And so,  back to interior redesign of my Pearson 10M.  But someday.... 

David Tyler wrote:

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

But one step at a time. Yes, get Mudita sailing, go off for a longish cruise, find out if you're living the dream or the nightmare, learn a few things about yourself and the sea, then you'll be ready to commission a new design.

Hmphm.  I didn't know you were a lover of Browning, too, David.  But that's exactly what I say to people: go sailing in a boat you can afford for a while and see if you like the life and what you like and dislike in the boat you have.  Then you'll have a much better idea of what you want next.  Anyway, 35ft is too big :-)  She looks very like, but is quite a lot slimmer than my SibLim.

BTW, David: while you're brushing up on your Freeship skills, can you ponder the rudders and the bilgeboard mechanism, please?  Not that I'm quite ready for them, but people do keep asking!

Oh, David, this is such a dangerous, dangerous line of inquiry for me.

So last year I buys this boat, see?  1979 solid GRP layup, good hull, venerable Atomic 4 Gas Engine recently overhauled, interior is fair condition.  But the rigging is old and needs replacement.  And then I started researching Junk Rigs.  And then one thing leads to another and I'm gutting the whole interior, replacing the engine with an electric motor, the wheel with a tiller, the whole she-bang.

And now that I'm down to bare bones and building an interior, I can't help but think to myself, "Self, why do you have such wide side-decks if you aren't going forward in rough weather?  Wouldn't it be great to have the space in the interior?  And a bit shoaler draft?"

But... but...   I don't want to be one of those guys that is so caught up with getting it right that I never get it done.  What's that saying?  Il meglio è nemico del bene - The better is the enemy of the good.  And what's more, I don't even know what kind of sailor I actually am.  I know the kind I want to be - long range cruiser off to distant shores.  6 months here, 3 months there.  But am I?  How the heck do I know until I do it?

Maybe a plan should be to focus on getting this Pearson 10M into the shape I currently envision.  I like the work, and I can't get out of the rat race for about 4 -5 years.  (Alimony is a special little prison all of its own.)  I put a few years into sailing her and finding out how I like it all.  I've done enough large projects to recognize that I don't get attached to the finished piece, or view it as wasted time.  I can easily see me hankering to build a boat myself after a while - one informed by the way I actually use a boat.

But oooh.  Watching Annie build her beauty, informed by experience, has me very envious.

Aha! Is someone nibbling at the bait?

That's right, Scott, it's no work at all to enlarge the model of the hull. That's the easy bit. I just have to "select all", and apply a suitable scale factor to the longitudinal, transverse and vertical directions. However, all I end up with is something that looks exactly like Siblim, just with slightly different proportions, so if you look at Siblim, squint a little and do some imagining, you'll get the idea. The work starts when I have to go firm on sizes and shapes of everything, and make decisions about all the factors that go into a design. 

But are you thinking that the Pearson 10m isn't what you wanted after all? If you're serious, the first stage would be to do as Annie did, and write out a list of "must haves" and "would be nice". One mast or two? Type of rig? Headroom required? Accommodation required? Displacement required? Type of cruising envisaged? Then we would be able to move on from "it's perfectly possible to design a Siblim35" to "this is the kind of boat that she'd be, this is what she might look like". At that stage, it starts to become a lot of work, and I wouldn't want to undertake it without a serious commitment. Time has passed since I drew Siblim, and I'd have to relearn Freeship modelling  skills.

While 'full-length, deep keels seem usual for voyaging', this does not mean that they are necessary or even desirable.  In fact, if you look at the boats hauled out at this boatyard where I'm building SibLim, the 'usual voyaging' boat (if it isn't a catamaran) has a fin keel and a spade rudder.  My previous, offshore junk, Badger, had a fin keel and moderate draught and I much preferred her sailing and sea-keeping qualities to the long-keeled steel boat that I sailed later.  Personally, even for offshore work, I would want neither a long, nor a deep keel.

I think that David is a bit overcautious in his thinking - but I can quite understand why he should be.  It would be dreadful if someone got himself into trouble because of a flaw in one's design.  I would be perfectly happy to take SibLim offshore and even across an ocean.  There are heaps of twin-keelers and centreboarders, under 30ft that have done so.  On the other hand, I wouldn't want to take her round Cape Horn - but then I wouldn't want to take any boat around Cape Horn!  With the ample beam and cambered deck, she would take a lot of knocking over and has a huge amount of buoyancy to bring her back.  Besides, with the boards up and  - possibly - a drogue off the stern, I think she would skitter away over the waves, rather than being trapped in the water by her deep keel.

I'm afraid I don't have that much faith in engines, Arne.  I still tend to sail a boat as though I don't have an engine, or it's likely to die on me.  6 hp will be fine.  I am usually at anchor rather than in an artificial and crowded harbour and if I can only progress at half a knot against the wind, I am still making progress.  SibLim is derived from Tystie, and she can most certainly get to windward.  Big seas may well stop the smaller boat, but I trust that I shall find out what she can do before I take on more than she can handle.  And I think 6 hp will be more than adequate for motor sailing.    Moreover, I can envisage lifting one off the boat and getting it ashore: the next size up would simply be too heavy for me to handle.  If Shoestring and Footprints can be happy with 9.9 hp outboards, I'm sure the 6 will be fine for me.