Steel Magnolia Principal Particulars
Steel Magnolia is a custom designed steel trawler built in Nova Scotia. While she’s certainly not a sleek floating condo like you see in all the boating magazines, she has a certain shippy look that appeals to me. Her interior is comfortable and functional, and includes some beautiful cherry millwork. What sold me on the boat is the engine room which is spacious and perfectly laid out. Everything is accessible for maintenance, which helps maintenance get done. The original drawings from E.Y.E. Marine in Nova Scotia give the following basic information about the boat:
Principal Particulars
Length, Overall 51’ 11-1/4”
Length on DWL 47’ 5-15/16”
Breadth, Moulded 15’ 3-3/4”
Max Depth, Skeg to Sheer 12’ 11-1/8”
Draft to DWL 5’ 9-5/16”
Displacement 36 Long Tons
Cruising Speed 8 knots
Propulsion 370hp @ 2600 RPM
For any boat people out there, following is a discussion of some of the major aspects of the boat:
Fuel
The boat holds 3,356 gallons of diesel fuel. I don’t yet have exact consumption figures, but assuming about 3,000 of that amount is actually usable and assuming 6 gallons per hour at 8 knots, the boat could cruise for about 500 hours on a full tank giving her a range of 4,000 miles. At a slow cruise of 6 knots, I’m guessing the range would exceed 10,000 miles. I doubt we’ll take any trips of that distance and, in fact, we may never fill the tanks at all, unless I want a hedge against inflation in fuel costs. Some friends have suggested I take her down to Venezuela where I understand diesel is around 28 cents a gallon, fill her up, and bootleg the fuel back here to sell at a profit.
The fuel is stored in two wing tanks of 1310 gallons each, a center tank of 651 gallons, and a day tank of 85 gallons. The engine and generator actually run off the day tank so fuel is pumped there from any of the other tanks. The system did not have a filter as fuel is pumped to the day tank so we have added an Algae-X FSP 750A fuel “polishing” system to circulate and filter fuel. This needed to be added as, with huge tanks and low consumption, fuel is likely to sit around awhile on this boat.
There is one fuel fill on the starboard side of the boat and valves are opened in the engine room to determine which tank is being filled.
Electrical
At the dock, A.C. power was derived from two 120-volt/30-amp power cords which could be connected to either the bow or the stern of the boat. With a splitter device, these could be combined to plug into a 240-volt/50-amp shore plug if that was available. These two cords supply 3,600 watts each to the boat (120X30) for a total of 7,200 watts, or 7.2 kilowatts. This setup proved to be hopelessly inadequate as you could not, for example, run heat or air to both cabins at the same time. Thus, we replaced this system with a 220 volt/50 amp shore cord giving us 11 kilowatts of shore power. At sea or at anchor the boat is generously supplied with 15 kilowatts of power from a Northern Lights generator. For D.C. power, there is a separate engine starting battery, a separate generator starting battery, two batteries in series to run the bow thruster, and five huge 8D (275-amp) house batteries. The house batteries supply many of the light fixtures on board, water pumps, the electronics, and also feed power to a 3 kilowatt inverter wired to run many of the A.C. items on the boat. Thus, if you want to anchor quietly, or whenever you don’t need air conditioning or cooking, everything necessary can be run from the batteries without running the generator.
Water
Steel Magnolia holds 553 gallons of freshwater in a tank which is filled using a hose on deck. We have added a watermaker which converts sea water to fresh water for use in such places as the Bahamas or on long journeys where fresh water is unavailable. Sewage is stored in a 200 gallon “black water tank” which can be pumped out at marinas or dumped overboard with a pump at sea. “Gray water” from sinks and showers on the lower level is also stored in a 200 gallon tank which can be pumped overboard. Emergency bilge pumping is handled by either a large A.C. powered pump or an engine-driven pump connected to a very complex manifold which allows valves to be opened to pump out of any area of the boat. This same system allows sea water to be pumped to on-deck hose bibs for salt water washdown of the boat.
Displacement
Even people interested in boats might find this discussion quite boring, but the subject of a boat’s “displacement” is often quite confusing, so I thought I might explain here how the term is used. If you have no interest, I’m not offended. Just skip on to something else that floats your boat.
As you see in the “principal particulars” above, Steel Magnolia is described by the naval architect as having a displacement of 36 long tons. A long ton is 2,240 pounds as opposed to a regular ton being 2,000 pounds, so 36 long tons is 80,640 pounds. “Displacement” technically means that the boat will “displace” water having a weight of this amount. What no one tells you is that a boat floating will displace water equal to the weight of the boat, just as if I climbed on a balance scale, I would displace lead or something else equal to my weight. So, why don’t they just call this the weight of the boat? I guess just so we can all spend time figuring out the terminology.
In real life, the displacement of a boat is constantly changing as fuel, water, equipment, etc. are added or subtracted. Naval architects calculate the displacement using average loads but boats always seem to weigh more than these calculations. When Steel Magnolia was hauled out during our survey, the lift indicated a weight of just under 100,000 pounds. If I filled her with fuel, that would add another 15,000 pounds. Cargo ships are often described in terms of their “deadweight tonnage” which is the difference in their displacement empty vs. fully loaded with cargo.
One interesting aside is that a cubic foot of salt water weighs 64 pounds while a cubic foot of fresh water weighs 62.5 pounds. Thus, when this boat moved from the Great Lakes to salt water, she displaces the same weight of water but it is fewer cubic feet. Therefore, the boat sits slightly higher in the saltwater than it does in fresh water and has less draft. Whether this affects speed in any way, I’m not sure, but it has not been detectable.
To make things vastly more complicated, there is a completely different measurement of boats described as net and gross tonnage, and these numbers are used by the Coast Guard in “documenting” vessels and in licensing captains for different sized ships. My old boat never weighed more than 90 tons when it was hauled out but it had a gross tonnage on the documentation certificate of 103 and a net tonnage of around 80 tons. Gross tonnage is simply a measurement of the interior volume of a vessel in units of 100 cubic feet, each unit equaling a “ton”. Net tonnage is the same measurement but subtracting out the volume in places where cargo cannot be carried such as the engine room, crew quarters, etc. I have no idea why 100 cubic feet equals a ton or why these measurements would be used at all on a pleasure boat, but it does give some idea of the size, not the weight, of the boat.
So there you have it. Steel Magnolia’s official displacement or weight is 80,640 pounds while she really currently weighs around 100,000 pounds with little fuel on board. Her gross tonnage is 66 tons and her net tonnage is 52 tons.
Ballast
While we’re on the subject of weight, the builder of the boat recommended that it have a large amount of ballast added to the bow section (chain locker) of the boat. The former owner did part of this with lead ballast, part with the weight of the anchor chain, and then filled the entire chain locker with water to balance it out. The water is not a good idea as it can cause rust if there is a scratch anywhere in the paint inside the locker and because it puts weight higher up in the boat than lead placed in the bottom of the locker. The boatyard took everything out so we could start over and faxed me that they had removed 200 feet of anchor chain at 528 lbs., 525 gallons of water at 4,368 lbs. and 92 lead “pigs” weighing 28 lbs. each or 2,574 lbs. Whew!
We got rid of the water and added 200 feet of chain, put back the lead in a more orderly way, and added about 3,500 lbs. of new lead to get back to sitting level.