Weighing in on the MOVE! | Sailing Blog - Technical Hints and Tips - Sailing Television

Weighing in on the MOVE!

Two-Step has been sold here in Malta! We are very happy about this since Malta is one of our favourite places – now we will have an excuse to come back and visit. The buyers are planning to sail her here and around Greece, an probably further afield in the future. Sheryl and I will be doing one more short cruise on her over the next two weeks – then packing up our gear and shipping it up to the UK, where we pick up the new boat in September!!

SO this weeks blog is on STUFF ON A BOAT THAT HAS ACCUMULATED OVER 18 YEARS!!!!

I started this project by trying to work out how much weight we might be adding to the new boat as we put gear on her. I was trying to figure how much impact all our stuff would have on the waterline and trim of the new boat. Although I am keen on many of the new gadgets and comforts available to sailors, I do believe there is a limit to how much equipment you can safely add before the boats handling is impaired. So my project started off by noting the weights for everything we were proposing to add to the new boat. This project is ongoing as we add and subtract gear from the plan. I will post a list with weights in a few weeks.

Meanwhile I realized that the general accumulated gear that were planning to move from Two-Step to the new boat would weight substantially more than all the toys I had been worrying about. So I have created a spreadsheet and am in the middle of systematically weighing the contents of every locker, itemising the contents and putting them in a spreadsheet. Rather than list each item I sometimes group a few and list the bunch and where they are such as “Port Bookshelf : cookbooks – 4.4Kilograms” (10 pounds). At this point the list has almost 300 entries, total weight is 571Kg and I am just 2/3 of the way done!!

The fun part of putting it on the computer is that I can find such interesting trivia as...

  • All gear stored in or forward sleeping cabin weighs 135Kg and in the Saloon (not including Galley and Quarterberth) weighs 213Kg.
  • Together all three cockpit lockers contain 200Kg of gear.
  • Books weigh a startling 69Kg and that doesn't yet include the paperbacks we keep in the Quarterberth
  • The category of “food” has a number of entries totalling 59Kg and we are quite low on provisions at the moment. Wine alone weighs 21Kg and we usually have at least 2-3 times as much. (Hey – we're in the Med!)
  • All the ropes stored in lockers total 28Kg and doesn't include any running rigging – mainly dock lines and a spare 60 meter anchor rode - 10Kg.
  • I have everything in a category such as food, electronics, books, clothes, and NGATI (Never Got Around To It) Items I bought but haven't installed. This is actually at it's lowest in years but we still carry 5Kg of stuff I never installed!
  • Clothing totals 69Kg and in the interests of political correctness I an not going to reveal whether “pink or blue” clothes are heavier ;-)

I guess the key here is that our boat is just 37 feet long and we do try to keep an eye on total weight on board – but still we will likely have more than 800Kg (almost 1800 pounds) which is heavier than a Smart Car (Smart Fortwo weighs 730Kg). So the next time you are thinking of stocking up on cheap beer just to save a few dollars – consider that 4 cases of 24 cans would add almost 40Kg. And you can forget taking up rock collecting!!

I am also working on a weight distribution plan for the new boat. Over the years we have repainted the waterline on Two-Step to cover her overweightness. I am hoping the new boat will not suffer the same fate! See you next time...
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