Tag: vessel

The S/V Proteus compared to…

Occasionally, we are asked by people who hear that we live on a sailboat…

“Gosh, that sounds really small…!”

or

“So… how big is it?”

or

“Can you stand up?”

I can rattle off all the data, but since most people in the world have never been on any sailboat – let alone one specifically 42ft 6inches long – the specific size remains acutely nebulous. But, as a thought experiment, it is kind of fun to think: “Well, how big is it, really!?”

Let’s (completely arbitrarily) compare the S/V Proteus to…

…a whale shark.

Male_whale_shark_at_Georgia_AquariumThe average weight of an adult whale shark is around 20,500lbs (or 9300kg). And the whale shark is one pretty serious creature. If you’re a shark aficionado and want to compare sharks, that’s almost three times the size of the average Great White Shark. If you’d rather stick to the whale side of the whale shark, you’re looking at a weight similar to some of the larger male killer whales (orcas) on record. That pales in comparison to the mass of a typical blue whale that average in the 400,000lbs (181,000kg) range.

So, Proteus weighs about a 20th of the weight of a blue whale. (Good grief, that’s huge.)

…a typical American school bus.

You know, the full-length yellow ones? The regular yellow/orange school bus that pick up kids all across the United States averages around 42ft. Some are longer (up to 45ft) and some states require their school buses to be no more than 41ft. But, in general the typical school bus measures just about the same length as Proteus.

Strangely enough, many of the school buses I saw online had a similar curb weight (empty) to Proteus, as well. Where the two comparisons diverge is the fact that a school bus is merely 100 inches (2.5m) or so: the Hunter Passage 42 is just under twice that width.

…a Honda Element.

Yes, the much critiqued original boxy SUV is almost exactly the same length (depending on the model year) as the beam of S/V Proteus at 14 feet (or 4.26m). And everyone knows what the infamous Element looks like, right? Coincidentally, I used to drive one of these strange people-carriers, and we have had more than a few adventures together all over the eastern United States.

If a Honda Element is too tough to wrap your head around, the S/V Proteus is wider than a highway lane in the USA and UK M-roads (measuring 12 feet, or 3.65m). So you couldn’t very well get her down a road without blocking traffic or having a big “WIDE LOAD” across the back. However, you could lay an elephant down inside: the average African elephant is 14ft.

…a Boeing 747.

Who hasn’t been impressed by the uber-massive Boeing 747’s sitting at the gate!? Well, the only real similarity between a 747 and S/V Proteus is the height of the tail off the ground. Our mast is very close to the same height at about 61 feet (18.6m). Granted, that might be reaching a bit, so instead, let’s compare it to something a little more feasible: a six-story building.

That’s pretty tall, but a six-story building is kinda boring! How about the uprights of an NFL regulation American football goal? Actually, Proteus‘ mast is taller by almost 13 feet (3.9m). It is also taller than the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, but it is exactly the height of each of the heads (head only: not the rest of the mountain) of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and is only 4 feet shorter than the Sphinx in Giza. And it is exactly the same height as a regulation cricket pitch is long. (Whatever that is…)

…the fastest Olympic swimmer.

Actually, the Proteus‘ cruising speed is just under double the speed of Michael Phelps’ world-record setting 100m freestyle. Indeed. Michael Phelps averaged 4.4 miles per hour. We do pretty well to average 7 knots (8 mph) under full sail and efficiency. If the bottom is really clean, we can get close to 8.5 or more. Though we have pushed it up to 9 or 10 knots in a blow, we don’t like to break things.

And our maximum speed ever recorded was a *blazing* 12 knots over ground… but that was with a massive tidal stream abeam of The Needles at the Isle of Wight. Yeah, laugh if you want…

Okay, so, double the fastest human swimmer in the world, but is there anything that makes a good 7 or 8 knots on a regular basis? Not the human running speed: believe it or not, Usain Bolt busted out 24 knots, which is faster than most power yachts are able to sustain! Incidentally, Usain Bolt is 6ft 4in, which is about the minimum cabin ceiling height.

The closest I could come to 7 or 8 knots was the casual swimming speed of the average dolphin. (They can do much more than this!) It is a bit of a mystery exactly why dolphins love to play with boats, but maybe it is because they see the boats as just big casual dolphins…?

…an apartment in London.
S/V Proteus in Marina Smir, Morocco
S/V Proteus in Marina Smir, Morocco

According to the Telegraph, the average apartment in London is about 46 square meters these days. That’s a few feet shy of 500 square feet. Actually, that seems pretty small compared to what I’ve seen – and our own apartment in London – but that’s about the usable size of Proteus‘ interior. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but it was one of our deciding factors for moving aboard a boat. The apartment where we lived in central London was not quite 30 square meters: that’s just 320 square feet!

Pack all your stuff, a usable bed, a kitchen, the bathroom, and a place to sit, and you’re having trouble getting around! The Proteus has doubled our living space, given us three rooms, two bathrooms, and a bathtub! And we get a freakin’ awesome backyard… aka: anywhere on Earth.

Stay tuned…

 

What is in a boat name…?

By: Noah D.

“I think the act of naming something implies, very simply, that you’re not alone. We give names to things so we can talk about them. Once there’s a word for an experience, it feels contained somehow—and the container has a handle, which makes it much easier to pick up and pass around.”
~John Koenig (from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

The closest I’ve ever been to naming a child was when my sister named her cat. But that did not take too much deliberation, because she had been settled on ‘Dinah’ forever.

But naming something is a significant moment. It becomes the weird, specific sound that comes out of someone’s mouth that someone else hears and connects a brain spark to a real, physical thing in the world. Or it is the little particularly-arranged little squiggles on paper that cause a person to see a massive “other thing” somewhere else. In the case of a dog or a cat, it is something you’ll yell out the back door. In the case of a human, names can set a kid up for bullying or to become the next power player. In the case of a boat, it can either make people raise an eyebrow in curiosity, in indifference, or in commiseration.

I’m fascinated by Plato’s concept of Forms. I had a comparative religious philosophy professor simplify it to a simple (but very Socratic) question: “At what point does a table cease to be a table?” At some point, you will no longer consider a table-like object a table. Maybe it would be too small and be a stool. Maybe it would be too large or have solid sides and become a desk or a counter-top. But whatever you think of as “table-ness” is in your mind somewhere with boundaries (even if they are rather blurry at times).

Naming a boat takes on a slightly different slant. It is already a boat, of course; but when a boat gets a name, it then becomes what everyone else sees even when you (as the owner/skipper/master/captain) are not present. (And, when you are present, you get grouped in by your boat first and the people who are on it only if they know you personally: “Oh, that’s John and Jane of the _______!”) Far be it for anyone to judge, but you must admit, if you have spent any time around any marinas anywhere in the world you will likely see more than one boat with a truly ridiculous name.

So, Lynn and I have settled on a name. If you’re reading this blog, you obviously know that Proteus is written all over the place for no other reason. I’ve been consternating my soul for some time now about it. I wrote long lists of names, hunted the internets, and called up all manner of references and descriptions to come to just the perfect name. Lynn came up with one: “Proteus.”

Before you think there was any strong-arming or argument involved, let me tell you who/what Proteus was. Proteus was a mythological deity of the sea, oceans, and great rivers. But, more than that, he was the shepherd of the sea creatures and keeper of the wisdom of earth. Kings and conquerors sought Proteus because he apparently was so wise that he could foretell the future. To evade his pursuers, he was known to shape-shift into any number of natural things. From this, the term “protean” is derived, with positive connotations of versatility, flexibility, and adaptability.

Of course, the name must be Proteus.

For our purposes, and the reason why it is such a great name for our boat, Proteus is an ideal to aspire to rather than some past conquest. We are expats and travelers, sailors and wanderers. We are choosing this strange life consciously, not because it is convenient or because we can easily afford it – neither actually – but because we aspire to more than just what is “standard” or “average.” We are not taking the path of least resistance or “settling down” into whatever whirlpool sucks us in. We say: “We want to see the world.” So we will go do whatever it takes to do that. The purchase of our boat put every coastline on the planet within reach.

To be completely honest, the previous name of the boat (seen in the banner above) was not horrible. “Oscar” was actually my grandfather’s name. But a number of factor’s precipitated our decision to change the name: one being that the former owners’ new boat’s name also is related to Oscar, and we just did not want to have two Oscars in the same marina. We will be going through the proper denaming/naming ceremony, of course, to stave off any bad superstitions that might hang around. And it is kinda fun to smash champaign onto hulls…

MAR ProteusFinally, there are a number of mega-yachts and older vessels around named Proteus. There’s even this weird thing that everybody freaked about when it pounded around San Francisco Bay a few years ago: the original incarnation of the WAM-V was named Proteus. But we were hard-pressed to find many Proteus-es (Proteii?) out there in the registries. We know of one sailboat (a beautiful Oyster 655) sold a few years back, but her name may have been changed since then.

Basically, we just wanted something that, if the boat could speak, she wouldn’t be ashamed or mumble her name quietly when asked. Because we sure will be proud of her. If you look on BoatUS’s Top 10 Most Popular Boat Names list, you might see what I mean. There really are people in the world who spend tens of thousands of dollars on a boat and then paste “Aquaholic” to the hull. Seriously.

For further reading, there are a few more posts around the internet regarding naming boats, but two of the classics are Bumfuzzle’s “How to Name a Boat” post and John Vigor’s “How to Rename Your Boat” or “A Simple Denaming Ceremony” which may or may not have become standard reading for newcomers to the boat name world.

Stay tuned for the results of the ceremony…