"Jim Cate" wrote in message
...

I'm getting a boat that's capable of motoring in 1.5 feet of water and
sailing offshore, motoring at 18 knots


No its not. If that's what the salesman told you, he lied. And shame on
you
for believing it. The web site was quite emphatic that it could only do
that
with no rigging, no ballast, one person on board, in a flat calm. Maybe
loaded
up you'll do 12, if its flat.


If you say so, Jeff.


Its not, its their own web site. First, they claim 22 MPH, which is a bit over
18 knots. But, they admit that's with a stripped boat, one person, no ballast.
They say ballast drops it 3 mph, so we're down to a bit over 15 knots. Then we
have to subtract one knot for each 100 pounds. Start with a mast, rigging and
sails and we're under 14. How about another adult and 2 kids, with food,
clothing, etc. That pretty easily brings it down to 10 knots, and we're still
assuming flat seas. This is still faster than most smaller sailboats, but not
that much faster.

In fact, it really means that if it takes you an hour to get 10 miles to open
water, another boat might take and extra half hour. However, once there,
however, you have a **** poor sailboat. For the same 32K the mac cost, you
could have had a vastly superior used boat.