THE ACHIEVEABLE DESIGN QUEST

The question of practical and achieveable ( read very cheap ) blue water cruisers comes up in discussion quite regularly. If you were to ask a ? Yacht Club? member, and remember that New Zealand Yacht Clubs are pretty egalitarian in their membership, for a boat that fits the common perception of a suitable boat for going foreign from here the dollar signs would come to about three years pay for a very well employed skilled worker. And that is second hand!

Design #1 Stuart Reid's Scow Yacht 'Moa'
[For collectors of trivia, the Moa was a 2-3 metre tall flightless bird
hunted to extinction by the early inhabitants of New Zealand]

But first a note. MOA, a scow type vessel. Stuart receives many requests for the plans but he has not drawn this boat. The problem is about the poetic licence people take with the boats they are building. Scow types are very complicated and any 'modications' say to beam or cabin height is potential for disaster for the inexperienced. MOA is a PROPOSED DESIGN ONLY - Plans are not available for amateur construction.

A twin (off) centerboard plywood scow yacht with schooner rig.
LOA 9 m -- 30 ft.
Beam 2.7m -- 9 ft.
Sail area 40 sq. m -- 400 sq ft.

Commentary from Stuart
The scows were New Zealand's coastal working boats carrying all sorts of equipment to remote farms, often far up tidal river.
They brought back to civilization the produce of the land including live stock. One interesting pastime was to dry out on a beach and load the scow with sand and scoria between tides. The crew used one legged wheelbarrows for this job. One leg? Try having a breather with a wheelbarrow full of wet sand halfway up a plank with a two legged model!
If you can track down Ted Ashby's definitive book Phantom Fleet it is a great read for those interested in work boats.
[We have a story coming up about one of them in a future issue... Editor]
One of the more famous scows, Moa, [the original of course], was hijacked by World War I German Commerce Raider Count von Luckner when he escaped from captivity here in New Zealand. He managed to make it to the Kermadec's north of New Zealand before being recaptured. Interesting guy that and his wooden boat exploits might be worth a look for Woodenboat.net.
There were two types of scow, a deck scow and a hold scows.
Deck scows were the more rugged. The hull was virtually a giant floating tank filled with construction elements such as posts and rails and bulkheads both transverse and fore and aft (3 or 4). All cargo was carried on deck. Hold scows were of more conventional design which you should be able to work out for yourselves.
The design of a scow, which may appear very simple and even crude, is critical and must follow an established and proven rule. For example under no circumstances should you be tempted to increase the beam beyond a known formula or disaster will befall you.
We suggest if you want a beamy boat build a REDINSKOIT but be prepared to put up with the lack of room at the ends (That's a Col Archer Norwegian sailing lifeboat. Ketch rigged double ended, very heavy, very beamy, very powerful sea rescue boat. Typically 40-60ft long JW)
"REDINSKOIT". This is no doubt a "Redningsskøyte". Redning is a noun formed from å Redde, to Save, and Skøyte is a Cutter in the sense of a fore-and-aft-rigged boat.
Here are some urls, a couple with lots of pictures of redningsskøyter and other wooden boats, which should please your site-visitors. At least some of it is in English. I've been meaning to send feedback on this for months
(but see below). Cheerful Dano-Norwegian greetings,
Tony
http://www.randen.no/Colin_Archer_Rs_No_1_Norsk_side_Photoindex.htm
http://www.camr.nl/colin_eng.htm
http://www.ssca.nu/
http://www.galeas.no/Colin%20Archer.html
http://www.maritimstart.com/boter_nettet.shtml

The scow's simple structure and large volume (for a given beam and length) will give the largest cruising vessel with the best sailing performance for dollars outlaid.
To take full advantage of the economical construction the simplicity theme must be carried through to the rig and equipment. Much of this can be made in the homeworkshop from readily available materials.
NOTE Moa is not an exact model of the original scow as compromises have had to be made to accommodate an out of scale crew. However there is a more exact model of a scow in the Dargaville museum. Built by Mr. J Bright in the early 80's Tramp has few concessions to scale and although only 17 feet long was successfully sailed by Jim over quite long distances.

Comments from John Welsford.
Interesting. The scow has a very proud tradition on the New Zealand coast, prior to the advent of bigger trucks and decent roads large areas of the country relied on these 70/80 ft. Flat bottomed sailing freighters for transporting logs, livestock and gravel into the main cities and transport centers from the more isolated coastal and estuary ports. They were really sharp ended barges, usually completely decked with the freight carried on deck, and designed to be loaded by running them up the beach just after high tide and working like fury while she was high and dry.
Stuart has taken the beam to length proportions of these simple craft, added enough freeboard and flare to give this little descendant of her working ancestors a useful range of stability and built in accommodations that would very well suit our hypothetical client.
Ballast can be as simple as concrete , perhaps a ton and a half laid in and trowelled smooth forming a sole in the main cabin , her righting moment would be greatly assisted by the raised deck and the high pilothouse sides and I would stick my neck out and say that I think she would in fact be safer at sea than the originals which had such shallow hulls that their stability disappeared when the rail went under.
She has a large and very well sheltered cockpit, the steering station being standing up behind the well situated on the aft wall of the pilothouse, there is standing headroom inside the raised part of the cabin where the galley, nav table and heads are, and lots of sitting and sprawling space under the raised deck which finishes by the freeing ports just forward of the foremast. She has a dagger board port and starboard leaving the interior very clear, an oversized skylight/hatch amidships which can be raised to give more headroom when in port, and a remarkably clear deck for such a small boat.
I like the idea of the davits with the inflatable slung there, secured here a dinghy would be safe for coastal cruising while at sea I would stow it upside down over the main hatch .
MOA is built in a manner similar to the old workhorses, she has a post and rail, plywood sided beam fore and aft along each side of the boat, in line with the sides of the pilothouse, the stresses are carried by partitions across between these, the bottom and the deck skins forming a closed box structure which will be rigid in both bend and torsion. Outside those tow fore and aft beams there will be shaped ‘wing frames’ which shape the sides, and a dagger board case in each.
The schooner rig would be a little foreign to many New Zealanders, the prevalence of headwinds here tends to favour the ketch. But again, the reasoning is good. Although this drawing shows a large reefable jib, Stuart intends showing her with a jib and stemhead staysail, the latter tough enough to double as a storm sail , and I can imagine her setting a storm staysail off the main, sheeting to the corner of the transom and balancing pretty well in a serious blow. Note that although she appears to be a gaffer, for simplicity Stuart has designed sails with a very heavy single batten which gives the same projected shape as a gaff with topsail but needs only one halyard instead of three plus a sheet on each mast.
I like this wee working boat, she fits the design brief really well. Innovative in construction, quick and cheap to build from builders yard materials, shallow draft to take advantage of the cheap sheltered headwaters of the estuaries, comfortable in accommodation, cute, workmanlike and capable.