C'mon folks, let's not let Jax turn this into wrecked.botes. I blocked him
long ago, so I never even see his posts unless someone responds. Let's not
destroy this NG too.

"Keith" is not reading this, so let's laugh at him for suggesting that the best
way to learn about boats is to read the most current advertising specs of price
point bay sailor boats. Let him tell that a bigger microwave is a safety
feature because it makes hot chocolate quicker than a smaller microwave "when
one is trying to claw off a lee shore". And a washer/dryer is a safety item
because one doesn't have to carry clothes down the dock to the laundromat where
muggers might hang out.

Don't confuse "keith" with anything real, for he is not going to go sailing
anyway. reality doesn't make a presence in his life. So just laugh at him.
maybe ask him about the latest anchor test showing that a 22# CQR with
stainless steel chain holds better in 8 knot winds than a 21# Bruce with
galvanized chain in 7-1/2 knot winds.

On 23 Mar 2004 12:18:58 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:

goud, you talk to yourself. get out and about and talk with brokers for real,
by actually sitting down at their desks and discuss boats.

*you* want to list a Nimrod that has been taken offshore (understand the kind
of person who would even think of taking a Nimrod offshore is a loose canon to
start with) go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.

*you* try to sell some abused boats as "just right" to some potential buyers
and your rep as a broker is done.

have fun, but don't give up your day job.

Jax wrote:

dougies, don't be foolish. *you* are advocating taking a Nimrod offshore
with
your statement. yacht brokers, most of them, won't list a Nimrod they know
has
been taken offshore, for the boat doesn't usually pass survey upon sale.

Wo ho! :-)

Thanks for that one. It's spring time in the NW, and my gardening wife has
been
nagging me to bring home several bags of steer manure. A statement that most
yacht brokers won't even list such and such a boat saves me the trouble. I
printed off about 50 copies of your post, ran them through the shredder, and
now have a miraculously fertile mulch that should produce fully ripened
tomatoes by mid-April.

As an ex yacht broker, (and still working on a daily basis with brokers,
surveyors, etc) I must absolutely disagree. No yacht broker who intends to
survive in the business will make a sight-unseen evaluation of a potential
listing, based solely upon whether the boat has been used under condition A
or
condition B.

If a boat has been offshore and remains undamaged, the offshore experience is
unimportant. If the most prestigious trademark on the planet has a fractured
hull to deck joint, cracked bulkheads, etc etc etc as a result of offshore
abuse, the brand name won't save it.

Used boats must be evaluated on an individual basis. Relying too heavily on
stereotype and the dockside rumor mill sometimes results in a prospect's
failure to consider a well found boat that would be ideal for his or her
purposes. More often, it
causes a prospective buyer to gloss over survey exceptions and other
warnings,
as, (after all), what could possibly be incurably wrong with a Brand X?

*You* need to go back and read Chuck's post for content.

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

*You* need to go back and read Chuck's post for content.

I did, again. Chuck is saying it is okay to take a litewait Nimrod offshore,
and Chuck is saying that brokers do not care what prior use a boat has had,
they will sell it anyway.

I was saying that my personal conversations with many brokers wherein our
association was anywhere from neglegible to to me and he trying to get to a
deal, I found a number of brokers who stated flatly they would NOT list a
Nimrad that had been taken offshore. Period. I was startled by the vehamence
with which these brokers expressed their distaste for such boats.
Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar beyond the ordinary. Those guys had been burned in the
pocket book, and burned badly. Making a bad deal turn right is a costly one
for a broker who depends on good will to build and keep a customer base. Those
brokers flatly, bluntly stated they would never list such a boat again.

Nimrods are okay for coastal work. Abuse them offshore and they have more
problems than a run over dog. At least according to the first hand reports I
got from brokers.

I paid particular attention to that, for brokers stand to make a commission by
selling a boat. If they don't want to sell a particular boat I hafta ask
myself if they know something I don't.

The original discusssion was the viability of a Bristol 27 vs a PricePoint 36
for offshore passages.

rhys wrote:

Well, yes, that's a major trade-off. Of course, Moitessier solved that
problem in the '60s...just keep going until you arrive back where you
started! Seriously, though, current thought (when one can discern it
among all the floating rec rooms at boat shows) seems to be that
faster is better to avoid the rough stuff in the first place, which
means good upwind performance.


Well, I'm not sold on the idea that a faster boat can avoid rough
weather entirely, but there is some validity he a faster boat can get
through a smaller weather window on shorter passages... a faster boat
will be have a greater choice in which quadrant she'll take approaching
bad weather... and a faster boat is more likely to reward active sailing
techniques and spend less time in a weather system (note- "scudding
before the storm" sounds romantic but is a lousy way to spend your
weekend, plus it keeps you in the system longer).

IMHO good upwind performance is desirable in a cruising boat anyway, for
a wide variety of reasons. But then it's always a trade-off... one has
to weight what one gets against the costs... good upwind performance at
the cost of an unmanageable rig is a bad trade. However there are good
rigs that are pretty manageable...
a



... The "best world cruisers" is great for
a good BS session online, but even marginal boats in good hands can
sail pretty impressively...and some nice boats in good shape have been
found adrift because of panicky crew or idiot captains ****ing over
the side....


Absolutely. And this is one of the points I keep trying to make
(quietly, so as not to PO any more people than already have). People
have crossed oceans in vessels that were not much more than glorified
refrigerator crates. Given the skills and reasonable equipment, some
pretty bad boats can make good passages. But you can't put the skills on
your MasterCard, and the judgement to choose suitable equipment also
depends on experience and skill. Nobody's marketing this idea
aggressively, therefor it doesn't get much credence.




So, you're advocating going back to the horse and buggy?



Not at all, but some of those boats had desirable characteristics
absent from MOST...not all, thank goodness...of the current crop.
That's why there's such a steady trade in old Perry designs and Brewer
semi-customs and so on...they combine best of old and new-ish.


I'm going to paste Rich's post in here to save bandwidth


Rich Hampel wrote:
I also gotta jump into this as these Perry designs have IMHO sufficient
reserve stern buoyancy due to their quite large 'bustles' .... If you
compare to a Collin Archer type narrow stern hull then I might agree
but not a Perry design 'double ender'.
Nowithstanding that more Perry (full and long keel) design have had
probably the most circumnavigations than any other design house - has
to say something.


IMHO there are a couple of factors in play here. They are capable boats,
but they are also highly favored by well-publicized passagemakers... and
style counts for a LOT. The fact that the Seven Seas group has so many
vocal advocates of these types means that they'll get picked up by a lot
of people with the same goal... who then become vocal advocates... etc
etc. It's sort of like the British Sports Car cabal (I don't mean to
imply that these boats are anywhere near as evil as say a TR-2, just
that popularity can be self-perpetuating regardless of practicality).

All that aside, one of my favorite boats is Robert Perry's Nordic 40.



.... They also broke out the champagne any time they had a 100-mile
24 hr run.



Well, I am of the opinion that sailboats stink as transport
devices...unless you have nothing resembling a schedule, at which
point they are the best way to travel anywhere there's seven feet of
water.


heh heh my goal was four feet of water, but then in the Southeast US
that's still asking a lot.

I agree about a schedule. It's folly to try and push route and course
decisions, especially when weather is a question, for the sake of
keeping a timetable. But people cling to it... in a lot of cases it's
because of valued shoreside connections like family who are under
pressures of their own.


... If my (to be hoped for) cruising life contains anything more
pressing than "get to typhoon hole in four months" as a Post-It on the
nav station, I will have not achieved my goals in life. So bring on
the North Sea sailing barges G...ok, maybe not THAT bulletproof....


We were looking more for a given range of cubic & displacement,
rather than an LOA range. And what's wrong with complex mechanical aids?
A windlass and a self-tailing winch are both *great* ways to handle
strains than muscle alone will not.... faster and with more control than
a handy-billy.



I don't consider those complex as I could devise the same mech.
advantage with a strong point and a series of blocks and falls.


That's a handy-billy. Cumbersome & slow. Very cost effective though, as
long as an OSHA rep isn't watching.

One of the old cruising books I recently gave away had a whole chapter
devoted to clearing an anchor that was snagged on a big-ass rock
somewhere in a little Caribbean anchorage. An ex Royal Navy captain,
cruising into the same anchorage, helped the author clear it which took
all day and three handy-billys rigged at different points. But they got
a multi-ton rock clear (at one point they swamped a dinghy, which is
part of why it took so long) and the Royal Navy man said "Seamanship is
simply the art of moving impossibly heavy objects." A good point.

Having worked with professional industrial riggers moving machinery
weighing tens of tons through piping mazes, I've seen what you can do
with a couple of block-and-tackle arrangements.... but ratcheting chain
hoists are a lot better... faster, more reliable, and basically safer.
So are self-tailing winches IMHO... and the maintenance + expense hit is
not very large. In other words it appears to me a very worthwhile trade-off.

Now, we can discuss refrigeration... there's a question with many
angles... to me it appears worth it, but there are certainly a lot of
reasons against it. The costs are higher and the benefits slimmer.



...I think in some ways a
40 foot sloop is harder for a couple to handle than a 45 foot ketch,
but both are borderline unless you are quite fit. Better, I think, to
learn to live and sail with the size of boat you can manage, which may
be quite different boats at various life points.


I think the rig question is metastacizing into another sub-thread. Will
meander over there next coffee break

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Doug, serious congratulations. The below is a cogent contributation on your
part.

rhys wrote:

Well, yes, that's a major trade-off. Of course, Moitessier solved that
problem in the '60s...just keep going until you arrive back where you
started! Seriously, though, current thought (when one can discern it
among all the floating rec rooms at boat shows) seems to be that
faster is better to avoid the rough stuff in the first place, which
means good upwind performance.


Well, I'm not sold on the idea that a faster boat can avoid rough
weather entirely, but there is some validity he a faster boat can get
through a smaller weather window on shorter passages... a faster boat
will be have a greater choice in which quadrant she'll take approaching
bad weather... and a faster boat is more likely to reward active sailing
techniques and spend less time in a weather system (note- "scudding
before the storm" sounds romantic but is a lousy way to spend your
weekend, plus it keeps you in the system longer).

IMHO good upwind performance is desirable in a cruising boat anyway, for
a wide variety of reasons. But then it's always a trade-off... one has
to weight what one gets against the costs... good upwind performance at
the cost of an unmanageable rig is a bad trade. However there are good
rigs that are pretty manageable...
a



... The "best world cruisers" is great for
a good BS session online, but even marginal boats in good hands can
sail pretty impressively...and some nice boats in good shape have been
found adrift because of panicky crew or idiot captains ****ing over
the side....


Absolutely. And this is one of the points I keep trying to make
(quietly, so as not to PO any more people than already have). People
have crossed oceans in vessels that were not much more than glorified
refrigerator crates. Given the skills and reasonable equipment, some
pretty bad boats can make good passages. But you can't put the skills on
your MasterCard, and the judgement to choose suitable equipment also
depends on experience and skill. Nobody's marketing this idea
aggressively, therefor it doesn't get much credence.




So, you're advocating going back to the horse and buggy?



Not at all, but some of those boats had desirable characteristics
absent from MOST...not all, thank goodness...of the current crop.
That's why there's such a steady trade in old Perry designs and Brewer
semi-customs and so on...they combine best of old and new-ish.


I'm going to paste Rich's post in here to save bandwidth


Rich Hampel wrote:
I also gotta jump into this as these Perry designs have IMHO sufficient
reserve stern buoyancy due to their quite large 'bustles' .... If you
compare to a Collin Archer type narrow stern hull then I might agree
but not a Perry design 'double ender'.
Nowithstanding that more Perry (full and long keel) design have had
probably the most circumnavigations than any other design house - has
to say something.


IMHO there are a couple of factors in play here. They are capable boats,
but they are also highly favored by well-publicized passagemakers... and
style counts for a LOT. The fact that the Seven Seas group has so many
vocal advocates of these types means that they'll get picked up by a lot
of people with the same goal... who then become vocal advocates... etc
etc. It's sort of like the British Sports Car cabal (I don't mean to
imply that these boats are anywhere near as evil as say a TR-2, just
that popularity can be self-perpetuating regardless of practicality).

All that aside, one of my favorite boats is Robert Perry's Nordic 40.



.... They also broke out the champagne any time they had a 100-mile
24 hr run.



Well, I am of the opinion that sailboats stink as transport
devices...unless you have nothing resembling a schedule, at which
point they are the best way to travel anywhere there's seven feet of
water.


heh heh my goal was four feet of water, but then in the Southeast US
that's still asking a lot.

I agree about a schedule. It's folly to try and push route and course
decisions, especially when weather is a question, for the sake of
keeping a timetable. But people cling to it... in a lot of cases it's
because of valued shoreside connections like family who are under
pressures of their own.


... If my (to be hoped for) cruising life contains anything more
pressing than "get to typhoon hole in four months" as a Post-It on the
nav station, I will have not achieved my goals in life. So bring on
the North Sea sailing barges G...ok, maybe not THAT bulletproof....


We were looking more for a given range of cubic & displacement,
rather than an LOA range. And what's wrong with complex mechanical aids?
A windlass and a self-tailing winch are both *great* ways to handle
strains than muscle alone will not.... faster and with more control than
a handy-billy.



I don't consider those complex as I could devise the same mech.
advantage with a strong point and a series of blocks and falls.


That's a handy-billy. Cumbersome & slow. Very cost effective though, as
long as an OSHA rep isn't watching.

One of the old cruising books I recently gave away had a whole chapter
devoted to clearing an anchor that was snagged on a big-ass rock
somewhere in a little Caribbean anchorage. An ex Royal Navy captain,
cruising into the same anchorage, helped the author clear it which took
all day and three handy-billys rigged at different points. But they got
a multi-ton rock clear (at one point they swamped a dinghy, which is
part of why it took so long) and the Royal Navy man said "Seamanship is
simply the art of moving impossibly heavy objects." A good point.

Having worked with professional industrial riggers moving machinery
weighing tens of tons through piping mazes, I've seen what you can do
with a couple of block-and-tackle arrangements.... but ratcheting chain
hoists are a lot better... faster, more reliable, and basically safer.
So are self-tailing winches IMHO... and the maintenance + expense hit is
not very large. In other words it appears to me a very worthwhile trade-off.

Now, we can discuss refrigeration... there's a question with many
angles... to me it appears worth it, but there are certainly a lot of
reasons against it. The costs are higher and the benefits slimmer.



...I think in some ways a
40 foot sloop is harder for a couple to handle than a 45 foot ketch,
but both are borderline unless you are quite fit. Better, I think, to
learn to live and sail with the size of boat you can manage, which may
be quite different boats at various life points.


I think the rig question is metastacizing into another sub-thread. Will
meander over there next coffee break

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

(Bob Whitaker) asked:
P.S. What do you think of cutter vs sloop vs ketch rigs?


"vs" as in racing? No question, the sloop is better hands down. That's
why the other rigs get a rating bonus... for a while back in the 1950s
the yawl enjoyed a breif resurgence as designers stuck a handy mizzen on
the back of a sloop and got a rating gift. I think this is where most of
todays' sailors got their experience with yawls.


Frank Maier wrote:
Well, you've perhaps already guessed my response. grin

Frank's Rig Rant
aka My Opinion and Welcome to It

KETCHES

I have a coupla years of ownership of, and a decent amount of offshore miles
on, ketches (the one I owned and, later, my father-in-law's). Like many of
the other boat types I've spurned in this thread, I find them lovely to look
at, elegant in repose, nautical in presentation, and pretty much a slow
pain-in-the-ass as a sailboat on all but a couple of points of sail. Allow
me to rant against ketches for a bit.

No no, stop.... oops, too late


Their defenders claim many advantages to this rig: two masts for redundancy
in case of a dismasting; split sailplan gives easier sail handling; multiple
masts and the various types of sails they support allow unparalleled ability
to match your canvas to conditions; ...have I forgotten anything?

Better balance on different points of sail? That might be included in
matching canvas to conditions. How about a lower sailplan causing less
heeling moment, and less stress on the hull?



So, my response is:

Split sail plans make sail handling easier. Sure, in 1904, when some poor
sucker had to go below, carry up a heavy, wet canvas sail, hank it on, then
haul it up the wooden mast with a hemp rope using primitive types of
mechanical advantage. But this is 2004. Who nowadays does not have a roller
furling jib? Hell! Even some racers have 'em. You no longer hafta change
headsails for every 5 knots of wind. And as for difficulties in hauling
halyards... if you're experiencing exasperation, buy bigger Barients. I see
lots of traditional cruisers with POWERED winches. Come on, this is not a
realistic factor. In my experience, split sailplans simply add to your
workload.

It also adds to the maintenance workload, and rigging does not last
forever. When you have to replace extra line, not to mention standing
rigging, the bill will be substantial.

... Not that big a deal in mild conditions; but we all seem to love to
talk about "heavy weather" and 'big seas." Me, I'm lazy. I want my life to
be easy in easy conditions and I *need* my life to be easy in complicated
conditions. When a squall comes up, the sloop reels in a couple reefs on the
main with his single-line reefing, rolls in the jib some, and he's ready. Wa
nna go through the Chinese-fire-drill laundry list to do the same
preparation for a ketch, flying as many as five different sails? Hurry,
hurry, Hercules!

Agreed definitely. One of the most fun boats I've sailed, 'fun' for all
the wrong reasons, was a 40-ish foot steel ketch owned by the Great
Lakes Naval Training Center Sailing Club. It had been donated long ago,
and was kind of tired but well preserved under three inches of gray
paint. The Navy in it's wisdom had welded pad eyes at many odd places
about the deck, which came in handy when trying out different sail
combinations. That boat had been gutted, no cabin whatever, just a big
steel box. It also had a sail inventory that God would envy, there were
at least twenty five BIG bags and dozens of small ones... although to be
fair some of the small ones were the clubs racing-dinghy sails, which
often got used as mizzens & mizzen staysails.

It was a fun boat to sail on the cold & often rough waters of Lake
Michigan. It was also a very wet boat... it didn't lift much to choppy
waves and would throw trainloads of water over the crew. But we had a
great time experimenting mizzen staysails and tallboys and spinnakers
and watersails and huge ballooners sheeted to the mizzen boom etc etc.

Does everyone see why I say it "was a fun boat for all the wrong
reasons?" Even with a fully outfitted cabin, it would be a poor cruising
boat (which probably explains why it was donated to the Navy).

BTW this boat was rumored to have once belonged to Humphrey Bogart.


... (great material regretfully snipped for brevity)...
For the sake of saving me a lot of time, I'll just throw yawls into this
group. Not perfectly appropriate; but good enough for Usenet. For a defense
of the yawl as the only possible "real" sailing rig, see any of Don Street's
writings. He loves his yawl with a passion.

And he is also notorious for asking other sailors to give him a tow

Aside from that petty sniping "Iolare" is an awesome boat... I'm just
not dedicated enough to own such masterpiece.



CUTTERS

My simplest response is that I don't see any realistic benefit to a cutter
over a sloop, just expensive, unnecessary complications. People talk about
"balancing the rig" and all that kinda mystical sail trim stuff; but IMO if
you have a well designed sloop (and I grant that that's a measurable "if"),
you can balance just as easily. No, make that *easier* 'cause you only have
two sails to deal with rather than three.

If you're talking about cutters compared to sloops, then sure... but I'd
say that a ketch is (and some but not all yawls are) easier to balance.
You can move the center of effort much further forward or aft, and the
sheeting vectors don't yank the boat around as unpredictably. Yawls are
not as good because while they can move the CE well aft, they don't
benefit as much the other way (moving the CE forward) by furling the
mizzen, since so many yawls are already sloops with an added mizzen anyway.


With regard to rig redundancy, which Frank mentioned but in another
context... many people talk about how rigs with more standing rigging
are more secure. This ignores the basic engineering fact that each stay
puts a compression load on the mast. More stays equal more compression.
If designed by a capable engineer, more stays *can* be stronger but it
ain't necessarily so.

They also equal more places where bits of metal are bolted to the hull
and need periodic maintenance, and more potential failure points.

OK, I've had it for intelligent discussion... can I call somebody names
now? C'mere jax jax jax, I got a cookie for ya

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

the yawl enjoyed a breif resurgence as designers stuck a handy mizzen on
the back of a sloop and got a rating gift. I think this is where most of
todays' sailors got their experience with yawls.

the mizzen sail on a yawl is an easy, effective way to balance a boat's sails.
This can be more important on a larger boat with a tiller for steering.

the yawl enjoyed a breif resurgence as designers stuck a handy mizzen on
the back of a sloop and got a rating gift. I think this is where most of
todays' sailors got their experience with yawls.


JAXAshby wrote:
the mizzen sail on a yawl is an easy, effective way to balance a boat's sails.
This can be more important on a larger boat with a tiller for steering.

That's *certainly* true... many's the time I have sailed large sloops
with tillers, wishing I had a way to set more sail area aft so that the
boat would have *more* weather helm...

DSK

Why the hell do you think people buy weather suits and epirb's?

they buy weather suits because they think they are most likely to die at sea if
they don't. These people buy ANYthing with the label "safety" mentioned in its
advertising.

Way too many people buy EPIRBs because they *know* they are not up to a trip
but figure by punching the button a set of coasties will come out and save
their sorry butts. These people often say "it's the coastie's job" to rescue
them, and the coastie's loss of life is nothing because the coastie volunteered
for the job and besides the coastie doesn't hold down a desk job. Indeed, the
coastie often didn't even go to college. Those people place no value on life
anyway.

wally, NO EPRIB for you. Let Darwin improve the gene pool.

"Keith" wrote:
C'mon folks, let's not let Jax turn this into wrecked.botes. I blocked him
long ago, so I never even see his posts unless someone responds. Let's not
destroy this NG too.

The best advice is always, "Don't feed the trolls." I admit that I've
sometimes responded to a Jax post because he's just soooo clueless and
sometimes I'm in a cruel mood.

Eventually he'll drop out of this particular manic phase and hit his
depressive phase and we'll be rid of him for a while again.

Frank