You fellas might want to check out this link before you commit to a boat.....My Mrs. and I would go this route if we decide to cruise....for many reason..
SEAHORSE MARINE
:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:
This is exactly who we are looking to build our boat! :shocked:
:shocked:
Have you been spying on us Brin? Dang it! I knew I should have kept wearing the tin foil hat!
We met Bill, the owner of Seahorse, at TrawlerFest in WA last May. :thumbsup:
He is a US citizen but now lives in China building Diesel Ducks. Bill has a website devoted to Diesel Ducks irregardless of who built the boat though most of the discussion is about his boats since he has built most of the fleet.
Forums
Looking at the various boat designs out there, I can only find two designs that I think are worth buying to cross oceans. One is the Dashew FPB boats and the other is the Diesel Ducks. The Dashew boats start at $2.5 million :shocked: so that dog dont hunt. :laughing::laughing::laughing: A Duck is a weeeee bit cheaper.
The Dashew boat is fast for a trawler type boat with decent fuel burn and fast is a danged good thing to try to move around weather systems.
A guy on one of the trawler forums made it to Ireland last night from the Azores. He sailed across the Atlantic to the Azores and continued on to Ireland. He had great weather getting to the Azores but he got pounded by a series of lows getting to Ireland. He is sitting in port now and I suspect still sleeping.
Early in the trip to Ireland he had a few course options as the lows moved in, go back to the Azores, head east to Spain or Portugal or head north to the UK or Ireland. He kept heading north though he would have to head NNE to keep the waves on his stern. Eventually, as he moved north, he was out of course options, he had to head to the UK or Ireland. The Dashew boat would have allowed him to beat the storms to port and minimized his time in bad weather. He really got pounded his last 24-48 hours with steep, 12-15 foot seas.
We got lucky in WA and spent a day bringing a Diesel Duck back to Seattle from the TrawlerFest. These things are now Space Ships. The sail boat my dad had in the 80's had a VHF radio, depth sounder, compass and paper charts, the boats today have radar, forward scanning sonar, AIS, weather fax, GPA, electronic charts, auto pilots, etc. This is great stuff but expensive. The boat was a pleasure to handle. We got lucky and unlucky though. The weather was Chamber of Commerce beautiful which was good and bad. :shocked: It made for a great trip but we wanted to see how the boat would handle it rough conditions. :laughing::laughing::laughing: The owner of the boat said something about the great weather to my wife. She said yes it was beautiful but she wanted some more wind and waves to see what the Duck would do. :thumbsup:
The owner brought the boat back from China last year across the Pacific. They went through some storms with 30 foot waves with no problems. Right now he, another Duck, and a guy who helped bring the boat across the Pacific are in Alaska buddy boating. What they are doing is pretty amazing.
Bill and George Buehler the boat designers are working on a new design that is more affordable. It is basically the 382 model which is 41 feet long but they will cut off the integrated swim step to allow the boat to be shipped in a cradle that takes up the space of a standard shipping container to minimize shipping costs. To keep the boat cost low the new boat will not have as much teak, stainless steel, etc. I think Bill and George have decided to call it a Puffin. It looks like a Puffin and Puffin got my vote. :laughing: Bill is trying to get the boat to the US for $350,000.
The guy that just got to Ireland is in the same size boat and another boat like his just finished crossing the Pacific and arrive in Australia.
Later,
Dan
