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The 60' Aluminum Motor-Sailing Trawler-Yacht
Swallow's Nest 60
Larger Exterior Profile | Deck Plan | Interior Profile | Interior Plan
Side Perspective | Aft Perspective | Portside Perspective | Perspective Above AftSee 70' Swallows Nest Below
Copyright 2009 - 2014 Michael Kasten
General Concept
The idea behind the Swallow's Nest 60 is to create a true pelagic vessel; one that can spend long periods of time between ports of call. Optimized as a habitat for ocean travel, the Swallow's Nest 60 has a hull form similar to others in our Gulliver and Greatheart design series. This family of hulls have been derived from the ultra-seaworthy Pacific Northwest fishing vessel types, refined in this case for service as yachts.
Hull construction on the Swallow's Nest 60 is all aluminum, chosen for lightness, ruggedness, low maintenance, efficiency of propulsion, and ease of motion. The Swallow's Nest 60 particulars are:
- Moulded Length: 60' - 2"
- Waterline length: 51' - 2" (half load)
- Moulded Beam: 15' - 0"
- Water Draft: 5' - 10" (full load)
- Air Draft: 11' - 10" (light load)
- Displacement 64,500 lb. (half load)
If the design were to be converted for construction in steel, naturally the beam and hull body depth would be increased in order to carry the added weight of structure and it would in essence become a new design. In steel, a larger engine and more fuel will be required; beam will be on the order of 17 feet; average displacement will approach 80k lb depending on equipment choices.
Power
The Swallow's Nest 60 was created to take maximum advantage of the John Deere 6086 TFM. Alternate engines are the Lugger 6 cylinder Turbo, or the Caterpillar 6 cylinder Turbo. The JD or Lugger will provide a bit of weight savings over the CAT engine, yet they provide nearly the same horsepower.
The gear will be a Sabb HVP 85 E for controllable pitch, or if fixed pitch is preferred a standard Twin Disc gear would be specified. The Sabb gear is designed to provide both gear reduction and pitch control. The wheel is a three blade Controllable Pitch Propeller by Helseth, of Norway. With a CP propeller, boat speed can be dead slow, or just a bit more to troll for salmon, or quite a bit faster for tuna... The propeller always turns the same direction, so maneuvers are made simpler because there is no requirement to stop the propeller. One can just feather the blades around to reverse, etc.
Along with the sail rig, the CP propeller will contribute to maximum efficiency under power, in particular while motor-sailing when one can choose a suitable engine rpm and feather the propeller as needed in order to provide just the right boost to boat speed.
The Rig
Sails are provided as emergency get-home power, as roll dampening devices, and for the possibility of motor-sailing during passages. Motor sailing provides a synergy that has to be experienced to be appreciated... With this combination, the range of the vessel is vastly increased. When the wind favors there is the very welcome potential to spend long periods without the engine running at all.
The Swallow's Nest 60 has been shown with a gaff ketch rig, as above. A Chinese junk rig is shown below onboard the Greatheart 60, the inspiration for the Swallow's Nest design. Please see the web page on the Junk Rig for more information on the various reasons one might favor this rig. With either rig, the spars are all aluminum pipe for lightness, strength, and ease of maintenance. With a graceful taper at the top, to the casual observer the spars are usually taken to be wood.
Active stabilizers have been specified in order to provide superior roll attenuation and simplicity of use.
60' Swallows Nest - Click for Larger ImageInterior & Exterior Layout
Right forward is a "work room" to be used for interesting projects and tinkering with fun stuff along the way.
Aft of that is a generously sized owner's cabin, with "island" berth forward and plenty of storage. Aft of that are twin head compartments, so the owners have one that is private, and the kids have one to share between them.
Aft of the twin heads are two kid's cabins, each of which contains a flip-down guest berth, desk, and bureau. These two cabins are designed to be able to open to each other via a folding "accordion" type of door, which will self-stow into a pocket adjacent to the companionway. When both are open, the effect is to produce one large shared bunk room. When one or both are closed, there is 100% privacy.
Aft of the kid's cabins (still on the lower deck) is a fairly large "store room" which has been named "the basement..." Every boat needs a "garage" or "cargo hold" where the inevitable accumulation of interesting stuff can be stowed...! Just aft of the store room is an aft-located engine room.
Up in the Pilot House there are two swivel pilot chairs, which allow them to be used as lounge chairs when facing aft, or as piloting chairs when facing forward. A table with a fold-up leaf is just aft of the seats.
This design has made use of an excellent feature... a "widebody" saloon / galley area in order to maximize the interior space. In other words, the house sides have been moved out to within around 5 inches of the bulwark top. That 5 inches allows a "catwalk" to be placed at the top of the bulwark for occasional access to the house sides. The general idea with the galley / saloon / pilot house has been to keep the interior completely open, as one large space. The piloting area is thus a part of the living area, and vice versa. In the saloon / galley, a large dinette is located to starb'd, and the galley to port.
On each side of the pilot house, a door leads out to a small side deck, allowing easy access to each side for docking; up to the PH roof via a ladder on each side; and to the fore deck via a few steps. A third door is located on center right aft in the "saloon / galley" allows access to the aft deck. Due to there being no side-decks, the aft deck accommodations can extend right up to the aft face of the house.
On center aft... another cool surprise... a flip-down swim deck to provide easy access to the water; to the shore boat; or to a quay or side dock via a passerelle plank that will be arranged to swivel to either side or aft, and will also be able to articulate up and down.
Summary
The Swallow's Nest 60 is quite 'power boat like' in terms of the pilot house and general hull form, however adequate sail area has been provided for good sailing. Altogether a fine ocean traveling habitat for family adventures. As a further development of this design, please see the Swallowtail 60 which has a layout optimized for a couple, and a stronger emphasis on performance as a sailing vessel.
Design Genesis
As with our other designs in this series, the hull form for this vessel has been adapted from real trawlers - US West Coast fishing vessels which have to operate in all weathers - including in the Gulf of Alaska, a place where the ocean is... well, not so nice. Our aim has been to retain the excellent sea keeping qualities of those working craft, and to refine their lines into 'yacht' form to achieve a more easily driven hull with relatively light displacement. See the following links for vessels in the Gulliver / Greatheart series...
Greatheart 36 | Vagabond 36 | Gulliver 46 | Greatheart 48 | Greatheart 54
Greatheart 60 | Swallow's Nest 60 | Swallowtail 60 | Braveheart 53 | Braveheart 63 | Swallows Nest 70In order to achieve a proportionately longer waterline and more interior space without increasing boat length, we developed another series of designs based on the same hull form, but with a more upright stem and transom. Combined, this reduces the overhangs and increases the WL length to gain more interior space with less overall hull length. Check out the following links for boats in the Vagabond series...
Vagrant 49 | Vagrant 70 | Vagabond 50 | Voyager 52 | Valdemar 53 | Valdemar 70
Larger Swallows Nest 70 - Click for Larger ImageSN-70 Side Aft | SN-70 Above Aft | SN-70 Side Fwd | SN-70 Above Side
Please see the AVAILABLE BOAT PLANS web page.
Home | Intro | Our Design Process | Stock Design Info | Motor Yacht Designs | Sailing Yacht Designs | Prototype Designs
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