Simpson Designs Introduction

THE 'HANDS ON DESIGNERS'

If you are busy collecting brochures from all the various designers before making your final choice there are two comments I would like to make :

You should collect them all.
You'll note our approach is somewhat different.

The reason for the first is quite simple. Don't decide on which boat to build until you've seen all the offerings. That final choice is a substantial step and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, it's best made after the whole menu has been read and not just the entree.

The second is a little more complex and is based more on a philosophy rather than simple explainable fact. We hope that after reading our material you'll see what we mean. We are a "HANDS ON" design office. We know what we draw can be built using technology appropriate for the job. We have a tendency to say, "OK, that's fine, but how do you build it?" If it's too complex we redraw it to distill it back to a simpler form. We do not specify materials that are hard to find or use or are "HI-TECH" simply for the sake of "HI-TECH". Finally, we harbor a secret loathing for the phrase "HI-TECH".

A Bit of History

I suppose somewhere in this brochure there should be some form of resume about Roger Simpson. A sort of CV if you like. The hard part is to write it in a manner that avoids using too many 'I's and doesn't sound boastful and pompous. For what it's worth, here it is.

I've been involved with the marine industry for over twenty five years, building and designing boats in England, New Zealand and finally Australia. Apart from a short two year sojourn into cabinet making in New Zealand the vast majority of my life has been spent in and around boats.

What all this adds up to is that I guess I've been fairly lucky in my exposure to many different types of boats. These range from 150' luxury motor yachts down to the modest SKID ROW canoe. In between all this there have been multihulls, trawlers, monohulls, sport fishing boats and, believe it or not, a landing craft style car ferry. I ran a boatyard for nearly four years while we built our trimaran LIAHONA. We then lived on LIAHONA for three years.

Three years saw me in the design office of a shipyard specialising in the construction of large, and very luxurious, motor yachts. This was a fabulous learning curve that I'm fortunate enough to have been through.

On a practical side my boatbuilding experience is fairly wide. I've planked carvel hulls, steam bent great lumps of wood, cast lead keels, caulked ancient and weary hulls, laid teak decks and built wooden masts. I've sailed in the English Channel, off the coast of New Zealand and explored parts of the Great Barrier Reef by boat.

My particular love is working with wood. Both my wife Anne and I are members of the Wood Artisans Guild of Queensland. With a membership limited to fifty it's an organisation dedicated to the promotion of fine woodworking both as a craft and as a pastime. Anne is a devilishly good woodturner.

Part of my belief is to share knowledge. With that in mind I write on practical matters for various magazines covering, or attempting to cover, everything from fitting bulkheads to sharpening planes. Our book, SIMPSON ON BOATBUILDING has sold at the time of writing nearly a thousand copies.

That's it. A quarter of a century compressed into a few paragraphs.

SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY, I SAY!

Those five words are not mine but those of American writer Henry Thoreau. They say it all don't you agree? Life is complicated enough these days without adding to it as we build the very thing we want to help simplify our lives. A boat.

We are bombarded with technology from all sides. Everything we buy seems to come with a large and obtuse manual that no-one can understand. Manufacturers seem to constantly fight a war as to whose products are the most technologically advanced and worse, as soon as you've bought something it's out of date.

Although the ultimate aim for you building a boat might be something to live on, a long distance cruising home, a weekend cottage afloat, or maybe something to thrash around the buoys for the odd race or two I usually urge folk to treat the building process as learning a new craft. And by that I mean hand-craft.

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

You may have gathered by now, and certainly should do by the end of this brochure, that we are in love with practicalities. We do not eschew technology but for us it must serve a purpose and it should, in the technocrats words, be user 'user friendly'.

As an example, today's epoxies are designed by highly qualified and skilled chemical engineers. They have, bless 'em, made them easy and available for us to use. All you do is mix them together in the correct proportions ... they even supply accurate measuring pumps to make sure you get it right. What happens to all the cute little molecules as they busily cross link? Who cares all we need to know is when they've done their thing we've something that's damn strong and will hold our boat together for many years to come.

Therefore, our definition of APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY, would run something like this. It is the use of technology to achieve a result that is appropriate to strength, quality, end usage and economics.

BUILDING YOUR OWN BOAT - PART 1

The most frequent questions we receive relate to building times and costs. Both of these are hard to answer with any degree of accuracy and honesty. The variables in geographical areas and individuals are so vast that only ballpark figures can be given.

It is also true that one persons idea of a finished boat will differ by thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, for the same boat.

For what its worth here are a few comments that may help.

Firstly the "lock-up shell" stage is not the expensive bit. There's very little difference in the cost of our 12m or 13m cat to this stage. There's a bit of extra hull area, a few more sheets of ply, some extra epoxy and so forth.

Many years ago 1 used to believe it was better to build the biggest boat you felt was possible. These days with rampant inflation and dwindling disposable incomes, I would advise going for the smallest that suits your needs.

It's safer this way and you'll go sailing for less.

Building a Simpson is a safe investment: this has been proven time and time again. Later on if you want to go up a size or two, you can sell her and use the funds to build again.

The next question is "How long will it take me to build her?" Things get really tough here.

Each and every one of us has a certain amount of time free each week, time in which we can do as we wish. We all have family, work and social commitments to meet so free time becomes a scarce resource that should not be wasted.

A time management consultant would say we all have 168 hours per week. We sleep for roughly 56 of these and work for about 40. That leaves 72 hours. That's 3744 hours per year. Hmmmm..... should knock off the 10.2m in about a year part-time and build the 6.5m Woodie with the change.

As we all know it doesn't quite work like that. Other things creep in and stop this from happening. The plain and simple need for a human being to relax and do nothing from time to time is a fine example.

Here's a realistic picture based on our own and others experiences. We can average about 2 hours every night on our boat for four nights a week ... that's 8. On the weekend, assuming we get one free, we can do about 14. The total is 22 so far. Sometimes it's up and often it's down. These are averages our lifestyle and workloads dictate. These hours are taken after other things such as shopping, taking the cat to the vet, fighting back the garden, relaxing together, visiting friends, friends dropping in on us, reading, fixing the car, fixing the washing machine and the other million little things, essential things, of life that must be deducted.

Take the example of our 12m catamaran versus the 13m .... a mere 1 metre the difference in length.

There's an increase in rig size.

This one single factor affects:

Mast extrusion size
Rigging wire size
Rigging screw and swage size
Boom size
Winch size
Halyard and wire lengths
Chain plate size

Just in the one area of the rig there's a substantial increase in cost even though the 13m is only 1 metre longer.

Extend this principle over the whole boat and you'll see that the 13m is a much bigger enterprise to undertake that the 12m.

It really is impossible for us to estimate an individuals building time with any accuracy. Only the builder can do this.

Lets take three of our 12m catamarans as three good examples as to why. We have under 12 months, to 18 months and then to five years (so far). The first two boats are launched and sailing and are being thoroughly enjoyed and the last is still under construction and is being thoroughly enjoyed.

Why?

Simple. The first two examples were sound, solid and well built boats. The owners wanted to go sailing in a decent and safe boats and go sailing they have done. This was their priority. The third is absolutely superb in every way. Her builder delights in spending time on getting every minute detail right to his eye. This is what he loves doing. He demonstrates absolute finesse in every aspect of the boat. For him, the craftsmanship is the end ... not necessarily the sailing. I hope I've illustrated that building times and cost estimates are a very difficult field. Ultimately they will be controlled by your own self and your lifestyle.

A simple philosophical comment from one builder might help ....

"I started my cruising life when I made the frames. Building our boat is as much a part of the lifestyle we want as sailing is. I ain't naming a launching date, booking friends for a sail or answering any "Where do you intend to cruise?" type questions ....what she costs is what she costs. If I thought about the numbers I would never have started. We'd rather spend sixty bucks on a fitting than dinner for two (special occasions excluded) because at least with a fitting you can handle it. You know it's there. Dinner for two's been and gone the day after."

Of millions of viewpoints available and offered, there's only one that matters .... your own. It's a personal thing.

A MATTER OF STRENGTH

A gritty definition of strength would be that a structure must be able to cope with an applied force or loading without yielding or giving way. That's fine if the load or force is predictable with a degree of accuracy. Not so fine when the sea throws unpredictable loadings on a hull structure.

Therefore, no matter what the numbers show at the end of a calculation there has to be a safety factor built in that puts the strength of a structure well above anything it could reasonably be asked to take.

We do not believe in the "Keep making it lighter until it breaks then go up one" style of designing. Our boats are designed to last and serve their owners well and safely for many, many years to come. If the penalty for designing a strong seaworthy boat is a little extra weight where it counts then so be it.

This does not mean ugly and cumbersome nor does it mean a total sacrifice of performance. What it does mean is the correct engineering in the right place for the right loadings using APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY.

WE DO NOT PLAY GAMES WITH STRUCTURE. WE HAVE A RECORD OF NO STRUCTURAL FAILURES. BEARING IN MIND THE VAST MAJORITY OF OUR DESIGNS ARE AMATEUR BUILT, MANY OF THEM BY FIRST TIME BUILDERS, WE FIND THIS SINGLE FACT A POINT OF GREAT PRIDE.

As an example of this philosophy being demonstrated in the real world a few words about RAMTHA (Simpson 11 m catamaran) may not go amiss.

Built for a retired airline pilot RAMTHA has sailed the South Pacific for nearly six years. On a trip from Auckland to Tonga (May 1994) she was caught in a horrific and unpredicted storm during which seven boats were lost and, tragically, three lives. Windspeeds were recorded at 60 - 80 mph.

To cut long story short the crew were taken off RAMTHA by a New Zealand Navy supply vessel that was diverted on a rescue mission to the various yachts in distress. The astonishing fact is that RAMTHA was found 13 days later, solo, still upright, still rigged, and an insignificant level of damage.

She was towed to Tonga where her owners were reunited with their boat. She was then sailed back to Australia.

Perhaps a quote from a letter I received may not go amiss:

" ....She was adrift for 13 days in big seas and wind after we got off but is in very good shape.

SAYS A LOT FOR WELL BUILT SIMPSON CATAMARANS"

FOR ALL KINDS

In spite of the fact that SIMPSON DESIGN is best known for our multihulls, you will notice different concepts of boats beginning to creep in. Keel boats, power boats and simple fun boats. Perhaps a word of explanation.

We are a wide discipline design office. We realise fully that not everyones tastes are the same now and nor will they ever be. To each their own. What it all boils down to in the end is what do you want?

The brilliant American designer Tom Fexas once said .. "there's no such thing as the ideal boat, only the ideal boat for your game. First you have to name your game."

As a result of experience SIMPSON DESIGN can therefore offer a wide base of expertise for you to draw upon, whether your game be monohull, multihull power or sail.

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