Aluminum MARCO POLO hull

[rbgarr]

http://tinyurl.com/39xsck

Whaddyasay, Ian??

[Ian McColgin]

Too bad they didn't work harder on making a fare hull. Gonna take a lot of epoxy, which is likely why she's so cheap.

And pretty clean no keel, rudder and ballast yet. Even if she has an engin, likely not installed.

Figure if you can do your own work, making everything from sails to accomodation, at least $20,000 on the rig, another $20,000 inside, and god knows what to fare up the hull, make a keel and all that.

So, someone else's dream today.

But a worthy dream. Hope the right person finds her.

[ishmael]

Second Ian's observations about the fairing, but it'll take more than filler to make that boat fair. Chary of judging by the photos, but look at the port side! Must be twenty feet that are flat as a pancake between the shear and the turn of the bilge. Really poor work. Some of the worst I've ever seen! What amateur who thought he could weld aluminum built this monstrosity?

You couldn't pay me to take that boat.

[Paul Pless]

You couldn't pay me to take that boat.

Aluminum does have a relatively high scrap value.;)

[George Ray]

Need to take some photos at night with lights shining along the plating so as to be better able to judge the magnitude of the "unfairness'. It is possible that the aging has produced surface finish artifacts that make it look much worse than it is. Wishful thinking perhaps but I hope to meet that boat on the water someday.
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http://www.orf.org.au/test/marco_polo_TEMPSITE.htm
The Foundation’s RV Dick Smith Explorer is one of the many rugged, narrow beamed, three-masted, motor schooners based on plans for a practical cruiser presented in Rudder magazine in 1946. Created expressly for extended ocean sailing by the famous L. Francis Herreshoff, the 16m design carried the name of the 13th-century Italian traveler, Marco Polo.

When Herreshoff drew out the lines of his Marco Polo, he had in mind a strong comfortable and sea kindly boat with an easily handled spread of sail. Double-ended with a hull length of 16 meters, he gave her a long water line length of 15 meters, a narrow beam of 3 meters and a 2 meter draft.

With a three-masted schooner rig, her sail plan was designed around a number of small, easily managed lots, that would also allow for a variety of sail settings suited for prevailing wind conditions. Although designed for a small crew, and a Marco Polo design has competed in the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic race, the spacious hull can easily accommodate up to a dozen onboard for extended cruises.

Of course, the best insights into the Marco Polo design can be found in the thoughts of her designer. The following are extracted from the book Sensible Cruising Designs by L. Francis Herreshoff:

“Marco Polo, a Venetian of about the year 1300, was one of the first great travelers who wrote up his adventures and told marvelous stories of foreign lands. Apparently one of the great secrets of his success was that he could travel light and could adapt himself to all conditions. Comfort and show were not the main objects of his life, but to get onward and visit strange places was more to be desired. So, like its namesake, this Marco Polo is planned to travel efficiently. It would have been easier, perhaps, to draw some wallowing tub with easy motion to lay at sea like a painted ship upon a painted ocean, with fuel gone and food and water rationed, a thousand miles ahead before next station.

The Marco Polo is designed mostly for driving under power and is shaped to accommodate a great variety of power plants, either single, twin, or triple screw. Her length, fifty-five feet, may scare some people, but the cost of a boat or vessel is nearly in proportion to her weight. Length is only one of the four factors which influence weight or displacement; the other three are width, depth, and shape. The fact is, a long, lean boat is easier to build than a short one of the same weight with full lines.

The principal objects tried for in the design are:

A very long cruising radius under power.
A sail plan that can be handled by one man on watch.
Extreme seaworthiness (the whale boat model).
Shallow draft which not only will allow her to visit unique places but often will avert serious disasters.
She is cut away aft so that she will lay-to a sea anchor with her head well into the wind, and a balanced rudder designed to swing all the way around.
Her wind resistance is cut to the minimum for laying at anchor in strong winds and for driving economically under power.
Her construction is simplified for economy in building as much as is compatible with strength.

She is arranged to sleep either four or five people, and planned to be run with one man on watch so that the watches can be four hours on and eight off. This allows a cruise to be a pleasure, but when one is not sure of eight hours’ unbroken sleep, the cruise is only hard work and drudgery. Few yachts have large enough hulls and small enough sails to allow this combination.”

— from How to Build the Marco Polo


“Three masts are adopted so great shifts in the center of the sail plan can be made. In running in heavy weather, the sail can be way forward and prevent broaching-to; in laying-to the storm mizzen can be well aft (where it should be). The fore mast and mizzen are very strong for heavy weather and set up-and-down-cut sails, while the mainsail is a crosscut sail on a lighter spar and easily and quickly taken in. Her spars and rigging are according to the latest scientific racing practice, but much heavier and stronger. All unnecessary top hamper is done away with to reduce chafe and wind resistance. The booms are rigged with strong forward guys to prevent them from slatting around or gybing.

On this long, narrow hull, three masts are almost necessary if each sail is to be a high, narrow airfoil. Three masts also almost entirely do away with the necessity of reefing, for one or more of her several sails can be taken in to accomplish the desired reduction of area, so that, although reefs are shown on the sail plan, they seldom would be used, thus there will be no necessity to consider roller reefing gear – that contrivance which is never entirely satisfactory and adds to expense.

In light weather with a beam wind, she sets a large balloon jib forward on a removable boom or nose pole, which is shown in dotted lines together with a light weather overlapping foresail, which goes on the fore boom and has a club sheet.

The small sail plans show various combinations of sails, but in running in heavy weather there is a bifurcated trisail hoisted on a track on the fore side of the foremast and set like small heavy twin spinnakers, and it is believed she will be partly self steering with this rig in heavy weather.

All of the working sails are hoisted or lowered from the cockpit and have downhauls so that in a squall at night the man at the helm need not leave the cockpit. However, she is rigged with good life rails should he venture out for some other reason. She has no gunwales or bulwarks, for these only hold seas on board while the waist-high life rails will hold a person on board and let the seas pass from under.”

— from Sail Plan

In the hard-chined, welded-steel form of the RV Dick Smith Explorer this design has another attraction: it is optimally suited for work in ice. The strength of the hull, and seven (7) watertight compartments, minimize the risk of sailing in ice-strewn waters. And the shape of the hull permits her to be ‘frozen in’ without danger of the hull being crushed — she simply ‘pops up’ as she is squeezed by the expansion of freezing ice.

The suitability of the Marco Polo design to the Foundation’s work is amply demonstrated by the many successful expeditions of the RV Dick Smith Explorer.

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http://www.seedownunder.com.au/destination/queensland/whitsundays/whitsunday-sailing/classic-sailing/ileola/images/ileola-sailing-03.jpg
http://www.orf.org.au/test/photos/MP_Ileola.jpg
http://www.orf.org.au/test/photos/Marco_Polo.jpg

[Tom Robb]

"...like a sack full of doorknobs."
Wow:(

[AngWood]

It was built back in the '70's, but it's new...?

[Bonnie Larkin]

Hey now, there's a photo of my girl! She isn't in quite that good condition at the moment but she will be!

[Ian McColgin]

Tell us more. Much more.

[Bonnie Larkin]

Ok...here is her current sad state...
a test photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52696071@N04/4859161911/lightbox/

[Bonnie Larkin]

ok that seems to have failed ...how about I post my public flickr page

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52696071@N04/

[Ian McColgin]

You have a boat worthy of all your efforts. Finastkind.

[Bonnie Larkin]

I have sorted out the image issue and will keep my posts restricted to the 'proud owner of a marco polo' thread. I am developing a whole new understanding of what 'living large' is all about.

all good

done by Friday