Wayne.B wrote:
If you are thinking of sailing offshore in your 28 footer, you might
want to watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVoMt...elated&search=

Wow, how odd. I have been all over that ship, and
had coffee and a tour of the engineering spaces
with the chief engineer. She used to be the
"Olympic Voyager" of the now defunct cruise line
Royal Olympic.

When I was on her she was two years old, and
cruising out of La Porte, TX. We had 30' seas in
the gulf coming back from Mexico, and she handled
them without much effort. In the video, it
appears that she is stopped in the water for some
reason, or possibly maintaining minimum steerage
just to keep the bow into the waves. I attribute
the extreme rolling motion (wallowing) shown to
the lack of steerage. A time or two there it
looked like she would capsize.

The chief engineer was Greek IIRC, and had been in
charge of the acceptance trials for the ship when
it came out of the yard. That ship is capable of
35kts, and designed to survive a full rudder
deflection at top speed. It has four large turbo
diesels arranged with clutches and a cross shaft
such that any or all of the engines can drive both
prop shafts. The propellors are full reversing
variable pitch, such that the prop shafts always
turn in one direction and there is no need to
reverse the engines. Truly an amazing piece of
marine engineering. At the time they claimed it
was the fastest cruise ship afloat--if you wanted
to burn the fuel I suppose.

Don W.