DREAMS BIGGER THAN LIFE

At one point, back in about 1972, I was thinking pretty big, and designed a 52 foot "trading ketch," based on the appearance of Sea Witch. I hoped to have it built in Singapore.
    The beam was almost proportional to that of Sea Witch, so she'd have a goodly cargo capacity – or plenty of space for staterooms if she were built for charter work.
     She would have been big enough to have full headroom throughout under the deck beams, so she had a huge sky-light/cargo hatch in place of the coach roof, and a small deck house. The "cockpit" was on deck rather than sunk into it, and she had the luxury of the classic "great cabin" aft, like a real old clipper.
     At least I got around to making a 1/4 inch to the foot scale model of the design while out towing oil rigs in the Java Sea – quite a come-down from my original grandiose intent. The model was built and photos taken aboard the M/V Columbia. It stayed behind with friends in Singapore when I made my departure from there in 1976. Somebody has probably sat on it and thrown it away by now. 

DRAWINGS OF 52' TRADING KETCH

     There were still large sailing junks plying ancient trade routes between Singapore and Indonesia, mostly in charcoal and poles at the time. The one shown above was probably about 60-70 foot in length. And though those junks were very broad of beam, my design was considered "too wide" to build by the builders who saw my plans.