Feeble Crew - Ultimate Sharpie Sailing
Welcome to Feeble Crew [short for Large Sailing Vessel, Feeble Crew] home of those who believe in:- the long farewell,
- the last hurrah,
- sailing around the world makes for very satisfying nursing home avoidance,
- a last swim with the sharks is much better than the slow drip from an IV tube;
- a sixty foot North Carolina sharpie schooner might serve well the purposes of a not-yet feeble crew.
Or, in other words, "transitioning" should be fun and exciting [ Dr. Death, puhlease ] and sailing around the world is a great way to do it.
First, though, a note about the North Carolina sharpie schooner mentioned above. The New Haven and Noth Carolina sharpies, whether cat-ketch or schooner rigged gave [give] the best bang for the buck in the history of sailing:
- very fast,
- very seaworthy,
- and very cheap to build and maintain.
[boat selection discussion continued here]
Here is pictured a North Carolina sharpie schooner hauled out for painting. The example pictured is probably under 50 feet, stem to stern, and therefore, depending on crew size, possibly too small for our purposes.
But first, a feeble crew slogan: No passengers, only crew. Everyone on board must be a capable sailor. Landlubbers who wish to embark on a feeble crew expedition will be brought to a reasonably expert level, either before or at the very beginning of the voyage. Any landlubber who made insufficient progress, or anyone else who cannot adapt to life on a sailing sharpie will be promptly put ashore and their money refunded.
Crew / Expedition size, boat size and accommodations
All of which brings us to a discussion of the crew size [number of people per expedition]. We are currently planning on crew sizes of between ten and twenty. Each crew will be organized as either a two watch [six hours on, six hours off], or three watch [four hours on, eight hours off] crew, with smaller crews on the six on - six off schedule.
In Figure 9 below we have the plans for a 42.5' cat-ketch sharpie as mentioned above. Notice the two cubbies and the hatch between them. Also notice the honking big centerboard and centerboard case. Even with the fore cuddy extended aft over the area shown as main hatch, accommodations would be spartan for a crew of even five. For one thing, the centerboard case would bisect the additional cuddy area in two.
So we will need a larger boat than the one pictured above. Somewhere between fifty and sixty feet might do it for a crew size around ten. Certainly 75' should be adequte for a crew sizes between ten and twenty.
We are in the process of comissioning cartoons [preliminary designs] from the two leading sailing sharpie designers: Phil Bolger and Reuel Parker. As soon as they become available we will post them here.
Transitioning - our philosophy and theory of operation for transitioning the right way.
Why no paid crew you ask. The brief answer is that it would be both unethical and counter productive. Although every crew and every crewmember needs to be not-yet-feeble when starting out;
- Sooner or later that will no longer be true.
- Sooner or later the crew collectively will be too feeble to be reliable.
- Sooner or later, as a result of the intersection of collective incompetence and foul weather, the boat will founder,
- which in a way is the whole point.