Doug, serious congratulations. The below is a cogent contributation on your
part.

rhys wrote:

Well, yes, that's a major trade-off. Of course, Moitessier solved that
problem in the '60s...just keep going until you arrive back where you
started! Seriously, though, current thought (when one can discern it
among all the floating rec rooms at boat shows) seems to be that
faster is better to avoid the rough stuff in the first place, which
means good upwind performance.


Well, I'm not sold on the idea that a faster boat can avoid rough
weather entirely, but there is some validity he a faster boat can get
through a smaller weather window on shorter passages... a faster boat
will be have a greater choice in which quadrant she'll take approaching
bad weather... and a faster boat is more likely to reward active sailing
techniques and spend less time in a weather system (note- "scudding
before the storm" sounds romantic but is a lousy way to spend your
weekend, plus it keeps you in the system longer).

IMHO good upwind performance is desirable in a cruising boat anyway, for
a wide variety of reasons. But then it's always a trade-off... one has
to weight what one gets against the costs... good upwind performance at
the cost of an unmanageable rig is a bad trade. However there are good
rigs that are pretty manageable...
a



... The "best world cruisers" is great for
a good BS session online, but even marginal boats in good hands can
sail pretty impressively...and some nice boats in good shape have been
found adrift because of panicky crew or idiot captains ****ing over
the side....


Absolutely. And this is one of the points I keep trying to make
(quietly, so as not to PO any more people than already have). People
have crossed oceans in vessels that were not much more than glorified
refrigerator crates. Given the skills and reasonable equipment, some
pretty bad boats can make good passages. But you can't put the skills on
your MasterCard, and the judgement to choose suitable equipment also
depends on experience and skill. Nobody's marketing this idea
aggressively, therefor it doesn't get much credence.




So, you're advocating going back to the horse and buggy?



Not at all, but some of those boats had desirable characteristics
absent from MOST...not all, thank goodness...of the current crop.
That's why there's such a steady trade in old Perry designs and Brewer
semi-customs and so on...they combine best of old and new-ish.


I'm going to paste Rich's post in here to save bandwidth


Rich Hampel wrote:
I also gotta jump into this as these Perry designs have IMHO sufficient
reserve stern buoyancy due to their quite large 'bustles' .... If you
compare to a Collin Archer type narrow stern hull then I might agree
but not a Perry design 'double ender'.
Nowithstanding that more Perry (full and long keel) design have had
probably the most circumnavigations than any other design house - has
to say something.


IMHO there are a couple of factors in play here. They are capable boats,
but they are also highly favored by well-publicized passagemakers... and
style counts for a LOT. The fact that the Seven Seas group has so many
vocal advocates of these types means that they'll get picked up by a lot
of people with the same goal... who then become vocal advocates... etc
etc. It's sort of like the British Sports Car cabal (I don't mean to
imply that these boats are anywhere near as evil as say a TR-2, just
that popularity can be self-perpetuating regardless of practicality).

All that aside, one of my favorite boats is Robert Perry's Nordic 40.



.... They also broke out the champagne any time they had a 100-mile
24 hr run.



Well, I am of the opinion that sailboats stink as transport
devices...unless you have nothing resembling a schedule, at which
point they are the best way to travel anywhere there's seven feet of
water.


heh heh my goal was four feet of water, but then in the Southeast US
that's still asking a lot.

I agree about a schedule. It's folly to try and push route and course
decisions, especially when weather is a question, for the sake of
keeping a timetable. But people cling to it... in a lot of cases it's
because of valued shoreside connections like family who are under
pressures of their own.


... If my (to be hoped for) cruising life contains anything more
pressing than "get to typhoon hole in four months" as a Post-It on the
nav station, I will have not achieved my goals in life. So bring on
the North Sea sailing barges G...ok, maybe not THAT bulletproof....


We were looking more for a given range of cubic & displacement,
rather than an LOA range. And what's wrong with complex mechanical aids?
A windlass and a self-tailing winch are both *great* ways to handle
strains than muscle alone will not.... faster and with more control than
a handy-billy.



I don't consider those complex as I could devise the same mech.
advantage with a strong point and a series of blocks and falls.


That's a handy-billy. Cumbersome & slow. Very cost effective though, as
long as an OSHA rep isn't watching.

One of the old cruising books I recently gave away had a whole chapter
devoted to clearing an anchor that was snagged on a big-ass rock
somewhere in a little Caribbean anchorage. An ex Royal Navy captain,
cruising into the same anchorage, helped the author clear it which took
all day and three handy-billys rigged at different points. But they got
a multi-ton rock clear (at one point they swamped a dinghy, which is
part of why it took so long) and the Royal Navy man said "Seamanship is
simply the art of moving impossibly heavy objects." A good point.

Having worked with professional industrial riggers moving machinery
weighing tens of tons through piping mazes, I've seen what you can do
with a couple of block-and-tackle arrangements.... but ratcheting chain
hoists are a lot better... faster, more reliable, and basically safer.
So are self-tailing winches IMHO... and the maintenance + expense hit is
not very large. In other words it appears to me a very worthwhile trade-off.

Now, we can discuss refrigeration... there's a question with many
angles... to me it appears worth it, but there are certainly a lot of
reasons against it. The costs are higher and the benefits slimmer.



...I think in some ways a
40 foot sloop is harder for a couple to handle than a 45 foot ketch,
but both are borderline unless you are quite fit. Better, I think, to
learn to live and sail with the size of boat you can manage, which may
be quite different boats at various life points.


I think the rig question is metastacizing into another sub-thread. Will
meander over there next coffee break

Fresh Breezes- Doug King