, not a boat to be seen then a large Carver that was south bound a good distance from me at major plow speed passed me , I was north bound. when the wake reached me I was at full normal cruise speed, 6.1 MPH I did not touch the throttle and was surprised when the bow launched and came down into the second wake wave, buried the bow pulpit and on the rising motion I watched a wall of water coming at me (I was at lower helm), the forward windows went all but black, dark green and I was happy the windows held! But as you say it got my attention! Second stuff was three years later heading for the ocean across from the statue of liberty having just passed through NY harbor during rush hour, hard to believe how rough the harbor gets during this time of day but did not have any problems, I noticed a large cruiser again at speed very far from me heading north (I am south bound), we are talking better part of a 1/2 mile away. I am out of the bulk of the harbor slop at this location , then here comes the wake wave, same deal off the first wave the buried into second wave, this time deeper and much more concerning to me, I jumped out of my lower helm chair to get back from window in-case it failed, all good but that is when I started thinking about building a water break bulkhead, only other option would be to start sinking all the big Carvers but as a previous large boat owner that made a huge wake I figured that would not be fair!

[bud37]

Interesting addition, I have experienced this a few times in many different boats and most of it was controlled by speed control for me anyway, you are kinda stuck there.

So to the question I have. Considering the tremendous power of waves, are you concerned about the mounting of the post you have this deflector attached to. I mean if that got tore out of there, it could result in a hole.

[km1125]

Source of the post .... major plow speed passed me , I was north bound. when the wake reached me....

That reminds me of a "near miss". We were out cruising around and I was near a major shipping channel. I like to parallel the channel passing the big freighters and get some close-up shots.

As we were downbound, there was fairly large vessel upbound. Looked like a USCG boat, so I was preparing to get some pictures. The boat was a 270 foot bouy tender cruising at a pretty good speed. At the last second I realized the wake she was pushing just in enough time to get off plane and avoid being slammed by it.

[hardchines]

Well Budd I was wondering if I would get this question! The entire forward deck was replaced during my refit in 2014-15 with 3/4 plywood in place of the rotted balsa, that said I felt some more strength would not be a bad thing, i added a large dobbler under the bitt so I now have the glass deck and 1.5 inches of plywood, and large SS washers against the wood, the assm is a single large piece of 5 quarter teak , the top cap is a stiffener and easy on the eyes and feet should you step on it, it is also 5 quarter teak, the two small end blocks are to reduce lower face board flex as the top cap reduces the top of the wood from flexing only. I have been in some snotty conditions in lake Simco and a nasty day in the great south bay off Long Island, never took a wave, at this point only the very steep, extremely short fetch of a large wake seem to be the problem. The idea of running the ICW in narrow waterways with little room to maneuver and large cruisers plowing up big wakes are my biggest concern so that was the impudence to build this water break! The weakest item would be the SS 1/4 20 screws that mount the bitt to the deck, the two 1/4 inch cap screws in the picture of the mount I made are to keep the assm from sliding up and off, not likely but the bitt is sloped back so if it came off it would probably come through my windshield followed by the water and glass!

KM on my last trip in 2018 I had a 500 foot ship sneak up on me on the Hudson river, I knew he was coming its just amazing how far away they look and next thing you know he is about to tailgate you! Well I made a large 360 for spacing ( common maneuver with aircraft) as I came around his stern I met his wake, big but no wet deck from his wake but I did get a wet deck from my coffee cup sliding off my chart table next to my upper helm, my mug smashed on the deck, I keyed my mike and said you broke my coffee mug,Hmm no response. I buy coffee mugs from places of interest that I visit, the mug was from my Canadian trip the previous year, I bought it at the air force museum in Trent , I called the museum and ordered a new mug, shipping was high but not as high as a return trip!