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#12
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Hunter 336
call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or
Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,� he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.� A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...29&fno=0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#13
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Hunter 336
call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or
Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,� he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.� A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...29&fno=0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#14
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Hunter 336
I see.
Really knowledgable, specifc response that will be of _great_ help. (In evaluating the poster, anyway.) On 20 Feb 2004 18:20:20 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,” he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.” A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...29&fno=0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#15
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Hunter 336
I see.
Really knowledgable, specifc response that will be of _great_ help. (In evaluating the poster, anyway.) On 20 Feb 2004 18:20:20 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,” he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.” A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...29&fno=0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#16
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Hunter 336
al, you REALLY need to buy a Hunter and take it well offshore. You are way too
stew ped to be allowed in any city or village in the land. I see. Really knowledgable, specifc response that will be of _great_ help. (In evaluating the poster, anyway.) On 20 Feb 2004 18:20:20 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,� he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.� A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...116948429&fno= 0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#17
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Hunter 336
al, you REALLY need to buy a Hunter and take it well offshore. You are way too
stew ped to be allowed in any city or village in the land. I see. Really knowledgable, specifc response that will be of _great_ help. (In evaluating the poster, anyway.) On 20 Feb 2004 18:20:20 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: call any broker in Newport or Marblehead or Annapolis or St Augustine or Marathon, or Charleston or Norfolk or San Francisco or Seattle. brokers who sell cruising boats do NOT like Hunters that have been taken to sea. Hunters better fit the concept of coastal cruising. but, yes, people have sailed utter trash successfully across the ocean, including the "Flying Neutrino", litterly a floating trash heap the first time I saw it (just north of the World Financial Center on the Hudson River in NYC) I was ****ed that the city government had not hauled away the obvious garbage discarded in the river. A few weeks later I read in the paper that muscians with small childred lived on that "boat" and th city had indeed been trying to clear it away. The next summer they tried to cross the North Atlantic, got blown back, spent the winter somewhere in New England and successfull crossed the following summer. On 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote: On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:05:27 GMT, "Gary Webster" wrote: I'd put a backstay on it if taking it into ocean for any length of time. This would probably involve getting the main re-cut. Brady From a Practical Sailor review discussing the B&R rig on a similar model (H310): Steve Pettengill broke a shroud when he was racing Hunter’s Child. “No way any other rig would have stayed in the boat, but the B&R did,� he said. “I jury-rigged it (four separate ways.) Good thing I did. We went through two capsizes and three gales after that, but it stood to the finish.� A home-brew backstay to the top of the mast pulling against the fractional height forestay would add some bending moments to the mast that I'd want to see computer-modeled by someone who knew more about rig engineering than I - like Lars Bergstrom. The backstay would eliminate the full-roach-main-plus-small-headsail advantage of the B&R, for which you've already payed the price of not being able to sail wing-and-wing dead downwind due to the sweptback spreaders. (Of course, alternate broad reaching - especially with an assymetirc spinnaker - usually gives faster VMG, anyway.) The B&R rig is designed for performance, as is the lightweight hull. (Although many Hunter-as-dockside-condominium buyers are being sold in-mast furling, which gives away much of that performance.) More to the point, the fine-entry/wide-stern hull, winged bulb keel and big spade rudder that Luhrs/Hunter love make these boats the last kind of vessel on which I'd ever want to try to lie-ahull in a storm. With all the windows in most Hunters, you don't want to passively wait for a multi-ton wave to break over your boat broadside, anyway. (The big cockpit is drained by a very big opening through the split transom, but until it drains out it holds a lot of pounds of water.) Even finding the right combination of reefed main and roller-reefed (or in many cases completely-furled) jib for heaving-to is tricky. In heavy weather these boats require active management, which is extremely tiring for small crews on long passages. They can handle some pretty rough stuff when so managed, but "the boat may be able to handle more than the crew can," as the saying goes. You'll hear crap from "I-never-owned-one-but" experts about hull soundness, etc., but today's Hunters of 10 meters and up are all CE Category A, and they use the same sound-but-mass-produced hulls Hunters have all had for quite a few years (including the under-10m.) Solid from keel to waterline; BalTek-cored from waterline to sheerline for weight reduction; Bergstrom-designed molded glass reinforcing grid; stainless-steel-bolted/5200-sealed, out-turning flanges on hull and on BalTek-cored deck with solid sections. Hand-layed, but all the same - no customization. Crank 'em out. They use quality, storebought deck and rig components (Selden, Furlex, Lewmar, Harken and Schaefer on mine). Assembly line. (1980s vintage Hunters had so many quality problems that I'd even suspect the hulls, but that's a prejudice. Since Luhrs gave up racing for actually managing his business, the quality has vastly improved.) If you haven't already looked there, see the owner reviews section at http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/...116948429&fno= 0&bts=T There are few boats that will not give you a lap full of ocean if you hit a semi-sunken cargo container at speed - and Hunters will, too. However, there are boats that don't have fin keels with wings on them to make them act like Bruce anchors in mud groundings g. Of course, many of the traditional full-keel, buy-by-the-pound long-passagers can't get out of their own way under sail. They also handle like the QE2 in tight quarters (like my crowded slip). My Hunter 310 can reverse course in less than 2 boat-lengths, and regularly exceeds the 1.34*SQRT(waterline) rule-of-thumb hull speed - as will many modern hulls with sugar-scoop sterns and fine buttock lines. The large-waterline-per-LOA design itself yields more speed than traditional large-overhang designs of similar length-over-all. For short passaging and coastal cruising, the Hunters give you a boat that's fun and easy to sail with minimal crew, fairly quick at it, and spacious far beyond its length - as long as 'spacious' is for people (and privacy), and doesn't include six month's supplies and spares of all important parts for third-world cruising. Bottom line: if I wanted to do long blue water passages single-handed, I'd stick with something that can be passively managed in a storm. No modern performance design is really good at that, including Hunters. If you want Volvo safety, don't buy a Ferarri. If you want Ferrari performance at a mass-production price, buy a Corvette - but don't complain about lack of higher fit-and-finish that you didn't pay for. Most blue water single-handers seem (to me) to be kind of restored-old-Mercedes types. Small Hunters are souped-up Chevies. Al s/v Persephone (1999 Hunter 310 out of Newburyport, MA) it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". Jax, Do you have any specific examples you can share? I'd be especially interested in which model and year (i.e. back in the notoriously crappy quality years, or made within the last 10 years), as well as, obviously, who's reporting these structural problems. I'm not disputing the "designed for coastal cruising" part, as you'll see from my posting. (Need for active sailing in heavy weather, lack of stowage, no real sea-berths, etc.) There are, however, people who've blue-water cruised for years in Hunters. To each his own. (Warren Luhrs is certainly not unfamiliar with heavy weather sailing.) The structural quality issue, however, would be of personal interest to me, if it were based on more than urban legends. Details/sources? Al s/v Persephone |
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#18
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Hunter 336
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 +0000, JAXAshby wrote:
it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". I was looking at the "shoudless" Hunter a few years ago at the Vancouver boatshow, and the salesman said they were "designed for offshore!" See, the mast bends, like a windsurfer, instead of staying rigid and pulling out a tang, probably damaging the hull... Meanwhile, I was looking at the 20-gal watertank... Lloyd Sumpter "Far Cove" Catalina 36 |
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#19
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Hunter 336
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:42:15 +0000, JAXAshby wrote:
it is difficult to find a yacht broker who is willing to say that he personally would take a Hunter offshore, even when he has a bunch of Hunters on the hard for sale. Yacht brokers willing to sell used Hunters at all, usually will make mention of offshore Hunters showing up with broken tabbing, loose decks, flexed hulls and a host of other issues having to do with structural integrity. Most brokers who specialize in offhshore sailboats won't list Hunters. About the only people who claim Hunters are offshore boats are those who write Hunter advertising and Hunter owners who daysail with the occasional overnighter in decent sailing conditions. Hunters are boats best suited for "coastal cruising". I was looking at the "shoudless" Hunter a few years ago at the Vancouver boatshow, and the salesman said they were "designed for offshore!" See, the mast bends, like a windsurfer, instead of staying rigid and pulling out a tang, probably damaging the hull... Meanwhile, I was looking at the 20-gal watertank... Lloyd Sumpter "Far Cove" Catalina 36 |
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