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Old 01-04-2019, 01:06 PM   #36
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: [MH] Caribbean by Night

Quote:
Originally Posted by Apollonian View Post
It may not fit your concept so well, but said wealthy patron strikes me as the kind of fellow who might take an old warship and convert it into a yacht. (Like Onassis did with the Christina.) Take a surplus Rudderow-class or a Castle-class, put new engines in, etc.... The Rudderow is 300 feet long, which gives you plenty of room but might be a bit big.

One note: one of the restricting factors on Mississippi navigation is the height of the ship; Huey "The Kingfish" Long had a bridge built on the north end of Baton Rouge that has a clearance of only 113'. The legend is that this was to keep ocean-going traffic in Louisiana, not headed further upstream.

Also: When I think '60s boats, I think hydrofoils.
I'm concerned that going too much over 150' long might interefere with the owner's freedom of movement. He likes to visit a number of harbours and it would be a hassle if he always had to anchor way off and launch a tender to go ashore in. That will do for snort visits, but he regards Galveston, New Orleans, St. Lucia, Domincia and a small number of other destinations as 'home' and would always have wanted to be able to moor for a nice long time, being able to embark and disembark using a simple gangway, when at those places.

I mean, sure, I can declare that at St. Lucia and Domincia, he has built an enormous private dock. But it's rather more plausible to decree that when the Penemue was designed in the 1960s, Kessler went for the biggest, fastest, most powerful superyacht that still wouldn't be too big for his favorite destinations and stop-offs.

I'm just not sure at what point he'd start to have trouble (I know height matters a lot as well, but for a similar design, it will correlate with length). Nor do I really know whether 150' is long enough to fit 40 people for extended periods of time, a decent tender, infirmary, workshop, armoury, library, ritual room, alchemist's lab and everything needed to keep the crew and guests sane, healthy and happy.

My gut feeling is that I'll need to scale up in all dimensions from the 'average' fast-moving superyacht at 150' to get enough space while keeping a sleek hull shape, but I have no idea by how much and at what point I need to worry about needing special facilities and not being able to use any marinas in some of the destination places.
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