DSK wrote in message ...

[snip good stuff]



As a natural pessimist, I want to build the 'ultimate-unsinkable'
craft, which will weather the worst that the sea can inflict;

As a natural pessimist myself, let me assure that such a thing does not exist.
The ocean is incredibly powerful, it can tear up battleships & supertankers when
it's in the mood to.
__________________________________________________ ______________________________
The only answer for surviving such conditions in a small
sailboat is.... be elsewhere....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After noting all of the very sage advice throughout this thread, I
suspect this is in fact the zen-essence of seaworthiness: minimize the
statistical likelihood that you will be caught in an ultimate storm &
trust the balance of fate to the Sea Gods & your own contingency
planning. On this point one of the less funny things that has
happened to me, is watching the Skipper of a sinking Indonesian ferry
- overloaded with wailing Indonesians - throwing prayer leaflets off
the bow in order to appease the Sea Gods.


That said, a high ballast displacement ratio and full positive flotation make a
lot of sense for ocean passagemaking sailboats.



[edit]

I agree with you, it's not a black and white situation. I have respect for
the sea but too often,
questions about seaworthiness reflects a fear of the unknown.
I lost a few friends at sea, one very close and after that loss, for while,
I had a real but irrational fear of making any passage longer than 50 NM.
It's gone know but respect for the sea is still there.
My attitude is more of a "Inch'Allah" type: I do all what I can to have a
good boat and be well prepared, to a point and after that, I'll handle it as
it comes.
Your words: "quasi-mystical insight into the awesome power of the sea" are
exactly how I feel.

Respect for the sea doesn't mean that passive safety should be an
overwhelming priority in choosing a boat or a design, that's what I wanted
to say.

--
Jacques
http://www.bateau.com


"Peter Ward" wrote in message
...
Just to finish the story - the above-mentioned experience gave me a
quasi-mystical insight into the awesome power of the sea. For anyone
who's never heard the obscene shrieking of triple screws unsheathed
from the brine at full power for minutes at a time as a gargantuan
vessel pitches, rolls & yaws simultaneously to the extremes of the
envelope; followed by the thunderous explosion of a flat-face bow
smashing into a bottomless trough at thousands of tonnes mass ...then
loop the sequence for hours on end; it's probably difficult to conjure
just what horrors the sea can deliver I now understand why
coconuts-in-husk are probably the only *_truly seaworthy_* design.

However the 'takeaway' from all of the exceptionally good advice on
offer in this thread appears to be that 'seaworthiness is a
multi-dimensional challenge' & preparing for the worst involves
garnering a wide range of skills & resources ...including a first rate
liferaft & epirb.

If "fear of the sea" inspires one to take every precaution possible
right from the getgo, in order that others will not have to put their
lives at risk in order to extract one from what would otherwise be
one's watery grave; then surely its not such a bad thing?

On 11 Nov 2003 22:55:45 -0800, (Peter Ward)
wrote:

"Jacques Mertens" wrote in message ...

Yacht design and especially boat building materials have progressed since
the designs you list. They may have been the best 100+ years ago but it's
like saying that the Ford model T is the best car ever built!

Point taken; however, I can't help but note that modern mathematicians
are coming round to the view that the archaic 'oceanic lateen' sail
design - developed by ancient Polynesians over 4,000 years ago - is
actually more 'efficient' than the modern Bermudan.

That requires an extraplanetary definition of 'efficiency,' having
nothing to do with making boats go.

This must be the same "mathematician" that thinks a bumblebee can't
fly.


I would have
thought it quite possible that the 'ye olde worlde' designers may well
have hit upon the 'Platonic Ideal' of ultimate seaworthy hull design
via the school of very hard knocks & near-death epiphanies.


If you think the previous is possible, then this is equally possible.


Try some books like "Seaworthiness" by Marchaj or check books by Dave Gerr.
It is undeniable that the boats who rcae aorund the world today are more
seaworth than a Colin Archer.

I'm sure you're correct - but are they "more seaworthy" because of
superior design or superior construction or a mix of both?

The two are inseparable. Superior materials free up the design
constraints imposed by heavy, low-strength, materials.

There is no reason to doubt that highly-evolved old designs were
excellent adaptations to the possibilities of stone-age boat building
on, say, a Pacific island.

The same could be true of a Colin Archer for North Sea lifeboat
service in 1880.

I am quite sympathetic to experimental archaeology, having spent 12
years of my life making 17-century harpsichords, with ever-earlier
woodwoking techniques. There are musical reasons for adopting the old
ways and materials.

When it comes to sailing, I would rather just go sailing, and I want
the best-sailing boat I can afford.




Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a


"Curse thee, thou quadrant. No longer will I guide my earthly way by thee." Capt. Ahab

Hi

"Jacques Mertens" wrote in message ...
Respect for the sea doesn't mean that passive safety should be an
overwhelming priority in choosing a boat or a design, that's what I wanted
to say.

Now if a junior in a boxy Optimist capsize usealy nothing bad happen
except some wet clotches, but if some 60 year old stand up in the 8
feet dinghie at a cold evening with a bit wind , the boat will soon
drift away before the guy reach the surface again, and if you prepare
a jurney with the clotches you would use for a ride on a bike or think
you can use clotches that will soak and get heavy in water , you are
not preparing any passive safety, realy _that_ is where you shuld
remember the "respect" ; with those small things ,like knowing that
you can proberly not alone get back on land while after a short time
in cold water you lost your pover, and can not maneage alone.
What I want to say is, that it is strange spending lots of money on
trivial everyday things , and still have a life jacket that is 20
years old that you never tried if realy work and is impossible to tie
right. ------- As when you are there in the water, you only can think
_one thing at a time_ if you even can think, and things must be _easy
and work.

P.C.