I have been sailing for 50 years as far north as Maine, as far east as Bermuda, as far south as Venezuela. I spent five years living aboard, exploring the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Leeward, and the Windward Islands before ending in Venezuela. Our home base at that time was Westport, Connecticut; but upon our return, the furthest north we got was Marco Island, Florida. This is now our new home base. From there we continued sailing further through the Bahamas and the Florida West coast. After 20 years, my life changed to the point where I felt it necessary to sell my sailboat, Grendel, a Passport 40. I also sold my home and moved inland expecting my cruising days were over. However, I didn’t realize I would miss the water and cruising life as much as I did. So, I decided to once again return; however, this time at an advanced mature age, I went to the Dark Side, or shall I say the Grey side. I decided to buy a trawler.

This is where the problem began. I bought into the problem of speed: after all, I have spent 50 years happy to be able to go at six knots, exceedingly happy at seven knots, even ecstatic at eight knots, and scared sh****ss at 10 knots. If I could go at a reliable seven knots regardless of wind direction, I would be perfectly happy. The next issue is that of the economy. I have seen too many sailors sitting on their motor boats at the marina because of the cost of fuel to make a passage. Basically, what I wanted was the economy of a sailboat under power with a respectable range on a tank of fuel. In addition, it was important to have a boat that was seaworthy, that could be taken offshore and that would behave in a respectable manner in a seaway. The water and fuel capacity must be consistent with the need for longer-term travel independent of marinas. The same can be said for sufficient interior storage space for supplies. The accommodations had to be comfortable for two people with an occasional two-person sleepover.

Upon studying both new and used boats I quickly found out that the boat I visualized didn’t exist. The trawlers available appear to have one or more high horsepower engines, 300+ hp, with the necessary fuel consumption that they require. The tanks, while large, were needed to service this high usage of fuel. Typically, the water capacity was more consistent with a boat which would be spending a lot of time going from marina to marina which would be the case due to the fuel consumption. But they were big and roomy; and most, I could not imagine being very comfortable in a mature seaway. The cost of the newer boats was excessive, more than I wanted to spend. Only the cost of the 20+year-old boats came close to what I would spend, but they still did not meet my needs. It was only then that I saw an ad on a news website advertising a long-range cruiser. It was a different-looking boat resembling a North Sea Trawler with a fore cabin for sleeping and a center cockpit followed by a Pilothouse with a helm, dinette, and galley. It was 36 ft with a range of 2000 miles at 6.7 knots on a tank of fuel. Its maximum speed was 9 knots and its water capacity was 150 gal. Plus, it was incredibly well-priced. This required more attention. It was designed by an incredibly talented young engineer from the Netherlands, Ritzo Muntinga, now native to San Diego. He, with the assistance of some very talented local boat builders, came up with the design. The hull is long and narrow, 36 ft by 8.5 ft. The 8.5 ft makes it easily trailerable and naturally inexpensive to ship. I felt the boat should be 10 ft but the argument of economy is hard to counter. While it is 8.5 ft, the sides of the cabin are brought right out to the edge of the gunnels with no walk-around, making the interior space the equivalent of a boat with a 10 ft beam with a 1 ft walk-around on either side. The original idea was to manufacture the boat in San Diego, but that idea didn’t last long because of the prohibitive cost. China was a natural place to build it for reasons of lower cost, complemented by the fact that the shipping cost was moderate.* The advantage of the narrow beam and its length is that the boat occupies the space of a standard shipping container which greatly reduces the cost of shipping. The hull has a keel with a protected rudder and draws 2’9”. The air draft is 16 ft. The keel has 2000 lbs of ballast; and considering the engine, fuel, and water, there is 6600 lbs below the water line. This makes for a comfortable ride. I chose to guarantee this by adding an optional Seakeeper gyro stabilizer.

*Seapiper has now been repatriated back to the USA and is manufactured by Seattle Yachts, manufacturer of Tartan Yachts.

 The Seapiper’s hull was fashioned after the Sea Bright Skiff made popular in the latter half of the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century. Ritzo Muntinga with the use of modern computer modeling and modern hull advances optimized the most salient features of the Sea Bright skiff making, in effect, the 21st-century version of the very popular Sea Bright hull.

A tribute to the success of the Sea Bright skiff, in its day, is that it was the boat of choice for the rumrunners of yesteryear!

Naval architect Dave Gerr gives us some insight into why the design was so popular in his book “The Nature of Boats”…… “ the hulls were light and strong and their bottoms dead flat athwartships for as much as a third of their beam… this sets it apart from other boats, is its hollow box garboard or skeg……..Another plus of these box skegs is that they create plenty of additional volume down low on the centerline of the hull aft. Since the bottom of the engine can nestle down into the top of the skeg box, Sea Bright skiffs are one of the few relatively light boats that can fit engines low enough to have virtually no shaft angle (that is , their propeller is parallel to the waterline). Low shaft angles mean improved thrust and higher efficiency. At the same time, getting the engine low in the hull improves stability and reduces rolling, and what’s more, it frees up room above the engine for storage, workspace, or accommodations. Keeping weights low is one of the important contributors to making a good sea boat, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this alone accounts for much of the Sea Bright skiff’s ableness………Of course, the box garboard or skeg also acts – who would of guessed it? – like a skeg. In other words, it provides good directional stability.”

Well, the Coast Guard had to finally buy into it, to keep up with their nemesis, and they started building Sea Bright skiffs to catch the bad guys!!

My intent is not to describe the boat in detail here but rather to direct you to http://seapiper.com where you can get a complete description of the boat. What I would like to do is share with you what we did to make the Seapiper a comfortable safe cruiser.

One of the first things I did was to deal with what I consider one of the shortcomings of the design of the boat. Saying it’s a shortcoming is a bit severe since the cockpit is one of the liveable features of the design. As with everything, there is always a downside: the open cockpit lacks protection when one has to visit the fore cabin for whatever reason, mainly going to the head. Also when one opens the sliding door leading from the pilot house, particularly when underway, there is a rush of air filled with spray that meets you as soon as the door is opened. This is not a very enjoyable experience. Coupling this with the periods of unrelenting sun, I think you get my point. This was solved with an appropriately designed and constructed dodger and bimini combination extending from the fore cabin to the forward edge of the pilot house. There are clear drop acrylic curtains that can be pinned up when not in use, to protect them from the sun. Additionally, there are sliding doors at each cockpit door plus access to the fore deck on either side of the fore cabin.

We bought an 8.5 ft AB hard bottom inflatable and a 9.8 hp Tohatsu motor which I think is the largest practical for the boat. To store it, I installed Garhauer Marine davits on the stern. I mounted a winch on one of the vertical braces; and through a series of blocks, I brought both hauling leads over to the winch. There, I use an electric drill inserted in the winch to haul up the dinghy and attached motor.

The anchor well of the Seapiper is quite voluminous. I divided it into two sections: the aft section contains 200 ft of 5/16″ chain and the forward section has 200 ft of 5/8″ braided rode. The wash-down bib in the enclosed anchor compartment had been fresh water; I changed it to seawater. I also mounted a fitting and hose over the bow roller to wash the chain and anchor off as it was being raised. The anchor I chose was a Rocna 25 (55 lb) which is about the largest that could be put up there.

As I had mentioned previously, there is a significant amount of weight below the waterline in the Seapiper. My concern was, that since the hull is relatively narrow, there would be a natural tendency to roll even though all design attempts were made to the contrary. At a Miami Boat Show, I experienced the performance of a boat containing a Seakeeper Gyro Stabilizer. It was a remarkable experience; it truly stopped rolling almost instantly. I decided this is the type of insurance that was needed on our new Seapiper. The Seakeeper engineers claim that their Seakeeper 2 would reduce the roll of the Seapiper by 85-90%, and they were right. However, like all things, there is a price to pay; and that is energy consumption. The device works by spinning a heavy wheel in a frictionless environment. It takes 65A DC to do this and it takes 45 minutes for it to reach its necessary speed of 9000rpm (as a side note when you shut it off it takes 16 hr to stop spinning). Once it’s up to its rated rpm, the current reduces to 20A DC. This device and the dodger/bimini are probably the most important additions I made to the boat.

The KIWI has a 3000 Samlex inverter charger which is capable of running the two AC air conditioner compressors, one being 10,000 BTU and the other, 6000 BTU. This, plus the Seakeeper, the electronics, the autopilot, refrigeration, and the rest of the electronics plus miscellaneous electrical equipment adds up to a significant electrical load. To counter this, attention must be given to the batteries and their charging means. I chose to add a sufficient number of high-quality batteries, a high-output alternator with an equally high-output regulator plus a solar panel charging system. I added six AGM Lifeline batteries, GPL-31XT, for a total of 750AH.

I chose to replace the standard 125 A alternator/regulator with a 360A alternator made by American Power Systems. This alternator has a high output which is more than I will need but it is better to run an alternator below rating for reliability reasons. This meant not only replacing the alternator and its mounting but also the pulleys on the engine. I also added a state-of-the-art external regulator made by Wakespeed a WS500.

The solar system I chose was meant to take care of the electrical needs when at anchor: lighting, refrigeration, and other miscellaneous electrical demands. Toward that end, I chose an LG 400 W panel which I mounted on top of the pilot house on stainless steel rails extending the length of the pilot house. The controller I chose was an MPPT Smart Solar Charge Controller 100/30 made by Victron Energy.

Electronics are particularly important. My choice was Raymarine,. The operation of the Garmin that I had before was not intuitive in operation. I find Raymarine to be better in that regard. Of Raymarine, I have an Axiom 9 MFD, a remote SD card reader, EV- 200 Autopilot, Quantum Q24 Radar, Wind Speed/Wind Direction System, P319 transducer for depth and boat speed, an i70 display, SR200 XM Weather Receiver and a Smart autopilot remote. The VHF is a Standard Horizon GX1600.  A remote for the windlass and the bow thruster is from Vetus. I added a much-needed rear and engine video system by Fookoo and, last but not least, a Richie Voyager B81 Compass.

Communication is an important part of cruising. For coastal cruising, the VHF radio has always been a vital link for marine communications. However, in the present age, cell phone communication on the water is very popular, as is WiFi. You are no longer required to be in or close to a marina to get WiFi. You can get it on your cell phone: and using your cell phone as a hot spot, you can receive WiFi anywhere you can receive cell phone signals. Therefore, it behooves us to do all we can to extend the range of reception of our cell phone signal; and if you like Netflix or other streaming services, you want to expand your data usage and rate. Toward this end, I added a Poynting Omni 400, a high-performance LTE antenna to my mast, connected to a Surecall  Fusion 2GO-3 cell phone signal booster. This gives me a significantly greater cell phone range; and when using my cell phone as a hotspot, I have WiFi throughout the boat. We can watch all our streaming channels. Lately, I have been using a Verizon Jetpack MIFI 8800L as my hot spot, freeing up my phone. Also, I added a conventional TV antenna and amplifier for local stations. The 24″ TV is mounted so it swings up out of the way.

The galley is very important as is a freezer. The standard refrigerator is fine as a refrigerator but its freezer is totally inadequate. To solve this, we requested a freezer option, which is an Isotherm Bi41 which has worked out well.

To the propane stove, we added an electric combination dry fryer, broiler, oven and toaster.

The following are a number of additions that we found to be most useful.

Expansion of the comfortable seating in the cockpit. This increases seating in the cockpit when the cockpit doors are not being used, such as when underway. It makes a nice seat with a backrest while facing forward. It consists of a tubular frame mounted in the top of the cockpit seat. This frame slides back under the cockpit seat when not in use. When in use, you pull it out, attach a board to the top surface (I use a plastic board with clips to attach it to the tubes), and then add the cushion.

In the fore cabin, we added textilene panels with twist-lock fasteners in front of the shelves on each side of the bunk to make for easily accessible storage.

While we are on the subject, V-berths suck. They are difficult to get in and out of without disturbing your mate and, it gets worse the older you get! In an attempt to ameliorate the situation, I added SS handles on each of the three walls above the bunk. This makes for an easier gymnastic getting in or out of the bunk!!