HOME PAGE

 Advertised in BoatPoint click here for details

Let me start with the name of the vessel, ALCATRAZ, a word most associate with prison. If that is what she is there’d be a lot more crime, I think. The name was inspired by my children’s initial reaction to what may be involved in helping me with the build and my admiration of Pelicans, called “Alcatraz” in Spanish.

Since launch in October 2006 Alcatraz had extensively cruised South Australian waters and circumnavigated Tasmania and this website documents some of the build history, some of my travels, maintenance and modification history. The content of the site has been altered on an on going basis to incorporate new experiences without exceeding my providers space limitations and this latest change will now switch the emphasis to illustrate the boats features and has necessitated the dropping of some of the previous content.

Alcatraz during her excursions in South Australian waters, which offer exceptional cruising destinations, yet that at times can be cool, rough and windy and the Tasmanian adventure, has demonstrated that she can handle these conditions with ease whilst providing the crew with comfort and security. Her foam sandwich construction whilst strong and rot proof, provides very good insulation and the crew has not suffered major discomfort in the heat (40 dC +) or cold freezing nights in Tasmania when we had ice form on the deck.

Experience to date has demonstrated that the equipment and instrumentation levels are in keeping with the demands of coastal cruising. However provisions were built in to facilitate desalination, air conditioning and power generation equipment. Our cruises further demonstrated that the layout, furniture and storage facilities handle 4 person, 2 week trips away from civilization without any sacrifice to comfort.

To provide for a comprehensive understanding of what Alcatraz offers I added links, at the top of this page, to a comprehensive high resolution set of photo’s and an extensive description / inventory, which I think fully describe the boat and what it offers. If you like what you see please contact me, via email link on top or phone, to discuss any outstanding issues and where to go next.

Despite being, “For Sale”, I intend to continue to use the boat and am planning a extended trip to Western Australia at the end of 2011, early 2012, as I understand the sale process can and is likely to be protracted. Finding a good home for Alcatraz will however be, the priority.

SAILING

Since the launch she has done many trips to Kangaroo Island and the Spencer Gulf as these waters offer fantastic sailing, fishing, snorkeling, many anchorages and great weather (during the season) with no need for overnighters. Most of our trips entailed 30 -50 mile days, occasionally 90 and these were all achieved without leaving at the break of dawn and with daylight anchoring, time for fishing and drinks, before the sunset at the other end. The trips to the West coast of Eyre Peninsula and Tasmania circumnavigation can be accessed by the following links, as can some of the non-sailing activities that go with boat ownership, maintenance and modifications to improve the vessel.

BUILD RECORD

This web site was first established to share my experiences during the build of ALCATRAZ, but soon out grew the space provided by my ISP and once my e-mail's started bouncing I was forced to omit material to publish the updates. I also had to scale back a feature I liked providing, big enlargements of the illustrations (by clicking on them) as these provided for a more detailed study.

The final record comprises of 29 Chapters, some of which never appeared on the web as I didn't finish writing them until after the launch. To provide for simpler navigation I compiled a "linked" Index listing all the chapters, topics and items of interest, a copy of which can be accessed using the link in the title bar.

The latter Chapters, services and furniture, are not F41 specific and may well be of interest to those of you building other designs.

Only some of the original Chapters and excerpt of some of the new ones are available on this site and these can be accessed by the active links (colored) of the Index or via the table below.

On completion,prior to transportation I took a set of High Resolution pictures (approx. 0.5Mb ea.) and these can still be viewed at http://www.digitalvagabond.net/alcatraz courtesy of a fellow F-boat builder.

NB: I did not "clean" up all the broken links in these excerpts so you may get some error messages.

I have not duplicated information available from Ian Farrier's site www.f-boat.com

The complete build record as outlined in the Index, including all the other build photos (672 Mb) is available on CD for A$ 100 (Australia) and US$ 120 (rest of world). Those interested, wanting to know more detail, or with queries/comment, please contact me by e-mail.

This site has been accessed

times since Nov 2010