News from Bryan Boatbuilding
Bryan Boatbuilding specializes in the custom design and building of sailboats and low-powered engine driven craft. We sometimes think this focus is forgotten because of the varied nature of our activities. We are especially proud of the launches built over the last few years where we have worked with an owner whose priority is a fuel efficient boat. We become more and more committed to the displacement hull and its quiet, comfortable, fuel-sipping nature.
In the small shop we are building “Fiddlehead” canoes, while in the larger space we are decking a custom-designed 20’centerboard sloop. Although we never stray far from traditional construction, this sloop confirms the pleasure of working with cedar, white oak, bronze, shellac, bedding compound, linseed oil, turpentine, and pine tar.
Speaking of pine tar, have you noticed that at least one common brand on the market doesn’t smell good at all? I realize that smell is subjective but I hope heaven smells like the tar sold by Kirby Paint. We paint our boats in part to make them look good. What is wrong with painting them, in part, to have them smell good.
Our shop is still off the grid. We have recently upgraded to a 2,000 watt inverter. This allows us to run any small and medium sized electric tools on our solar and wind powered system. One advantage is sawing planks to shape. Until now we sawed planks out with our large band saw, powering it with a diesel engine. We can now use a small table saw for this work, the power for which comes from sun or wind.
These small improvements in efficiency are what keep us going around here (as well as a customer who wants a boat built with these goals in mind).

Global Warming and the Planing Powerboat

The time has come to give up the planing powerboat.
For the last several years awareness has been growing of an impending environmental crisis as well as threats to world security due to excessive burning of fossil fuels. We have known for sometime that transportation consumes a large part of this fuel. This awareness focuses on land transportation in which we have little choice whether or not to participate. While we can hope for a quick shift to mass transportation, today’s reality is that we need our vehicles for shopping, commuting to work, and most of the functions of life outside our homes.
Powerboat use is discretionary. If we can easily achieve 30 mpg for automobiles, how can we accept that the vast majority of powerboats get only one to three miles per gallon. A current boat advertisement asks us to celebrate the fact that their boat gets 3 mpg. Recent issues of boating magazines feature; a 29’ boat with 575 hp, a 38 footer with twin 440 hp engines, and another which will consume over 50 gallons of fuel an hour at speed. The ubiquitous 75-100hp deep-V runabout will get 2 mpg at best.
Our problem is making boats plane. It is actually quite efficient to move boats through the water as long as we don’t push the limits of displacement speed. Planing involves forcing a boat up and over its bow wave and lifting it onto the surface where it can skim. It is unfortunate that the designs that are most efficient at planing are usually the least efficient at displacement (non-planing) speeds
Many years ago it was discovered that by keeping weight down and adding power we could make a boat plane. As power has continued to increase we have come to regard planing speeds as the norm. When we talk of modest speed, we think of 12-15 kts. But that is still planing. To achieve a meaningful increase of efficiency in recreational power boating (in the length of vessel most of us can afford) 6 kts. will be our top end. The only thing we give up is high speed. At displacement speeds, we can easily increase our miles per gallon by a factor of 4 or 5, and it is possible to achieve 10 times the present average. Our boat will be just as seaworthy, if not more so. It will be much more comfortable to use as well as considerably cheaper to buy and operate.
The greatest incentive to switch to displacement powerboats is that we have no choice. Burning large amounts of fuel for pleasure, especially when we have the opportunity to do otherwise, is no longer an option.