BRe questions

[maxr]

Hi all - a potential BRe owner here. Matt, Laura, and Nick have been very helpful with my direct questions to date, so perhaps I could ask you owners for some more advice from your experience. I'm looking for a boat around 20' for sailing in the Chichester Harbour area (a drying mooring is a possibility) plus occasional trailering elsewhere. I'd rarely overnight in the boat, but on the other hand, I'd like some modest shelter from the British summer - so it looks like the BRe would be the most suitable Swallow boat. Here are some questions that occur to me:

1) How is sitting headroom in the BRe cabin? I'm 6'0"with short legs, so I sit the same height as someone 2-3" taller.

2) The sprayhood in the BRe YouTube vids looks big. Is it OK to sail with it up, or does it obstruct the view a lot?

2) Is the BRe available in either wood epoxy or all GRP? If so, are the hull shapes identical, and is wood epoxy as resistant to the odd minor bump and scrape, and beaching or drying, as GRP?

3) Are the buoyancy tanks effectively hull voids, or are they separate plastic units?

4) How is the current BRe with bowsprit for leaving on a mooring and/or anchoring in shallow water, and what optional fittings help with that?

5) I assume the jib halyard tensions the mast. How is this and main halyard tension achieved - do you 'sweat up' the halyards against a jammer, or is there a winch (perhaps optional?) that can be used for tensioning? Is there a separate forestay to prevent the mast falling backwards if the jib luff wire breaks (which saved my bacon when that happened in a Hawk 20)?

6) Can the BRe be satisfactorily fitted with a 'cassette' style chemiloo that neither leaps across the cabin nor leaks at extreme angles of inclination, and doesn't render the cuddy so chemically perfumed as to be uninhabitable?

7) Is a carbon boom and mizzen sprit available for the BRe? If not, what are the wooden parts finished with please - conventional varnish, or Sikens or similar?

7+1) Electrics etc -  I'd as soon avoid installed wiring, house batteries, etc, and I don't intend to sail at night. So, I have in mind handheld pad/GPS and paper chart navigation, and rechargeable battery units for anything else. Are adequate battery operated LED nav lights available if say I occasionally end up returning at dusk? 

9) Heating water for tea etc.: gas makes me nervous in a boat. Is there a simple alternative solution for heating water etc. that one can use at rest, maybe under the sprayhood, then stow safely?

10) If you get water in the cuddy, how does it get out?

11) Will a BRe on trailer fit in my garage? No problem at all with length or width, but the 'up and over' door is 186 cm / 6'1" high.

Any other recommendations or comments welcome!

Thanks, Max

[martin scott]

Hello Max,
I've had my BRe for a full season of sailing from a drying mooring - still getting to know the ropes so to speak. Those of your questions I can have a stab at:
For me the cabin is not deep enough for comfortable seating - it really only provides a pretty good platform for sleeping on. Think of it as a floating 2-person tent and you'll get the idea. The spray hood gives a good bit of extra cover for sitting and using a small gas stove when moored up. A cockpit tent would be the next step up but I haven't yet decided on one. The spray hood is certainly a good size but I've never had a problem seeing through or round the sprayhood when sailing. 
Re the loo arrangements, bucket and chuck-it has it's appeal. But I've taken out the section of platform around the mast and installed a portaloo which fits very snugly in the space to the rear of the mast. However you need to be a bit of a contortionist to use it! No problem with chemical smells.
'Blue Moon' has a bowsprit with a forestay (having had a mast on a Leisure 17 come down in high winds when the luff wire became detached, I now feel easier with a forestay). And I have a winch for tensioning the halyard although I'm not too worried about tensioning the mast to just the right amount - it's all so unscientific with my sailing. Regardless of that, she sails really well! 
Mooring up is not the easiest of things. Its a two stage process. I have a mooring strop one end fixed to a fore cleat, and running through the bow eye then back outside the stay to the cockpit. Coming onto the mooring I can shackle this to the mooring chain and let the boat ride back. However because the strop will chaff against the bowsprit stay as Blue Moon swings, I have a snap shackle a bit lower down the mooring chain and fix this to a s/s ring on the towing eye either by hanging over the bow or from the tender. This takes the tension of the mooring and the strop then acts as a back-up should it fail. Just reverse the process when sailing off the mooring. All a bit of a rigmaroll but it seems to work ok.
Incidentally, being in the water / on the mud all season, I specified copper coating for the hull below the water line which so far has worked a treat - only a few small areas of barnacles where mud had stuck, and easily removed.
Hope this helps.
Martin

[Graham W]

For boiling water (question 9) there's a good thread on cooking and heating systems here http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1072.0.html

I'm a fan of the Trangia meths burner for simple water heating - cheap, fairly efficient and packs down to virtually nothing.  Probably best bought as part of a nesting set that also includes windshields and a kettle, for example http://www.simplyhike.co.uk/products/Trangia/272ULCookerwithKettle.aspx

If you're on the beach rather than on the boat, I've seen one of these in action and was very impressed http://www.kellykettle.com/

[Graham W]

For navlights (question 7+1), here's a thread that discusses wired vs unwired (emergency) versions http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,1096.0.html

I think the consensus so far is that the unwired emergency ones using incandescent torch bulbs really aren't bright enough.  LED versions (much brighter and with less power drain) would make a lot of sense.  I just found these, which seem to be new on the market http://www.boatlamps.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d187.html.

[Jonathan Stuart]

Max,

1) I rarely sit in the cabin and as Martin said I use it more like camping on a boat, i.e. it's a fixed shelter for storage, sleeping and children. But it's been fine, albeit cosy, when I do sit in there.

2) Visibility is slightly restricted with the sprayhood up but not so as to cause an issue. The only time it becomes noticeable is in marinas, etc, but there are no problems when sailing.

2) GRP only.

3) If I understand your question correct then I think they're hull voids, i.e. the rest of the boat's structure is built around the hull so as to leave a void for the ballast tank.

4) My BRe doesn't have a bowsprit so might not be relevant to your question, but I've never had an issue with anchoring or mooring. As with Martin, I keep warps attached to the bow cleat and run back to both sides of the cockpit which I use for anchoring, mooring and, if ever required, a tow so that I never need to go on the foredeck.

5) Depends on which jib arrangement you chose. Mine has the self tacking jib and jib boom which I really like because it's so simple and works. No winch is required and you tension the jib halyard as much as possible manually and then lift the aft end of the jib boom (which you've left somewhere reasonably low) and the pivoting of the boom tensions the jib halyard/forestay, attached to the forward end of the boom. The leverage the boom gives you makes this easy.

7) Boom and mizzen sprit are wood only and finished in Sikens. My boat's now 3 years old and hasn't yet required any maintenance to the wood.

9) Thermos flask! Seriously, the modern Thermos flasks keep my tea, etc, hot all day so that's almost all I ever use. When sailing over multiple days I have a gas burner that I use off the boat to fill my Thermos at the beginning of the day.

10) Not much water gets in the cabin and a sponge is sufficient to get rid of it.

11) Not sure exactly how high my BRe is on the trailer, but I'm 6' 2" and the top of the mast, when positioned for towing, is higher than my head height. I did make a new aft support for the mast so that the mast is horizontal (rather than sloping upwards as with the standard support) and that allows it to fit in my storage but it's probably close to 6' 6" high.

Hope that helps! I would definitely recommend a BRe and there's nothing else like it that comes close if you want a primarily day boat, rather than a cruiser, but with the addition of a small cabin.

[maxr]

Thanks very much guys, that's all very helpful. Second thoughts on the electrics - does anyone have a BR or BC with a charging system on the outboard driving an electric tank pump, and if so, does that work well?

Thanks, Max

[Graham W]

Max,

See this thread on outboard alternators http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,946.0.html

[Peter Taylor]

Hi Max,

on my BC20 "Seatern" I don't have an alternator on the outboard but I do use an electric pump to both fill and empty the ballast tank.  Swallow Boats initially fitted a Whale electric pump (for emptying) which I did not like and started using a Rule bilge pump instead.  After  a discussion with Matt I now have a Johnson Ballast pump which both fills and empties.  Details of the installation of the Johnson pump are in the 22nd September entry on my "Seatern" blog... http://www.seatern.org.uk/SeaternDiaries/diary_2014_sept.php?year=14
and more details of power consumption and speed of emptying/filling at...
http://www.seatern.org.uk/SeaternDiaries/equipment_fit.php?year=0
(look for "ballast pump").  Power consumption is not negligible, particularly if you have a small battery, but of course it depends how often you fill and empty the tanks!

Peter

[Graham W]

If you want the best of the best for your boat electrics and are prepared to splash out to secure it, I strongly recommend a lithium battery (LiFePO4) instead of the much heavier and less effective lead acid version.  See this thread http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,881.0.html

I have had one as my house battery for 18 months now and despite having a power-hungry Garmin fishfinder, can go for days between charges.  Perhaps an alternative to relying on an alternator?

If in addition you have a reasonable-sized solar panel and MPPT controller, and the sun shines, you might never need an alternator or to go near a mains charger.  I have lasted a month in Greece, sailing every day, without connecting to shore power. Well, not for the house battery anyway - the Torqeedo motor battery was a different matter.

[maxr]

Thanks Peter and Graham for the electrics advice.  Well, that's a thought - a compact 24Ah battery at 3 kg (and £200...).  I'd probably run the outboard only long enough to get the sails up, or otherwise when absolutely necessary. That may not provide enough charging - so assuming I was day sailing, taking it off the boat to charge overnight might be the (cheaper?) answer, unless solar panels get more efficient for UK weather.

Max

[maxr]

Would I be correct in saying then that an electric ballast tank pump may not be a practical option on a boat where the electrics work on 'take a lithium battery home to charge it'? Peter says his 50ltr/min pump drains as follows:

'Emptying took 5 minutes to drain aft tank, then (in order to empty forward tank) a number of short pumps and pauses - total time 26 minutes (of which 11.4 was pumping), total power was 1.8Ah, average amps was 8.8A, peak amps about 12A.'

I gather from other posts here that charging a battery from an outboard is a much slower process than running the battery down. So, you can't just turn both the outboard and the ballast pump on and squirt power in one end of the battery and out the other - especially as e.g. a 6hp Tohatsu outboard claims to generate 5A and this pump can use 12A. Can anyone please tell me what Peter's info suggests about the minimum size of battery required to empty the tanks once with his electric pump, having filled them via self-bailer?

Thanks, Max

[Graham W]

I think Peter's data is saying that one complete tank emptying consumes around 20Wh.  On that basis, a cheap n' cheerful Yuasa NP7-12 lead acid battery, which has a theoretical capacity of 84Wh, should be able to power the procedure three times, possibly four at a pinch, although the last one may be a bit slow. The 24Ah lithium battery could do it 14 times.  Incidentally, the price of the Deben Tracer 24Ah battery has fallen from £295 to £200 in 18 months.

[Jonathan Stuart]

Graham's post tallies with my expectations although not, yet, experience. I am installing a Lithium battery (albeit 22AH LiPO) for a fishfinder, general 12v power source and ballast tank pump and expect to get more pumps (using a Rule bilge pump) out of a single charge than I would ever need. There's no need to use the pump for filling the tank on a BR/ BRe so this is just for emptying.

[Graham W]

Some BR owners have small trickle charge solar panels of 5W or so.  With an average amount of UK sunshine, a panel like that could be expected to recharge a lead acid battery fully during the week, assuming that you have only emptied the ballast tank once at the weekend.  I don't think it would work with a lithium battery, which needs a special charge controller.  Needless to say, that's expensive!

[maxr]

Thanks all, that's encouraging. I read Peter's post about his BC20 Seatern to suggest that there's some kind of bottleneck slowing down draining of the forward tank into the aft tank where it can be pumped out. Is that correct, does it apply also to the BCe, and is there a solution?