LN Spotting: Le Garage 41LN49

Here is Le Garage 41LN49 on her mooring in South Bristol, Maine (http://www.lnoa.org/41ln49).  Spotted by Sally and Allan Seymor from their Lord Nelson Tug, Sally W. 37VT42.

Embla's Atlantic Crossing

Embla arrived in the Chesapeake Bay the end of July, after an uneventful Atlantic crossing via Tenerife, St. Marten, Nassau, then up the east coast offshore to the Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis.

Seagull 41--The Design that led to the 41LN

Last month Tommy Chen showed me his original, vellum Lord Nelson 41 and 35 drawings.    What became the Lord Nelson 41 Tommy originally called the Seagull 41.  It's interesting to note that he drew these plans before starting his own yard.  It's also interesting that the name of his first yard, Hai O, means seagull in Mandarin.   

Tommy Chen, holding the 41 blueprints and the original sales brochure. Photo taken aboard Polar Mist, a 49' Lord Nelson Victory Tug.  Tommy is even wearing a Victory Tug hat.  Ask him though and he'll tell you his first love is the sailboat.

The Seagull 41 hull lines.

 The signature block on the drawing.

Close-up of the hull lines.

When Plan B Becomes Plan A

Jan Chapman and Sean Kelly have sailed and owned boats for many years.  In the early days, like many, they chartered.  Their fondest memory is of Sue Lynn 41LN51 which they chartered in the San Juan Islands. So much did Sue Lynn capture their imagination that owing a Lord Nelson became their Plan A.  Many years later they bought a 1979 CHB trawler.  This wasn't exactly Plan A so they named her Plan B.  They sold Plan B having convinced themselves that 'charter is smarter'.  Then, completely by chance, a yacht broker showed them a sailboat named Equilibre--it was the old Sue Lynn.  Plan A had come to fruition.

Video: Newport to Bermuda on a LN41

David Lyman (Afran 41LN46) made the following two videos of Tashtego 41LN31's trip from Newport to the Caribbean via Bermuda. They sure give a sense of what the trip is like.

Offshore to the Caribbean - Part 1
Newport to Bermuda
https://vimeo.com/123436315

Offshore to the Caribbean - Part 3
Bermuda to the BVI
https://vimeo.com/125105501

David can be reached at:

David Lyman
Voyaging Photojournalist
SeaArcher LLC
73 Mountain Street
Camden, ME 04843
207.841.4139
DHLyman@mac.com
www.DHLyman.com

Types of Ballast and How it was Installed

Lord Nelson sail boats came standard with cast iron ballast but had a lead ballast option.  Tommy Chen said you can tell which ballast material was used by the depth of the bilge (as measured from the floor boards).  A lead ballasted boat will have a deeper bilge than a cast iron ballasted boat.  Because lead is denser, and therefore a lead ballasted boat will have a lower center of gravity, less volume of lead was used--thus the deeper bilge.  Tommy said that 5.2 metric tons of cast iron or 4.2 metric tons of lead was used.   The manner of ballast placement depended on the type of ballast used.

For a lead ballasted boat, the inside of the keel was first covered with a slurry of dry sand and heat resistant resin.  It was critical that the sand be dry and so the yard had a special, large wok just for heating sand.  Tommy assured me that this was a different wok from which meals were prepared ;-).  Lead pigs were then tightly stacked inside the keel.  Finally, molten lead was poured into the keel fixing everything into place.   

The iron ballast was sand casted, off site by a subcontractor to shapes specified by the yard.  Three separate castings make up the ballast for a Lord Nelson 41.  After the castings were placed inside the keel a sand and resin slurry was poured around them to lock them into place.

Dave Howell, Nellie D. 37VT63

Update: Voodoo Child's Bilge Pump Refit

 The following is from Tom Fish, Voodoo Child 41LN23 (tfish@mchsi.com)

As part of my refit, I installed 2 sumps with self contained pumps and float switches, one forward and one aft. The normal sources of bilge water on VC are the anchor locker with deck opening for the windlass and the fore and aft air conditioner evaporators. I applied a white epoxy resin coat throughout the anchor locker and glassed in a drain system that is plumbed to the forward sump. I also ran the forward AC evaporator drain line to that sump. The aft evaporator is plumbed to the aft sump.

The next big challenge was the enormous amount of residual water that would drain back into the bilge from the oversized bilge pump hoses after the pumps shut off. The hoses are 2" internal diameter and connected to high volume pumps and 2" thru hulls. There is enough residual water in the lines to fill the entire length of the bilge to nearly 1/2" deep. The setup is designed to slow the rise of water if a major leak occurs and works in conjunction with 2 high bilge water audible alarms.

I thought I had solved the residual back flow problem by putting in check valves. However, 3 weeks after installing and testing this new system I was shocked to see it fail on a repeat test. The huge column of residual water above the check valve put so much back pressure on the valve that even these massive pumps couldn't prime and start pumping. Centrifugal bilge pumps like these are designed to self prime against a zero pressure head. Once primed, though, they are very powerful. So the check valves were removed and the pumps now prime instantly and perform like fire hoses.

This still left me with the problem of 1/2" of residual water in the bilge after the large pumps stopped.  I used a small Whale diaphragm pump on manual switch with small diameter tubing and an extremely shallow homemade strum box placed in the 4" x 8" recess in the bilge. My strum box has a small ball bearing that seats on a small o-ring forming a low resistance check valve. Since the check valve is on the suction side rather than the pressure head side and is light weight, the pump has no problem priming. The result is a bone dry bilge and the 4"x 8" recess pumps down to near zero which can be blotted completely dry with one paper towel. After achieving a dry bilge I painted it with white bilge paint and installed LED downlighting. Now it will be very easy to inspect the bilge for any leaks.