On Aug 16, 11:50 pm, ":
On Aug 16, 3:01 pm, "KLC Lewis" wrote:
...

Nah, it happened long before then. Lincoln burned a pretty wide swath
through it all by himself.


" wrote
All by himself? Maybe Davis had something to do with it too...

Nah, the Constitution did not (and still does not) say a word about
forbidding states to withdraw from the union. Nor does it grant the
President authority to order military action against any states
(hence, the "War of Northern Aggression" is a perfectly factual term
for the U.S. Civil War).

Stanton did more to help Lincoln get over the Constitution than
Davis... not that I'm a big fan of ol' Jeff Davis... in fact I think
the Confederacy was one of the most selfish & retarded gambits that a
dying aristocracy has ever foisted upon it's host society.



The
Constitution is far better with the 14th and the country is infinitely
better for 13 and 15. But what does this have to do with cruising?


umm... equal rights for sailors & cruisers?

Actually, I dunno what it has to do with sailing... but I think that
sooner or later, *everything* is related to sailing & cruising
somehow.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Some years ago when you started ranting about catamarans, I made a
simple claim that you would have trouble finding any cases of
catamaran capsizes that met the following criteria: It had to be a
modern production cruising cat, not of the "crossbeam" style, or
homemade, or 40 years old; it had to be at least the size of my cat
(36'3") with appropriate beam and cruising rig; it had to be being
used for cruising, not racing or delivery. I even admitted that you
might find a few, but that it would likely be in conditions that would
put any monohull at severe risk, and that generally catamaran capsizes
end up as a story of survival, not loss.

And what have you come up with? You've scoured the web for years and
posted every story you could find, but as predicted the pickings have
been slim indeed. In fact, not a single incident you've reported fit
the criteria. Several have been 30 feet, which is generally
considered too small for serious weather. One of those was a racing
cat, and another was an very old design with a beam so narrow that it
could hardly be called a cat nowadays. Another was a crossbeam
design, with a known structural flaw. One was at anchor in a Category
5 hurricane, where many of the monohulls sank. You've even posted
links to Hobie capsizes! The Fountain Pajot Tobago 35 was close but
small and with a SA/Disp of almost 30 its rig is quite aggressive for
a cruising cat.

Further, with one exception, there was no loss of life in any of these
incidents. In that exception, a delivery crew left port and sailed
into one of the worst storms in Pacific Northwest history. Even so,
it appears everyone was on deck at the time of the capsize, and anyone
below would have survived. In fact, its possible that had someone
below activated the EPIRB (or had it been rig to automatically
activate) someone on deck might have been rescued.

And you completely ignore the fact that every year there are a number
of monohulls that sink or go missing, and that monohulls sink every
day in inland situations, even at the dock. Also, monohull sailors
are at risk every time they go forward; not so on cats. Almost all
monohulls are at great risk from collisions with logs, containers, and
whales; multihulls generally survive such episode long enough for
rescue. Incidents such as the loss of "Morning Dew" in Charleston
would be very unlikely in a modern catamaran.

On top of this, the vast majority of sailors, whether mono- or
multihull never, or very infrequently, actually go offshore, and of
those that do, most avoid the worst weather. For instance, for all of
your talk, you've never been more than 50 miles away from land; you've
never encountered conditions that could potentially overwhelm a larger
cat.

So you can rant about how you'd never sail a cat; that's fine by me.
Personally, nothing could make me spend more than a week on a 26
footer, let alone live on it for years. Why don't you explain to us
how you lost that boat?




* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 8/16/2007 9:24 AM:
Yes, cruising catamarans have something extra. As a simple Google and
YouTube search using capsize and catamaran will reveal, the something
extra is the remarkable ease with which catamarans turn turtle.

With this in mind, any potential catamaran buyer must ask himself if the
paltry advantages of a catamaran - things such as small heel angles,
slightly faster speeds downwind, more elbow room below (but not load
carrying capacity), shallow draft and largish cockpit - outweigh the
fact that sooner or later the whole shebang is going to end up
upside-down and swamped. Don't even think about what happens if you get
trapped under the thing and drown. Just think about upside-down. In
other words, everything is ruined.

Why put up with a boat that has a designed-in flaw of being more stable
upside-down than rightside-up? Is the trade-off between a platform that
doesn't heel quite as much and an upside-down platform worth it? Only
you can answer that question. It depends upon how much you love your
life and the lives of your loved ones.

I wonder when the Coast Guard is going to get some balls and declare any
and all cruising catamaran ocean voyages "manifestly unsafe voyages"
and put a stop to them?

Wilbur Hubbard

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:15:32 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:24:14 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

Yes, cruising catamarans have something extra. As a simple Google
and
YouTube search using capsize and catamaran will reveal, the
something
extra is the remarkable ease with which catamarans turn turtle.

With this in mind, any potential catamaran buyer must ask himself if
the
paltry advantages of a catamaran - things such as small heel angles,
slightly faster speeds downwind, more elbow room below (but not load
carrying capacity), shallow draft and largish cockpit - outweigh the
fact that sooner or later the whole shebang is going to end up
upside-down and swamped. Don't even think about what happens if you
get
trapped under the thing and drown. Just think about upside-down. In
other words, everything is ruined.

Why put up with a boat that has a designed-in flaw of being more
stable
upside-down than rightside-up? Is the trade-off between a platform
that
doesn't heel quite as much and an upside-down platform worth it?
Only
you can answer that question. It depends upon how much you love your
life and the lives of your loved ones.

I wonder when the Coast Guard is going to get some balls and declare
any
and all cruising catamaran ocean voyages "manifestly unsafe
voyages"
and put a stop to them?

Wilbur Hubbard

Hey Willy,

You know, every high speed ferry sailing out of Singapore is a cat.
If
the catamaran hull form is so unstable how come all the
classification
societies will classify them as passenger carriers?


I'm talking sailing cats. Not motor cats. Motor cats are heavy, heavy
and heavy. And they don't have the leverage effect of spars and sails
to
turn them over.

Wilbur Hubbard

Well, given that nearly all, if not all, l of the high speed catamaran
ferries I've been on are aluminum I'd have to say that displacement
must play some part of their planing, probably to get them as light as
possible.

The other point that you seem to disregard was that the cat mentioned
in the original post was anchored in a 170 MPH wind. And it flipped
over. During the same hurricane a large number of mono hulls were
sunk. Kinda sounds as though maybe the cat is the better solution when
we view the difference between a bottom side up catamaran and a sunken
mono hull.

By the way Willie, have you ever been out in 170 MPH winds? Do you
think your house trailer will survive 170 MPH winds? Or even a house,
if you owned one? Or perhaps you have traveled through the cyclone
belt and wondered why all those stupid people have cyclone cellars.

If you only knew . . . When it comes to tropical cyclones you can't
even come close to my intimacy with them.

My fine blue water yacht and I have been through 4 tropical storms and
12 hurricanes to date. Been aboard each and every time. The worst winds
were in Andrew and Wilma. Wilma's were stronger because I was in the
core up the Little Shark river in the Everglades. Sustained winds of
over 100 knots. Gusts to 120knots. Ten foot storm surge that had the
river running backwards and sideways over the banks with approximately a
5 knot current. Trees were snapping off like toothpicks and there's some
of the largest mangroves in the world up there. 80 feet tall in some
places. My fine yacht survived without a scratch. The worst thing she
suffered was some temporary staining from the tannic acid in the leaves
and small branches that were turned to mulch and deposited all over the
deck.

My yacht didn't turn upside down nor did she get sunk. She rode every
storm out and took them in stride. The worst any storm ever did was a
lightning strike which would have burned her to the waterline had I not
been aboard at the time to put out the fire that started in the bilge
from burning wiring and an exploded bottle of rum that fed the fire.

Real sailboats don't 'flip over' in high winds. No anchored monohull
worth a darn is going to be sunk unless it's neglected or abandoned.
It's only if the anchors drag or the mooring carries away and the boat
gets washed up on the rocks or laid on its beam ends along the shore
line when the storm surge comes in. You're attempting to fault monohulls
for the faults of their inept crew. When I see a monohull spinning like
a top in the air at the end of her anchor line then and only then will I
say the darned thing's not seaworthy. I've even been hit by a couple of
water spouts that had the spreaders in the water and she bobbed right
back up. No problem. That's the way a sailboat is supposed to react to
winds.

Catamarans are a joke!

Wilbur Hubbard

Jeff wrote:
Some years ago when you started ranting about catamarans, I made a
simple claim that you would have trouble finding any cases of
catamaran capsizes that met the following criteria: It had to be a
modern production cruising cat, not of the "crossbeam" style, or
homemade, or 40 years old; it had to be at least the size of my cat
(36'3") with appropriate beam and cruising rig; it had to be being
used for cruising, not racing or delivery. I even admitted that you
might find a few, but that it would likely be in conditions that would
put any monohull at severe risk, and that generally catamaran capsizes
end up as a story of survival, not loss.

And what have you come up with? You've scoured the web for years and
posted every story you could find, but as predicted the pickings have
been slim indeed. In fact, not a single incident you've reported fit
the criteria.

Yep... and you expected... what, exactly?
Remember who you're talking to


And you completely ignore the fact that every year there are a number
of monohulls that sink or go missing, and that monohulls sink every
day in inland situations, even at the dock.

The most common reason for monohulls to sink at the dock is because of
a failure in the potable water system, and city water pressure floods
them.

.... Also, monohull sailors
are at risk every time they go forward; not so on cats. Almost all
monohulls are at great risk from collisions with logs, containers, and
whales;

Nah, most monohulls are too slow for such things to present much risk.
Might as well worry about icebergs.

Aside from that, it's quite easy to reduce the risk by adding
bulkheads, flotation, a layer of kevlar (or better yet, choose a
kevlar boat to start with), etc etc.


.... multihulls generally survive such episode long enough for
rescue. Incidents such as the loss of "Morning Dew" in Charleston
would be very unlikely in a modern catamaran.

Well, IMHO if that guy had bought a catamaran (unlikely, the reason he
bought 'Morning Dew' is that it was a bargain-basement kludge) he
would have made some major goof-up and wrecked that, too. What he did
was the sailing equivalent of taking a '75 Buick with bald tires out
on the interstate and driving past a series of warning signs then off
a bridge construction site. The saddest part is that he took the kids
with him.


So you can rant about how you'd never sail a cat; that's fine by me.

Me too. Why would anyone want a jackass like "wilbur" to sail the same
kind of boat as themselves? It's notable that he has never raced, nor
sailed any one-design or high performance boat (mono or multi). Which
of course begs the question, has "wilbur" ever sailed *any* boat? Yet
another question, why feed the trolls, Jeff??

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..
Some years ago when you started ranting about catamarans, I made a
simple claim that you would have trouble finding any cases of
catamaran capsizes that met the following criteria: It had to be a
modern production cruising cat, not of the "crossbeam" style, or
homemade, or 40 years old; it had to be at least the size of my cat
(36'3") with appropriate beam and cruising rig; it had to be being
used for cruising, not racing or delivery. I even admitted that you
might find a few, but that it would likely be in conditions that would
put any monohull at severe risk, and that generally catamaran capsizes
end up as a story of survival, not loss.

And what have you come up with? You've scoured the web for years and
posted every story you could find, but as predicted the pickings have
been slim indeed. In fact, not a single incident you've reported fit
the criteria. Several have been 30 feet, which is generally
considered too small for serious weather. One of those was a racing
cat, and another was an very old design with a beam so narrow that it
could hardly be called a cat nowadays. Another was a crossbeam
design, with a known structural flaw. One was at anchor in a Category
5 hurricane, where many of the monohulls sank. You've even posted
links to Hobie capsizes! The Fountain Pajot Tobago 35 was close but
small and with a SA/Disp of almost 30 its rig is quite aggressive for
a cruising cat.

Further, with one exception, there was no loss of life in any of these
incidents. In that exception, a delivery crew left port and sailed
into one of the worst storms in Pacific Northwest history. Even so,
it appears everyone was on deck at the time of the capsize, and anyone
below would have survived. In fact, its possible that had someone
below activated the EPIRB (or had it been rig to automatically
activate) someone on deck might have been rescued.

And you completely ignore the fact that every year there are a number
of monohulls that sink or go missing, and that monohulls sink every
day in inland situations, even at the dock. Also, monohull sailors
are at risk every time they go forward; not so on cats. Almost all
monohulls are at great risk from collisions with logs, containers, and
whales; multihulls generally survive such episode long enough for
rescue. Incidents such as the loss of "Morning Dew" in Charleston
would be very unlikely in a modern catamaran.

On top of this, the vast majority of sailors, whether mono- or
multihull never, or very infrequently, actually go offshore, and of
those that do, most avoid the worst weather. For instance, for all of
your talk, you've never been more than 50 miles away from land; you've
never encountered conditions that could potentially overwhelm a larger
cat.

So you can rant about how you'd never sail a cat; that's fine by me.
Personally, nothing could make me spend more than a week on a 26
footer, let alone live on it for years. Why don't you explain to us
how you lost that boat?




Good job moving the bar, Jeff. I've posted dozens times and at least a
half dozen valid links in the past year alone of how unseaworthy
catamarans are. You can nit and you can pick and you can say, "That
ain't fair, Mom, he's not being fair!" but it won't avail you. The
pictures speak for themselves. Large cruising catamarans washed up
capsized on the beach in Oregon with loss of all hands. Pictures of
large cruising catamarans upside down off the English Coast. More
pictures of another upside down and being righted and pumped out with
total loss of mast and rigging. More reports of one turning turtle on a
simple trip across the Gulf of Mexico. It goes on and on. Keep moving
that bar, Jeff. It just makes you look like somebody who is incapable of
seeing the obvious.

Catamarans are too dangerous to be used for voyaging on the world's
oceans. They'll likely not survive a storm at sea intact. That's the
truth and you'd better start accepting it.

And your logic if totally flawed with respect to monohulls sinking. You
ignore the numbers. Your claim is like saying "Look how many Ford F-150
trucks are involved in wrecks compared to Volkswagen Microbuses?" Well,
isn't that special? Never mind there are probably ten thousand F-150s to
every Microbus. When there are a hundred catamarans voyaging and one
hears six of them turning turtle one can assume one probably doesn't
hear of six more that capsized. That's twelve out of a hundred. Pretty
unsafe by the most lax standards, IMHO!

Wilbur Hubbard



* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 8/16/2007 9:24 AM:
Yes, cruising catamarans have something extra. As a simple Google and
YouTube search using capsize and catamaran will reveal, the something
extra is the remarkable ease with which catamarans turn turtle.

With this in mind, any potential catamaran buyer must ask himself if
the paltry advantages of a catamaran - things such as small heel
angles, slightly faster speeds downwind, more elbow room below (but
not load carrying capacity), shallow draft and largish cockpit -
outweigh the fact that sooner or later the whole shebang is going to
end up upside-down and swamped. Don't even think about what happens
if you get trapped under the thing and drown. Just think about
upside-down. In other words, everything is ruined.

Why put up with a boat that has a designed-in flaw of being more
stable upside-down than rightside-up? Is the trade-off between a
platform that doesn't heel quite as much and an upside-down platform
worth it? Only you can answer that question. It depends upon how much
you love your life and the lives of your loved ones.

I wonder when the Coast Guard is going to get some balls and declare
any and all cruising catamaran ocean voyages "manifestly unsafe
voyages" and put a stop to them?

Wilbur Hubbard

"Donal" wrote in message
...

Methinks that you are some sort of socialist who would be much happier
living in the 1960's USSR -- where the state took responsibility for
everyone's actions.

Youthinks wrong!

The USA doesn't own the high seas. Why should we allow uninformed
citizens who choose unseaworthy boats to endanger citizens of other
countries who are then called upon to rescue these slackers when they
founder on the high seas?

Look what New Zealand has done. You have to pass an inspection to assure
seaworthiness in order to be cleared out of that country. Are they
socialist or just more responsible and aware of their responsibilities?
One thing is for sure, they are tired of the expense and danger to their
citizen's lives incurred because their rescue service has to go to the
aid of way too many idiots and fools.

Wilbur Hubbard

wrote in message
oups.com...

Me too. Why would anyone want a jackass like "wilbur" to sail the same
kind of boat as themselves? It's notable that he has never raced, nor
sailed any one-design or high performance boat (mono or multi). Which
of course begs the question, has "wilbur" ever sailed *any* boat? Yet
another question, why feed the trolls, Jeff??


Never raced? I suggest you look up the race history of my Swan 68,
Chippewa. A Google search will open your eyes.

Your definition of trolling is flawed. When posts are on-topic and about
boats and posted in a boating group they are hardly trolls. I've noticed
when some people decide they don't have the mental capacity to engage in
debate, rather than trying to learn some debating skills they resort to
name-calling. This makes you look awfully small.

Jeff is a worthy debating opponent. He even manages to win one from time
to time. . . You, on the other hand, are a sniveling little wimp who's
yet to win one. Now, run along.

Wilbur Hubbard

On Aug 17, 1:41 am, wrote:
....
(hence, the "War of Northern Aggression" is a perfectly factual term
for the U.S. Civil War).
....

Well we've found a more divisive topic than multihulls as cruising
boats. The question of State's Rights is a vexed one and was hotly
argued at the Constitutional convention where the founders punted in
full knowledge that the question would come back and bite them. Some
(Madison, Adams, etc) clearly thought that art VI did mean that the
federal rule was to be supreme and thus (says he, time warping) any
succession could only be legal with the blessing of the federal
government. Of course, there were very strong opinions on the other
side (and there was Jefferson who, typically, managed to argue both
sides) and the horrible result was the Civil War. A vast number of
words has been written on this topic and the arguments still persist
so I doubt we'll solve it here, but I'd be content to concede to
everything you wrote if you just change "perfectly factual" to
"reasonably arguable".

-- Tom.

wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 17, 1:41 am, wrote:
...
(hence, the "War of Northern Aggression" is a perfectly factual term
for the U.S. Civil War).
...

Well we've found a more divisive topic than multihulls as cruising
boats. The question of State's Rights is a vexed one and was hotly
argued at the Constitutional convention where the founders punted in
full knowledge that the question would come back and bite them. Some
(Madison, Adams, etc) clearly thought that art VI did mean that the
federal rule was to be supreme and thus (says he, time warping) any
succession could only be legal with the blessing of the federal
government. Of course, there were very strong opinions on the other
side (and there was Jefferson who, typically, managed to argue both
sides) and the horrible result was the Civil War. A vast number of
words has been written on this topic and the arguments still persist
so I doubt we'll solve it here, but I'd be content to concede to
everything you wrote if you just change "perfectly factual" to
"reasonably arguable".

-- Tom.


Under the principle that "The Declaration of Independence Informs the
Constitution," our founders recognised that when the Government no longer
fit the needs of the People, it is their right to cast off that government.
I maintain that, regardless of the evil of "That Peculiar Institution,"
those Sovereign States which wished to dissolve their ties with the Federal
Government and create a new union had every right (both moral and legal) to
do so.

* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 8/17/2007 11:54 AM:

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..
Some years ago when you started ranting about catamarans, I made a
simple claim that you would have trouble finding any cases of
catamaran capsizes that met the following criteria: It had to be a
modern production cruising cat, not of the "crossbeam" style, or
homemade, or 40 years old; it had to be at least the size of my cat
(36'3") with appropriate beam and cruising rig; it had to be being
used for cruising, not racing or delivery. I even admitted that you
might find a few, but that it would likely be in conditions that would
put any monohull at severe risk, and that generally catamaran capsizes
end up as a story of survival, not loss.
...



Good job moving the bar, Jeff. I've posted dozens times and at least a
half dozen valid links in the past year alone of how unseaworthy
catamarans are. You can nit and you can pick and you can say, "That
ain't fair, Mom, he's not being fair!" but it won't avail you. The
pictures speak for themselves. Large cruising catamarans washed up
capsized on the beach in Oregon with loss of all hands.

One case, of ill-conceived delivery. This is the only case that
involved a fatality in years of trying.

Pictures of
large cruising catamarans upside down off the English Coast.

It wasn't a modern cruising cat, and you know it.

More
pictures of another upside down and being righted and pumped out with
total loss of mast and rigging.

A small racing cat.

More reports of one turning turtle on a
simple trip across the Gulf of Mexico. It goes on and on.

Close, but again a rather small cat, with an aggressive rig.

Keep moving that bar, Jeff. It just makes you look like somebody
who is incapable of seeing the obvious.

I'm not raising the bar, in fact I've made the same claim a number of
times over the years.

This was earlier this year:
"Actually I've rather obsessively searched for catamaran capsizes for
many years. There have been some, but very few. As I've posted a
number of times, there have been almost none that are cruising boats
over 35 feet, actually being cruised, not delivered. In point of
fact, none of the recent incidents fit these criteria."

In 2002, in response to a suggestion of a large airbag on the mast:
One problem with this is that there are very, very few cases of modern
cruising cats over 35 feet capsizing in any conditions. Smaller cats,
racing cats and trimarans may be able to make more use of it, but the
extra weight aloft might actually induce more capsizes!

In 2003, in response to a question about a racing tri incident:
"That was a racing trimaran, not a cruising cat; two totally different
boats. The have been only a handful of cruising cats over 35 feet
flipping while cruising"

In 2004:
"I'm real curious to know the model of the cat. 30 feet is on the
small size for catamaran safety because the general design which has
proven to be safe in sizes over 35 feet doesn't scale downward very well."


Catamarans are too dangerous to be used for voyaging on the world's
oceans.

That's something you'll never do, so why are you so concerned?

They'll likely not survive a storm at sea intact. That's the
truth and you'd better start accepting it.

And yet, their safety record is better than monohulls. The majority
of larger cats have probably done a long ocean passage - virtually all
of the charter cats in the Carribean got there on their own bottom.


And your logic if totally flawed with respect to monohulls sinking. You
ignore the numbers. Your claim is like saying "Look how many Ford F-150
trucks are involved in wrecks compared to Volkswagen Microbuses?" Well,
isn't that special? Never mind there are probably ten thousand F-150s to
every Microbus. When there are a hundred catamarans voyaging and one
hears six of them turning turtle one can assume one probably doesn't
hear of six more that capsized. That's twelve out of a hundred. Pretty
unsafe by the most lax standards, IMHO!

You're ignoring the fact that there are 5000 Prouts and none have
capsized. Prouts may have more successful navigations than brand of
sailboat. A similar number of Lagoons with a safety record almost as
good.

And you still haven't given us a single example that fits my criteria.
Its simple: 36 feet, modern design, while cruising. Stop giving us
ancient homebuilt racing trimarans and claiming they're representative.



Wilbur Hubbard