Hogfish Maximus How shallow can you go

Sailing and cruising here in the Lesser Antillies the water depth is deep everywhere except for reefs and submerged rocks. Lots of boats here have drafts of 7 - 9 or more. Navigate properly and all is well. Plenty of boats though are lost every season due to not keeping track of where they are. 

When telling the locals in Antigua we plan on sailing over to the sister island of Barbuda this December with our daughter Lillian they all say " look out for the shallow water!" And then go on to explain how very shallow and treacherous it it can be. " Be very carefull."

We explain that we are from the Bahamas and have spent a lifetime of sailing in difficult reef conditions. All engineless till a few years ago. "Ah but not like over there!"

Trying to explain that Barbuda is about the size of the view in front of our house in the Bahamas and that the Bahamian archipelago is over 500 miles long they suck in their teeth and roll up their eyes.They cannot belive this.

Having a boat that sails well in deep ocean seas like the Hogfish does is great. But going where most men and their vessels have never gone before is so much better.

Bequia looking out for fish. We are motoring over a five mile long shallow bank in a flat calm looking for crayfish ledges and for conch from the mast as we work our way over this shallow bank of 29-30" of water depth. Some little coral heads we had to avoid so as to not damage them. Hogfish Maximus draws 27". What ! 2" is plenty of water under the hull in these conditions. But you must be able to "Read the water" well.

Lots to see going along like this. Lobsters, groupers, snappers and all kinds of edible fish hide out in small holes like these. We just stop, go over the side with a spear and bingo! Lunch.

Its this shallow all the way to the islands in the distance.

Mr. Raymond going along the bank looking for crabs to suck up. Hes about 3 across.

Coral "nob" as we call them. Lots of small pretty tropical fish around these.

This is an Ocean Tally. Its a very tasty type of Trigger Fish. This is an 8 lb. fish. The water is about 30" deep. If fishing using a rod then just cast a piece of conch on a hook about 5 in front of him and away you go. These guys eat anything like crazy. Very firm white meat. The skin is like a leather boot.

To fillet start from the tail and work towards the head. The skin is very soft at the base of the tail. Takes a second to do. This fish would feed four for dinner.

I navigate up on the spreaders as Rachel steers. I can see a long ways up there.

Now we have reached some deeper water. Time to cool off.

This guy wants some grapes for lunch. Poor ole Bequia has to stay aboard as she would love to chase these Bahamian Igunas around the beach.

This clear water is in Sal Island in the Grenadines. I think thats Heckel & Jeckel talking about what kind of trouble they can get into.

Nothing like anchoring in 4 of water. All the other boats are anchored off a ledge that they cannot get over. They are in 19 of water, wind and current. Nothing like being a shallow minded sailor.

Time to go.... Bequia is keeping a look out for the skipper. 

Hogfish Life, as seen through the anchors ring.

Ya Mon... In de Bahamas wes gots lotsa water, its just spread outs very thin.

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Shallow water skiff shapes ideas

Here are some of my old musings of developing skiff shapes to bring to reality. As I described earlier in my blog of how I like to make a half hull of my vision - idea . I do this after I have done all my weight calculations in advance. Shown are a few past ideas in their growth stages. Sorry but I would love to be able to do this all properly but all I have is the iPad that I got for Christmas this year from my daughters. With out this contraption I probably would not take the time to do all this. Right now it is flat calm with lots of light rain about so Im inside with a fan on doing something. The iPad is great as I can do this stuff with a simple inverter on our sailboat as we move about and post it later. No TV time in my life so have extra time to fiddle here.

So look at the wood half hull against the mirror. The sections are glued to a 1/4" piece of wood,without this it would sit flush against the mirror with the thickness of the mirror being the center line. This is how it was done before 3 D programs . It does make you feel like a peeping Tom though as you stretch around trying to see the whole thing. Each section is drawn out from the center line to scale. Here you can calculate how many cubic inches are in each section. I do not have the side views showing which would tell and show you the distance between each section. It would not show up here very well.

What I will do this summer is draw up 3-4 new skiff shapes from past knowledge with all dimensions easy to draw up to full size hull sections. These you will be able to cut out and install on a simple building jig and from there you will be able to plank up in light cedar strips, Baltec balsa core strips or Core Cell brand planking strips. From this you fair and then glass the outside. When fair, flip over,

remove the forms and glass the insides. Then you finish the inside. To build a deck I will explain all the ways it can be done simply later. I will put this here for free. In the mean time anyone planning on building a skiff needs to read up a bit on strip plank boat building. This is the same as building a canoe; just a little more odd shape and it has a transom. I will get a list of books or pamphlets to look up.

In looking at these shapes it is easy to start to see how many ways and directions you could now reshape and go. Ha, it can be daunting if you do not have a weight list and a clue as to what the finished hull will weigh. Here I come back to having the vision, idea, whatever. Details. 

Of course if you are going to start a new company and you want to follow in the foot steps of something that is already well proven and established then all you really have to do is make a facsimile of it as all the thinking has already been done for you. If you do make it better, and at a better price good for you. 

Now with all the shapes here you still have to decide on which side of the half section line you will put your hull thickness. Makes a difference . Take your numbers from the center line out wards and up to the LWL. This is the quickest way. This method shown here has been used for centuries with the creations of some of the most beautiful boats in the world. Go to see the Herreshoff museum in New port RI. He did all his boats this way. There is not a Yankee boat builder up north that does not know this system nor a Carolina one either. The computer today is the way to go though if you have one.

  Another idea; this shows how you can take an existing boat today and measure or take its lines sections. Without knowing its length between perpendiculars you could stretch this boat out to ......

In this shape here I wanted a good sea boat at rest that would not be as they say here too "cranky" .

It has good freeboard and was a good all round skiff. I lowered the spray rail on this a bit in the bow area when built. Today I would change the stern section aft so this is obsolete in my mind.

 You can see the half sections above and the half hull below. 

Cheap 3 - D rendering 

You can see here how Im drawing in a bit of crown. I like crown a lot. It adds tremendous strength over a flat surface. Also you can gain some Disp. But then you have to be careful where its going to direct the water flow. I do not want crown in my skiff decks as it is a pain in the butt to fit the hatches so the will not squeak and lay flush. 

On this sheet you can see the displacement calculation that I wrote down from a simple lines program that I found on the Internet at the time. I put in all my half section numbers and in a second it spit out all these numbers. I had already done it my old way and every thing was pretty close. In the upper left corner you can see the displacement numbers for three different water lines. This you have to think about a lot as the guys, people that will be in the boat, are most likely going to weigh over 200 lbs.

The rest of the numbers there are just adding up Disp. If I posted all my calculation sheets it would be so boring. But I keep em for reference. This is a heavy skiff at close to 2,000 lbs with all the sports in it.

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Shallow minded sailing

The past few days Lillian my daughter and I went out for a few days exploring with our sea dog Bequia on the Hogfish Maximus . The island that we live on is one of 18 in a small bay on the north coast of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. From our house we can see about half of these with the farthest one away being 7 miles. All have good anchorages in their lees depending on the wind direction. The best all weather anchorage being the landlocked harbor on Royal Island. The entrance to Royal Island has a small rock island almost in the third middle of the channel. The entrance for deep draft is to the west side of this rock. But when entering the east third looks so logical that lots of competent and lesser seaman think this is the way to go forgoing the pilot books and guides. Unfortunately just under the water in this part is a nice big shoal that has enough keel grooves in that the guest book it must have is in volumes. I love sailing in and out of here when the harbor is full of newbies at anchor on Hogfish Maximus she looks to have a deep draft which most times is drawing a bit over 7 with her board down. We know the bottom by heart so always go in and out the wrong way with all the crowd giving good advice as to the danger ahead via VHF radio . Reading old sailing yarns like Peter Pyes Moonrakers cruises , it is neat to know that he made the mistake and ran Moonraker up on this ledge too. I like diving along its length feeling the limestone ledge, with its multiple colored scrapes along it and think of old Moonraker here in the 40s stuck with no one to see her embarrassment.

I being a very cautious navigator have never run aground, but there has been multiple times when there has not been enough water to go where I am headed. This is only a temporary setback which we are used to being in the mode of calling out water depths in inches . An inch under our bottom is plenty but it can be slow going as the mass of displacement sucks the water away and we kind of inch worm along stopping and filling back in and going and sucking and stopping with a messing dusty underwater wake. This is not running aground its just not having enough water. When we do run out of water its really no big deal as the HFM just sits upright as solid as a concreat parking lot. With a 9 wide bottom you dont  lean her over you just climb down aft into the water hopefully with a Sandy bottom with only your shorts gettin wet. If in mud then its a bit deeper . My usual thing is to wade to the bow squatting  down with my back to the boat grabbing the chine with both hands behind me and lifting a bit. By lifting up just a couple of inches the boat rocks aft and with the added displacement of the stern sections an inch of draft is gotten and so with the 32,000 lb boat now floating I spin her around and push her back into deeper water, something like 28". This is why I say we never run aground. The times we are being inconvenienced by not having enough water to go when and where we want I just blame on the moon as not keeping in sync with us.

Dont ever follow us as we take a lot of short cuts . We have found that in a simple breeze pif the seas are not breaking a bit or the swell is not giving a slight hump then there is enough water for us to go. So on we press but only in daylight and not over coral reefs or steel ship wrecks.

When we are sailing with the daggerboard down fully the HFMs draws 710"s. We have hit many unmarked sunken boats in far off harbors when tacking into them. This usually stops us dead in our tack- tracks... But only for a moment as we quickly let go the floating daggerboard down line and up pops the board and away we go with one of us quickly cranking the board back down. Most times nobody notices us in our impromptu bottom surveying of this new harbor. 

When racing and cutting corners on shoals , cruising and thinking we can make it over some shoal the same drill happens with only a little less glass on the tip of the board, a shagrinned skipper and off we go. That is another reason why we never run aground.

Anchored off of Egg Island in 7 

Looks shallow but at least 7 here

Nothing like clear water

This is actually 4 of water.

Our friends the Underwoods summer camp house on Egg Island

When the tide goes out we would be on the bottom. No big deal if the wind stays this way. If not when the water comes back we would have about a half an hour of bumping before lift off. This we have done with both Hogfishes at least a thousand times. These boats were designed and built for this.

One of many small islands in our bay. Water is 3 deep here now . As they say in the Bahamas  

  " We have lots of water here, its just spread out very thin."

Beach coaming treasure ! A free cleat from a wreck.

It sure is nice having a shoal draft vessel but if your draws a bit more then you will be anchored out a bit farther than us. The fun difference between keel and non keel boats is that when you run aground you are aground, no lifting your skirts and moving on. Sorry

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The design evolutions of a SHALLOW MINDED SAILOR WHO THINKS DEEP SEA THOUGHTS

I grew up around small plywood sailboats. The first skiff I went sailing in was in my early years at 2 years of age wearing a huge life jacket with my moms very thight arms holding me to her as we sailed about Mission Bay in San Diego with my father at the helm of a 14 wooden Penguin catboat.

The next boat was  a 17-8" Robert Tucker bilge keel Shilloett sloop. This got me offshore looking down into the depths as we sailed over vast kelp beds off of Point Loma.

From there my family did a stint in living in the mountains of California with a skiff in the yard always needing some work.

At the age of 15 my parents had sold out all their land, house and most all belongings to move aboard a 35 Sea Witch ketch and sail off to Mexico and a new life. This was in 1973 and I was 15 years old. This is when I really fell in love with the lifestyle of being a sailing Vagabond.

16 years old with our ketch on the beach careened for a bottom paint job in Isla La Prida in the pacific islands of Panama.

In the ensuing years of cruising, sailing and living aboard I observed and learned a lot about other peoples boats and designs. The most important things I learned from this time afloat was that I would always want a boat that I could afford and maintain to be ready to sail at all times. It had to be a design that I could sail anywhere alone so as to not have to rely on crew or others. Being able to go into shallow water would always be a plus and I wanted to build my own design so I would know every inch of this vessel. Most all the boats that I came across I could not afford or they lacked in so many things that I was looking for. To be able to carry a large hard dinghy, sail well to windward, ease of sail changing and reefing, simple to maintain inside and out, and to be as uncomplicated as possible to do all the above. 

This quest has lead me to many different boats so far in my life of building ,buying and fixing up boats for myself. Fortunately  I love all kinds of boats so have gone down many different paths as I could learning about the pros and cons of the many types and ways one can get about the worlds oceans on a very limited budget.

My first real job was at the age of 18 working for Stamas boats in their R&D a dept for $2.31 an hour.

By the time I had my own custom boat building shop in Key Largo in Florida at the age of 25 I was up to about $15.00 an hour with my ex wife Lawanda as my partner. For most of my working career from there till I helped start up Hells Bay Boatworks I have worked my way up and around making from $12.50 an hour up to $20.00 an hour. Owning A part of Hells Bay put me over the top. I started out there Making $20.00 an hour as an owner till when I sold out 3-1/2 years later making over $100,000.00 a year. Since selling out when I work on boats or projects I charge $25.00- $30.00 an hour depending on the project. My average income over my 39 year working career comes out to less than $18,900 a year. BUT over this 39 year work period I have taken time off building my own boats and sailing about the Atantic ocean in them for 58,000 miles logged and over half that time period being unemployed by choice. I have very rarely been insured for health, never for my boats and only fire insurance for my small houses. Every thing we own is paid for from this work life that we live by  the idea of we only buy what we can afford to eat, and use.

I try to work no more than 4 months a year with this being what we live on, cruise with and have built our land base home with. But I do work for some stretches to get ahead a bit more for future cruises or building projects.

This earning level guides me in a huge way in dreaming of future boats as to what it will really cost to build in materials and time. I dont want to spend huge amounts of my life units building a boat for myself as I would rather be paid to be building someone elses dream and when done I can go off and sail about for months at a time. So my designs are for very fast, easy and affordable construction.

But they are not throw a way boats like other designs. I really like seeing my 32 year boats I designed and built still being used everyday and still going strong.

 Here I have taken some Lousy pictures of old sketches of ideas that have guided me in refining my designs. 

This is my first sketch of the original Hogfish that I drew. My first vision.

These are the stability drawings and calculations that my friend Wyatt Huggins did for me. He is a real navel architect and has been my go to guy to help me when something is over my head. He did all the stability, and weight numbers for me after the boat was built. I traded working on a skiff of his for this work. I have used these real numbers and my real sea sailing experience in evaluating and coming up with the other designs that follow.

I have had this boat over farther with the mast in the water when I was run over by a U.S. Navel warship when single handing to the U.S. Virgin Islnds. They were running without lights playing war games when the ran me over. The Hogfish just popped back up and kept on sailing.

There are 40 pages in total for these calculations

The Hogfish with an empty hull as we just repainted the entire insides. Taking friends out for a sail in very little wind.

Rachel and our two month old daughter Kalessin in the pouch sailing along with the tiller tied off. The block and tackle on the cabin top is for the centerboard. When the block dropped you knew you were hitting the bottom. We used the cabin top to collect rain water and the decks to. Life lines were just installed because of the new baby. Our daughter Kalessin is 25 years old now and has crossed the Atlantic three times now.

Rachel leaning against the tabernacle. All my designs can lower the mast with out a crane doing it on your own.

Hogfishes deep cockpit. All my lugged rigged designs have this deep cockpit in them.

See the cat schooner rig. This would be a sweet looking boat at anchor and under sail. But not much livable space below.

The hull lines of the French Ovni sloops that are so popular. I have not seen one yet that can out sail the HFM. Because they are relatively light they are a bit jumpy at sea.

My early box boat phase. We were running out of space on the 32 hogfish so I was dreaming of a big boat to last a life time. Took awhile to get to the right place, time and money to get there. When we did I had lots more sea miles and we ended up with the HFM.

This is my version of how I would redo my first real sailboat the French built and designed Corsair sloop.

This little 18 sloop carried me through out the Bahamas in 1977. I sailed engineless from Tarpon Springs Florida as far south as Rum cay and through all the Bahama out islands at the age of 19. I had so much fun.

When in the Virgin Islands working for Gold Coast Yachts in 1990-92 I started to think of big boats.

You can see I was still naive about bow noise.

Over the years I have loved just trying to come up with the simplest live aboard shoal draft go anywhere sailboat. With all these Chinnese lug rigged designs my vision is for a long lean easily driven hull that has very shallow draft but can still carry all supplies needed for a couple. At anchor the boat has a very comfortable cockpit, is very liveable for two below with room for two guests. The mizzen is for getting underway and all the other things it can do so well. These boats will have power for going to weather in very light winds which would be these boats only weak point. 

A big sloop figuring out all the struckural bulkheads

A nice 30 box boat that can be built in no time and very cheaply. So simple to rig. No winches or any hardware to really deal with. 

Long lean and very easy to sail along.

Hull lines for a 30 sloop. I feel the daggerboard can go this far forward as these hulls go so well without it. When its down you get your lateral plane. When off the wind all you need it for is to pivot on in strong heavy going in large seas. Otherwise its up.

I love the look of double Enders. 

20 All designs will carry a large hard dinghy.

Sessing out cockpit ideas for Bahamas type sailing  

Looking for some speed with shallow draft. Nice big cockpit.

Super shoal draft with a very fast rig. All about looks and just plain sailing but with the ability to get into very shallow water. Nice layout for two plus two guests.

Thinking of big boat and lots of cargo space .

Another work boat idea with a box boat shape.

Glenn Maxwell and I planned on building this catamaran design of mine and going into the cattle maran business, thats day charter sailing. We just looked at each other after I finished the drawings and came to realize there was so much more fun things to do than make buckets of money. We both are still having tons of fun.

My version of Matt Laydens Paradox design. A weighted daggerboard for offshore work, the mast will stow when at sea to ride to a sea anchor well, and a cockpit outside.

HFM interior details

34 hogfish

32 Hogfish with todays thinking

28 Hogfish

Offshore hogfish 38 lug rigged schooner.

32 traditional 

Light weight

Jubilees sail plan and rigging plan sheet

Jubilee under sail

Just think of cruising In this rig. Something to look back at as you row ashore.

This is typical of my hull construction drawing plans.

Doodles

 

HFM sail plan today

HFM dreaming of a big square head mainsail and code zero

I dont know what that girl is doing on my sketch. See I get side tracked thinking of all kinds of vessels

If I build another boat it will most likely be a big ole Junk.

11 years ago in Grenada I returned from racing in Antigua. Anchored next to the HFMS was Pete Hills two masted Catamaran China Moon. Rachel said he had heard we were here so he had sailed up from Tinidad to meet me. He wanted to know if I would be intrested in designing his next boat. He had been waiting 3 days for me to return from racing. We talked boats. What an honor to be in his company.

What he was looking for was a 28 single masted lug rigged sloop to live aboard with 1-2 people. He liked the earlier Hogfish and the Recent HFM. I was very busy building the big house in Grenada. I had been racing on my bosses boat. I had no time to spare. But I did take time to draw this up for Pete.

Read about Pete and you will see what hes been up to since this time.

Remember people sail boats! These Haitian sloops have no engines and sail back and forth to Nassau from Haiti with cargo to this day. Most new sailors can barley get out of the slip with out all mod coms.

HFM sailing into Mindalo in the Cape Verde islands out sailing the boat boys that are chasing us. I am using the staysail to short tack up the bay. We have just arrived at 7:30 in the morning after a 7 day passage from the Canary Islands.

Just think of this boat at anchor. No stays, flush deck, rudder kicked up out of the water. You are in 3 of water away from the others. So simple. At sea she will sail right along without fuss. When the wind is light and heads you, turn on the engine and tick away to weather at 5 knots without fuse. 

So more food for thought. Sorry about the crappy pictures but you can get an idea of whats been going around in my head.

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