What Size ????????
 

In article DMbtf.1$WX3.0@trndny09,
"Thomas Wentworth" wrote:

My criteria: well built ( I don't care how old, just well built ),
ocean worthy, either no engine or a diesel engine [ please don't tell
me that a 35 year old Atomic 4 is fine, all you need to do it keep
them maintained ], a conservative design [ I plan on cruising not
racing ], and big enough to sail anywhere but small enough to sail
alone.

That is the question; what size? I want to have my family out with
me but if they are busy or don't care to go or if I take off for an
extended trip .......... what size sailboat [ I shudder at the term
yacht ] would be just about right for a single hander?

Here are a few of the boats I have looked at over the last few days.
A Pearson 35 [ built late 60's and one built early 70's ], and Albin
Ballad [ built 1976, Sweden? .. 29'something "'s .. not that heavy
.. has fin keel ...spade rudder ?? ... ], and a whole bunch of
boats like this.

Size is relative. We have friends in 35' boats that admire our 28's
usable space, stowage and speed. Primary, for us, was that the "V" is
larger that most primary cabins in boats shorter than about 40'. After
a decade, we've come to enjoy her combination of comfort, stowage,
speed, agility, simplicity and toughness. That we can give a second
couple overnight privacy was an unexpected plus. I wouldn't hesitate to
take her anywhere in the Caribbean or US east coast.

But your requirements surely differ, as do your sailing and
boat-handling skills. Some can single-hand 50' boats, others have
trouble with 30 footers.

Personally, I concentrate on accommodations and crew happiness first. If
they won't step aboard, the trips won't be as fun. Because my wife was
satisfied with what was important to her, she almost always accompanies
me even though she wasn't a sailor when we met.

I believe you're at a point where you should honestly evaluate all the
possibilities and rank their relative importance. For instance, I love
sailing fast, but recognize that the difference between fast and slow
isn't that great amongst the vast number of boats, and an attentive
skipper and appropriate sails will make more difference. Handling a
bigger boat either requires more strength and agility, or
reorganization, simplification and bigger winches, possibly with power
assist.

Then walk the docks and yards, actually trying the boats on for size.
Just last night, we were with friends with a slightly redesigned version
of our boat. Though they look pretty much identical by the numbers and
pictures, their interior is enough different by bare inches that I don't
think I'd want their boat. They were on both, and preferred theirs to
ours. We're still friends ;-)

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

What Size ????????
 

"Gary" wrote Hydrodynamic lift illustration

As you can see in the attachment, the boat is sailing to windward on
a
close reach or close hauled. Notice how the boat does not sail
perfectly
straight, but rather at a slight angle (yaw)(angular component).

That would be leeway, right?

You've had your leg pulled:)

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Boats.htm

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Titanic.htm

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Articles.htm

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma

--

Roger Long

What Size ????????
 

Roger Long wrote:
"Gary" wrote Hydrodynamic lift illustration

As you can see in the attachment, the boat is sailing to windward on
a
close reach or close hauled. Notice how the boat does not sail
perfectly
straight, but rather at a slight angle (yaw)(angular component).


That would be leeway, right?
Once again, the goal being to minimize leeway and heel to gain maximum
speed.

You have conveniently snipped your initial statement that was the
genesis of our discussion:

"Balance of sailboats is a huge myth. The whole CP, CLR, Lead business
was just a way for yacht designers to look scientific. The fact that
you can make huge area changes, such as the mizzen, without much helm
angle change shows how silly the whole idea is. There are schooners
with 10% negative lead and they sail fine."

I still call you on it!

You've had yours pulled ;-)

http://www.navy.gc.ca/oriole/crew/sh...mandteam_e.asp

Of course your designs might not respond to huge sail area changes.
They are not exactly leading edge technology, but I am a fan of classic
boats. (I own a Bill Garden sloop)

What Size ????????
 

Thanks, Larry--they are good lookin' boats, all right. It's the power boat
version of a Westsail sailboat. Big fat slow happy and comfortable. Here's
the broker's picture that transfixed us--and we later bought this boat.

Cheers,

Dick Behan

http://www.maplebay.com/page100.htm




"Larry" wrote in message
...
"R.W. Behan" wrote in
om:

a Lord Nelson Victory Tug

Now THERE's a beautiful boat.

In SC, being cold isn't an issue. Victory Tug owners have two air
conditioners...(c;

What Size ????????
 

"Gary" wrote in

You have conveniently snipped your initial statement that was the
genesis of our discussion:

Oh, all right.

Moving the sail plan fore and aft will have an effect on the angle of
the rudder and the amount of helm force. However, very large changes
in the distribution of sail area have very modest effects. If the sail
plan looks normal, the boat will work just fine. Very small changes in
distribution that require the calculations that are so prominent in
yacht design books are only going to change the rudder angle by small
amounts and the helm force in ways you would have to make direct
comparisons between identical boats under controlled conditions to
detect.

Boats do turn out having excessive weather helm. When this happens, it
has more to do with the hull dynamics and rudder design than the sail
balance. It isn't because the designer set the lead at 10% instead of
12% or even 15%. The kind of things that can be done by tweaks like
raking the mast less are not going to turn a heavy helmed boat into a
well balanced one. They will help a little but the psychological
effect will far outweigh the actual change in helm force.

People will tell you that they have solved their weather helm by
adjusting mast rake but they have also really been paying attention to
the boat and their steering during the tweaking process. They are
tweaking other things besides the fore and aft position of the rig,
like leech tightness. During the process, they get to know the boat
better and their helmsmanship improves.

In racing boat design, where you are trying to wring every bit of
performance out of the boat, you might care whether the rudder was at
a 1.5 degree instead of a 2 degree angle in a 16 knot wind with a
perfect set of sails. In that case, you might look at the lead of
similar boats. For cruising, and even racing among dissimilar boats,
you're just fooling yourself. The rudder angle is going vary within
several degrees depending on how hard the boat is being driven and
other factors. Mast rake adjustment will also create detectable
differences when you are obsessing about fine performance and looking
carefully but this isn't the same thing as the distinction between a
boat with heavy weather helm and a well balanced one.

All else being equal, the amount of lead just establishes the wind
speed at which helm angle will be absolutely optimum. The more lead,
the higher the wind velocity. Too much lead and you will have lee helm
in light air but this it pretty hard to achieve in most boats without
a bowsprit.

Balance in boats is real but the typical presentation of it in yacht
design books and articles and the C.P. / C.L.P. business is a complete
crock.

--

Roger Long

What Size ????????
 

"Gary" wrote:

You've had yours pulled ;-)

So I have. I missed your the link when I wrote last night. (You can
tell that New Years isn't a big deal at our house.)

This turns out to be one of those newsgroup exchanges where two people
who actually do know what they are talking about hurl darts back and
forth reacting to simple statements and imprecise language. Clearly,
you were not trying to tell me that keels develop side force at zero
angle of attack, etc.

Aside from providing entertainment for the bystanders, these cyber arm
wrestling matches can be educational. I'm sure anything we say from
this point on we'll both find that we actually understand and agree on
when we dig deep enough into it.

Many of these discussions get kicked off by absolutes. I can't
remember if it was my statement or someone else's' but the proposition
that a freewheeling prop has more drag kicked off a long thread a
while ago. It's a true statement in that it will apply to the majority
of auxiliary sailing vessels and engine installations. In the
exceptions, the savings from freewheeling will be too small to be
worth the vibration and bearing wear. It is not a theoretically
accurate statement however because there are exceptions. If the
friction, pitch, and size relationships are right, freewheeling may
produce less drag at certain speeds. It's just not common.

The contribution of weather helm to performance is a similar issue.
The symmetrical keel requires an angle of attack to develop the
necessary lift. As you have pointed out, (and I have agreed while
sniping at you for thinking you were saying the opposite) the
resulting yaw increases resistance. The rudder can develop side force
lift without requiring a corresponding yaw angle of the hull as a
whole.

Small rudder angles can (that's "can"; not "will", "always", or
anything like that) increase speed made good to windward by developing
side force that does not carry the penalty of increased leeway. As the
angle increases however, the lift vector of the rudder is increasingly
aft and drag greater so the contribution quickly becomes negative. It's
a lot like my plane, the first 10 degrees of flaps increase lift with
very little change in speed. As I put them down further, they
transition into being primarily speed brakes.

My boat has a reputation for having weather helm. Driven hard in fresh
breezes, it carries a large rudder angle and a huge wash under the
transom. The angle is 15 degrees or more so there is certainly a lot
of drag but it is also nearly up to hull speed by this point so it is
not going to go a lot faster anyway. The boat remains very
controllable as I have noted and sailing it as I have posted before
makes the helm tolerable. Still, it would be nice to sail in those
conditions with just 2 or 3 degrees of rudder.

This situation does not exist on my boat because the lead is 15%
instead of 20%. No amount of sail area distribution without adding a
bowsprit would change the situation significantly. Moving the rudder
all the way aft to the transom would take a degree or two off the
angle because of the increased lever arm but that wouldn't turn it
into a boat that didn't have a reputation for weather helm. Moving the
leading edge of the keel way aft would have helped. The keel then
would have needed to be deeper to develop the necessary area. The boat
would be harder to haul out and in more danger if it dries out after
running aground (a real consideration for the kind of sailing in out
of the way places I plan to go). This kind of change might take
another couple degrees off the rudder angle.

The biggest change, as you have said and I have agreed in backhand,
would be achieved by an increase in stability. If I were designing a
new boat to be much like the E32, I would give it a bit more beam and
less keel volume (very thick as a heritage from the keel/centerboard
version).

All these changes are what I meant when I said (not too clearly) that
weather helm is more a function of the overall design than the
designer's fiddling with paper cut outs of the underbody.

Nice playing darts with you. Next time, we'll use a target.

--

Roger Long

What Size ????????
 

Roger Long wrote:
"Gary" wrote:


You've had yours pulled ;-)


So I have. I missed your the link when I wrote last night. (You can
tell that New Years isn't a big deal at our house.)

This turns out to be one of those newsgroup exchanges where two people
who actually do know what they are talking about hurl darts back and
forth reacting to simple statements and imprecise language. Clearly,
you were not trying to tell me that keels develop side force at zero
angle of attack, etc.

Aside from providing entertainment for the bystanders, these cyber arm
wrestling matches can be educational. I'm sure anything we say from
this point on we'll both find that we actually understand and agree on
when we dig deep enough into it.

Many of these discussions get kicked off by absolutes. I can't
remember if it was my statement or someone else's' but the proposition
that a freewheeling prop has more drag kicked off a long thread a
while ago. It's a true statement in that it will apply to the majority
of auxiliary sailing vessels and engine installations. In the
exceptions, the savings from freewheeling will be too small to be
worth the vibration and bearing wear. It is not a theoretically
accurate statement however because there are exceptions. If the
friction, pitch, and size relationships are right, freewheeling may
produce less drag at certain speeds. It's just not common.

The contribution of weather helm to performance is a similar issue.
The symmetrical keel requires an angle of attack to develop the
necessary lift. As you have pointed out, (and I have agreed while
sniping at you for thinking you were saying the opposite) the
resulting yaw increases resistance. The rudder can develop side force
lift without requiring a corresponding yaw angle of the hull as a
whole.

Small rudder angles can (that's "can"; not "will", "always", or
anything like that) increase speed made good to windward by developing
side force that does not carry the penalty of increased leeway. As the
angle increases however, the lift vector of the rudder is increasingly
aft and drag greater so the contribution quickly becomes negative. It's
a lot like my plane, the first 10 degrees of flaps increase lift with
very little change in speed. As I put them down further, they
transition into being primarily speed brakes.

My boat has a reputation for having weather helm. Driven hard in fresh
breezes, it carries a large rudder angle and a huge wash under the
transom. The angle is 15 degrees or more so there is certainly a lot
of drag but it is also nearly up to hull speed by this point so it is
not going to go a lot faster anyway. The boat remains very
controllable as I have noted and sailing it as I have posted before
makes the helm tolerable. Still, it would be nice to sail in those
conditions with just 2 or 3 degrees of rudder.

This situation does not exist on my boat because the lead is 15%
instead of 20%. No amount of sail area distribution without adding a
bowsprit would change the situation significantly. Moving the rudder
all the way aft to the transom would take a degree or two off the
angle because of the increased lever arm but that wouldn't turn it
into a boat that didn't have a reputation for weather helm. Moving the
leading edge of the keel way aft would have helped. The keel then
would have needed to be deeper to develop the necessary area. The boat
would be harder to haul out and in more danger if it dries out after
running aground (a real consideration for the kind of sailing in out
of the way places I plan to go). This kind of change might take
another couple degrees off the rudder angle.

The biggest change, as you have said and I have agreed in backhand,
would be achieved by an increase in stability. If I were designing a
new boat to be much like the E32, I would give it a bit more beam and
less keel volume (very thick as a heritage from the keel/centerboard
version).

All these changes are what I meant when I said (not too clearly) that
weather helm is more a function of the overall design than the
designer's fiddling with paper cut outs of the underbody.

Nice playing darts with you. Next time, we'll use a target.

I was learning the entire time. I was particularly interested in jibing
centerboards. Very interesting.

Gaz

What Size ????????
 

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:45:06 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

If I suddenly had $40,000 to spend on a boat at this point, I would
put it into this one instead of trying to trade up to something
larger. We would then have a boat in which everything was right
instead of just a larger and roomier collection of problems and
projects.

That's a good point. The bird-in-the-hand theory is great if you are
doing these sort of upgrades for yourself and your own piece of mind
and completely chuck out any illusions of boosting the resale value.
Boats aren't like houses. Putting in a new galley for ten grand will
get you two grand on resale, instead of twenty grand on a house.

People ask why I keep my all-too-groovy Viking 33, and I say because
it's easy for me to upgrade it to better than factory over a series of
years and to incorporate new ideas as I learn of them. Thirty three
feet by ten is a perfect size for me to single-hand on the Great
Lakes, and it's essentially a racer I've made comfortable for limited
cruising by keeping the weight low and centered.

And, being a caveman-type, I like tillers G

Now, the next boat I'm shopping for is the antithesis of that old
racer, because I want to take it around the world. The trick will be
to somehow keep the Viking 33 on ice for five years so when we come
back and resume lakeside living, I can just resume my tinkering.

R.

What Size ????????
 

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:19:01 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

I can't wait until next summer to try this out but first, you've got
to tell me what I've been doing wrong.

If you ever give up boat design, you should consider comedy writing,
Roger.

R.

What Size ????????
 

You guys are great. Knowledgeable, intelligent, articulate, provocative,
even argumentative, but COURTEOUS. It has been entertaining and educational
watching your dart game. You're welcome in my saloon anytime.

Dick Behan
M/V Annie


"Gary" wrote in message
news:OHFtf.228023$Gd6.161313@pd7tw3no...
Roger Long wrote:
"Gary" wrote Hydrodynamic lift illustration

As you can see in the attachment, the boat is sailing to windward on a
close reach or close hauled. Notice how the boat does not sail perfectly
straight, but rather at a slight angle (yaw)(angular component).


That would be leeway, right?
Once again, the goal being to minimize leeway and heel to gain maximum
speed.

You have conveniently snipped your initial statement that was the genesis
of our discussion:

"Balance of sailboats is a huge myth. The whole CP, CLR, Lead business
was just a way for yacht designers to look scientific. The fact that
you can make huge area changes, such as the mizzen, without much helm
angle change shows how silly the whole idea is. There are schooners
with 10% negative lead and they sail fine."

I still call you on it!

You've had yours pulled ;-)

http://www.navy.gc.ca/oriole/crew/sh...mandteam_e.asp

Of course your designs might not respond to huge sail area changes. They
are not exactly leading edge technology, but I am a fan of classic boats.
(I own a Bill Garden sloop)