On 12 Sep 2005 14:59:39 -0700, "akcarlos" wrote:


um do you remember any particulars on boat Joshua Slocum sailed around
the world in , I dont recall him looking like a body builder.

"Spray" was 36 feet long and easily handled by a man who not only
rebuilt her from frames to be easily handled, but by a man who had
spent his entire career on muscle-powered sailing vessels.

Today's boats are very different, and today's people, as well.

R.

rhys wrote:
On 12 Sep 2005 14:59:39 -0700, "akcarlos" wrote:


um do you remember any particulars on boat Joshua Slocum sailed around
the world in , I dont recall him looking like a body builder.

"Spray" was 36 feet long and easily handled by a man who not only
rebuilt her from frames to be easily handled, but by a man who had
spent his entire career on muscle-powered sailing vessels.

Today's boats are very different, and today's people, as well.

R.

my point was that you can have a larger yacht and sail it quite well
short crewed
without having lots of modern toys like roller furling, electric
winches etc .

On 13 Sep 2005 17:33:17 -0700, "akcarlos" wrote:


rhys wrote:
On 12 Sep 2005 14:59:39 -0700, "akcarlos" wrote:


um do you remember any particulars on boat Joshua Slocum sailed around
the world in , I dont recall him looking like a body builder.

"Spray" was 36 feet long and easily handled by a man who not only
rebuilt her from frames to be easily handled, but by a man who had
spent his entire career on muscle-powered sailing vessels.

Today's boats are very different, and today's people, as well.

R.

my point was that you can have a larger yacht and sail it quite well
short crewed
without having lots of modern toys like roller furling, electric
winches etc .

I think you mistook my meaning: I don't actually approve of a lot of
"modern toys", or perhaps I should say I approve of them selectively.
For instance, I have hank-on sails. In fact, I convert tape luff
composite sails abandoned by racers because a bird shat on them or
something *back into* hank-ons...which is seen as retrograde around my
club. I also just bought a sextant, just rebuilt an Atomic 4, and just
spent a few hundred bucks on making up preventers for my boom, because
with a new spinnaker I'm doing a lot more downwind work.

So I am old-fashioned, I suppose. Or conservative. Or prudent. Or
cheap.

However, I do maintain that if your goal is more cruising and less
repair, the most sensible thing a cruising couple can do is to get as
nearly bulletproof a boat as possible, meaning one sized to their
capabilities, and to make themselves fit as possible so that they can
run it efficiently. In some cases, this means a slightly smaller boat
than they can afford (say, 40 feet), with less crap...sorry, treasured
possessions aboard, and more money invested in better gear.

For a two-person crew, roller furling is a must at 40 feet, unless the
couple in question are Olympian in size and strength. But I would
still want the ability to have a hank-on staysail for emergencies, and
the sort of roller furling where the genoa is easily stripped. By the
same logic, I don't like in mast furling.

R.

akcarlos wrote:
my point was that you can have a larger yacht and sail it quite well
short crewed
without having lots of modern toys like roller furling, electric
winches etc .


True enough, but apparently you also forgot that "Spray" was a very old
wooden boat ballasted with loose rocks, and that while Slocum did manage
to sail around the world in her, he was also lost at sea in her.

Modern gear is better. It isn't necessary, of course, but much of it (if
intelligently chosen & properly installed) makes life while
sailing/cruising SAFER as well as more comfortable.

Fresh Breezes- Doug "Throw A Brick At A Luddite Today" King

You know there=B4s all kinds out here and it depends on what YOU want
and WHERE.

I=B4m currently sailing in the Beagle Channel. One couple we sail
alongside has a lovely steel vessel, 38=B4, they built themselves.
Cutter-rig, 18HP diesel. Sounds a little underpowered, but they=B4ve
been out for 18 years. Everything is manual except for the furling
headsails. They get everywhere they need to go and don=B4t spend all of
their time making repairs. We have two ferro-cement sailboats down here
that prove the fact that good construction can do alot. The average
=A8pleasure=A8 vessel (lots of charters down here that don=B4t count) is
probably between 45 and 55 feet. But remember, this is an extreme
environment and high-latitude vessels are a tad different from their
tropical counterparts. Modern equipment is great, but things can freeze
up down here. The lanolin-based greases solidify as our friend aboard
Sula discovered. I think most people down here in the extreme south
like modern, electric when possible, but with a good manual override.
When you want to bring in that sail or reef, you may want to do it
quickly. But if it breaks, you want to be able to handle it easily.

On a transocean passage it=B4s not much different. If you get hit in a
squall, you don`t want to spend your precious energy messing about.
Just get the sails reefed and hunker down.

On 20 Sep 2005 14:04:37 -0700, "ASG" wrote:

You know there´s all kinds out here and it depends on what YOU want
and WHERE.

snip

I think most people down here in the extreme south
like modern, electric when possible, but with a good manual override.
When you want to bring in that sail or reef, you may want to do it
quickly. But if it breaks, you want to be able to handle it easily.

Exactly. Thanks for the "out there" perspective.

R.

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:05:25 -0400, DSK wrote:


Modern gear is better. It isn't necessary, of course, but much of it (if
intelligently chosen & properly installed) makes life while
sailing/cruising SAFER as well as more comfortable.

Absolutely. Slocum probably didn't have lifelines, but probably *did*
rig preventers, etc.

I have no argument against modern equipment: modern materials
(Spectra, carbon fibre, etc.) are clearly superior in almost all
respects excepting price G. But there are multiple cut-offs, in my
opinion, between modern and useful and modern and (potentially)
dangerous gear and ideas in the bluewater yacht world. One such
break-point, for me, are assistive devices like electric winches or
windlasses: if you are older and/or weaker and/or short-handed, and
the only way you can handle that big beautiful boat is via such
devices, you are pretty well stuck if they break. You want options in
sailing, and not bringing the entire contents of a modern condo with
you on a voyage is easier than having to get a bigger boat with bigger
gear to run it.

I am rather more distressed, if not surprised, at the lack of basic
seamanship in said bigger boats than I am worried at expensive and
possibly superfluous gear that breaks. We hear more and more of
GPS-piloted boats running onto reefs, of crew unable to stop the boat
to do a MOB, with subsequent loss of life, of bozos with zero
knowledge yakking to their fellow bozos on VHF, etc.

Watching the news last night, for instance, I saw several shots of
nice big yachts in (presumably) the Florida Keys, riding out Hurricane
Rita at anchor.

Fair enough. But under what part of basic seamanship do you leave a
foresail on a roller-furler or a mainsail on a boom (in one instance
unlashed and with the sail cover already shredding and straining the
rode)?

This month's Ocean Navigator has a "future of voyaging" section which
is in parts a bit pessimistic in this way: it's not terrorism or high
fuel prices that will cut back on voyaging, it's the unwillingness of
a lot of cruisers to learn the basics of navigation and boat-handling
because they are focused on the gleaming saloon or the wonderful
washer/dryer in the forepeak...G

R.

Modern gear is better. It isn't necessary, of course, but much of it (if
intelligently chosen & properly installed) makes life while
sailing/cruising SAFER as well as more comfortable.


rhys wrote:
Absolutely. Slocum probably didn't have lifelines, but probably *did*
rig preventers, etc.


The ironic thing about Slocum is that his boat was an old-fashioned
anachronism, backwards to the point of comedy, even at the time he was
sailing it. And he did it that way because he couldn't afford better...
if he hadn't been flat broke, he wouldn't have gone on his solo voyage.


I have no argument against modern equipment: modern materials
(Spectra, carbon fibre, etc.) are clearly superior in almost all
respects excepting price G. But there are multiple cut-offs, in my
opinion, between modern and useful and modern and (potentially)
dangerous gear and ideas in the bluewater yacht world.

Well, don't blur the line between the gear & it's potential, and the
actual use to which many people put it.


... One such
break-point, for me, are assistive devices like electric winches or
windlasses: if you are older and/or weaker and/or short-handed, and
the only way you can handle that big beautiful boat is via such
devices, you are pretty well stuck if they break.

Yep- and unless you have the technical knowledge to maintain them well,
they will break constantly. Another bit of irony, if you *do* have that
knowledge then you can probably fix it yourself as well.

In this hi-tech age, it's still good advice IMHO to not have anything on
your cruising boat that you can't fix yourself. And it's a still a very
achievable goal.




I am rather more distressed, if not surprised, at the lack of basic
seamanship in said bigger boats than I am worried at expensive and
possibly superfluous gear that breaks. We hear more and more of
GPS-piloted boats running onto reefs, of crew unable to stop the boat
to do a MOB, with subsequent loss of life, of bozos with zero
knowledge yakking to their fellow bozos on VHF, etc.

Right, but you seem to want to blame it on the VHF, the GPS, the
autopilot, etc etc. This is like blaming forks & spoons for obesity.

The real problem here is one of cultural relativity... when we go
cruising we want to "get away from it all" but many try to take it all
with them... including their consumer-based cultural values. Those of us
who plan our lives with a bit of common sense don't fare so poorly!



Watching the news last night, for instance, I saw several shots of
nice big yachts in (presumably) the Florida Keys, riding out Hurricane
Rita at anchor.

Fair enough. But under what part of basic seamanship do you leave a
foresail on a roller-furler or a mainsail on a boom (in one instance
unlashed and with the sail cover already shredding and straining the
rode)?


Doesn't bother me a bit, except that they drive up insurance rates for
the rest of us.


This month's Ocean Navigator has a "future of voyaging" section which
is in parts a bit pessimistic in this way: it's not terrorism or high
fuel prices that will cut back on voyaging, it's the unwillingness of
a lot of cruisers to learn the basics of navigation and boat-handling
because they are focused on the gleaming saloon or the wonderful
washer/dryer in the forepeak...G


A regular poster here had an answer for that, can't remember the exact
phrase. Something to the effect of "If you think learning to navigate is
boring, just imagine how exciting it is to hit the rocks!"

Don't worry, a lot of these boats will be for sale cheap. Lack of
interest will bring down marina prices too.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

In article , DSK
wrote:

A technologist would express a 'blue water' boat as designed with all
critical components specified with a safety factor of 4 or more; a
coastal boat @ 3, a 'production' coastal boat @ 2.

What I mean by safety factor is the deduction of stress imparted to a
structure such as having a stainless steel component with 90,000 psi
ultimate properties and designing the *function* at 22,500 psi applied
stress ..... for a safety factor of 4. If you discuss such with the
reknown designers of 'blue water' boats they will relate that they do
design with such a 4X safety factor, more if the boat is going to the
'high latitudes'. They will also give you a lighterweight coastal
design of the exact same size, shape & configuration but at SF of 3, or
you can buy a 'production' boat that sometimes approaches SF of 2.

I like that one Doug... and it does get mighty exciting when you crawl
onto your first sand bank let alone a rock...

I am amazed at the number of people I meet who can=B4t REMEMBER how to
take a fix and plot their position on a paper chart. We all learn these
things, but without practice, it=B4s rather pointless. When you need it,
you=B4re probably going to have so many distractions that you won=B4t
remember what you=B4re doing in time to dodge the island... These things
need to be instinct, and the best way is to run your =B4manual=B4
charting and DR alongside your GPS and electronic plotter. This keeps
you practiced and makes for an interesting comparison between charts.
In southern Chile and Argentina, some of our charts are off by as much
as 2 nmiles. And those are the paper charts (believe me, the
electronics are worse).

..=2E.guess I should get off my soapbox now and go practice some running
fixes now.... ; )