On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:41:49 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On 19 Mar 2004 15:38:47 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:

unless, of course, you are short of bux and worrying because you spent the wad
on a BIG boat.

================================================= =====

I have no problem with small boats but no one should ever be misled
into believing that they are adequate offshore cruisers. There's no
question that people can, and do, go offshore in small boats. That
doesn't mean it's a comfortable sail however. It's more like spending
a week in a washing machine unless you are blessed with fair weather
and down wind conditions.

Very good point. There's a lot of quite small boats that can take
horrendous storms, can go around Cape Horn, visit the Antarctic and so
on. All that's been proved by competent, if masochistic, sailors for
several decades. But "able to" and "desirable" are two different
things. If all you can afford is a small boat, and it will be 20 years
before you can get a 40 footer, by all means emulate the Pardeys and
bugger off in something safe and tiny. Don't expect to be always dry
and comfortable, and do expect to be slow if cheaper to fix and
maintain. Your nautical miles may vary.

Actually, when I think about it, a smaller boat can be safer in the
sense that a compact cabin doesn't have a lot of room to fall in the
case of a knockdown, and usually has handholds everywhere. A larger
boat has a slower roll and time to grab stuff. It's the mid-range
boats that have the worst of both worlds. I was in a Tartan 3700
recently and I thought "wow, nice boat, but in a blow iI would be like
a dried seed in an empty gourd in he perfect arm-breaking
conditions. But then, most modern saloons seem too much like living
rooms to me.

R.

'smaller boat can be safer in the sense that a compact cabin doesn't have a
lot of room to fall in the case of a knockdown, and usually has handholds
everywhere.'
This statement makes sense. I got involved with my 27' sailboat in 40 foot
waves. My wife and I were unable to remain inside the cabin. First thing,
the boat has to be steered up and down the crests. The boat was not the
problem. It's me that was the problem. I was throwing up most of the time
and could not hold any food or liquid. I was tied to the cockpit with a
plastic bucket between my legs. Most sailboats will survive a severe storm
it's the human that cants. I have the impression that if my boat would have
been larger I would not have been able to go up and down the 40 foot waves.
That does not mean that I do not want a larger boat!


"rhys" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:41:49 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On 19 Mar 2004 15:38:47 GMT, (JAXAshby) wrote:

unless, of course, you are short of bux and worrying because you spent
the wad
on a BIG boat.

================================================= =====

I have no problem with small boats but no one should ever be misled
into believing that they are adequate offshore cruisers. There's no
question that people can, and do, go offshore in small boats. That
doesn't mean it's a comfortable sail however. It's more like spending
a week in a washing machine unless you are blessed with fair weather
and down wind conditions.

Very good point. There's a lot of quite small boats that can take
horrendous storms, can go around Cape Horn, visit the Antarctic and so
on. All that's been proved by competent, if masochistic, sailors for
several decades. But "able to" and "desirable" are two different
things. If all you can afford is a small boat, and it will be 20 years
before you can get a 40 footer, by all means emulate the Pardeys and
bugger off in something safe and tiny. Don't expect to be always dry
and comfortable, and do expect to be slow if cheaper to fix and
maintain. Your nautical miles may vary.

Actually, when I think about it, a
boat has a slower roll and time to grab stuff. It's the mid-range
boats that have the worst of both worlds. I was in a Tartan 3700
recently and I thought "wow, nice boat, but in a blow iI would be like
a dried seed in an empty gourd in he perfect arm-breaking
conditions. But then, most modern saloons seem too much like living
rooms to me.

R.

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 20:38:16 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

This statement makes sense. I got involved with my 27' sailboat in 40 foot
waves.

=========================================

I don't think there's a boat of ANY size that will be comfortable in
those conditions. My original statement was made in regard to the
routine 6 to 8 foot waves that are found all of the time in offshore
conditions. It doesn't take a storm, just steady 20 knot winds. Most
small boats turn into a rain forest on a pogo stick after a few days
of beating into that. I have been on a well made 48 footer that
wasn't much better, and on a 50 footer that was taking green water
over the deck every 7 or 8 waves. Not storm conditions, just normal
waves in average windy weather, the kind that you get with every
frontal passage. Most coastal cruisers have no idea what it's like to
do that for 2 or 3 days in a row, sailing around the clock. It's
tough on the equipment and tough on the people.

if you are getting beat up in 20 knot winds at sea you have picked the wrong
boat to go to sea on.

This statement makes sense. I got involved with my 27' sailboat in 40 foot
waves.

=========================================

I don't think there's a boat of ANY size that will be comfortable in
those conditions. My original statement was made in regard to the
routine 6 to 8 foot waves that are found all of the time in offshore
conditions. It doesn't take a storm, just steady 20 knot winds. Most
small boats turn into a rain forest on a pogo stick after a few days
of beating into that. I have been on a well made 48 footer that
wasn't much better, and on a 50 footer that was taking green water
over the deck every 7 or 8 waves. Not storm conditions, just normal
waves in average windy weather, the kind that you get with every
frontal passage. Most coastal cruisers have no idea what it's like to
do that for 2 or 3 days in a row, sailing around the clock. It's
tough on the equipment and tough on the people.

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 20:38:16 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

'smaller boat can be safer in the sense that a compact cabin doesn't have a
lot of room to fall in the case of a knockdown, and usually has handholds
everywhere.'
This statement makes sense. I got involved with my 27' sailboat in 40 foot
waves. My wife and I were unable to remain inside the cabin. First thing,
the boat has to be steered up and down the crests. The boat was not the
problem. It's me that was the problem. I was throwing up most of the time
and could not hold any food or liquid. I was tied to the cockpit with a
plastic bucket between my legs. Most sailboats will survive a severe storm
it's the human that can't.

This is basically my point: the crew, not the boat, is the weak link.
That's been proven for years, is case-studied in books like "Heavy
Weather Sailing", and is found in the old saying: "don't leave the
boat until you have to step up into the life raft".

Recall the Westsail 32 of the "Perfect Storm"...the real story is
interesting in that the skipper who wanted to stay with the boat fared
worse in the rescue than the boat...which safely grounded itself!

See http://world.std.com/~kent/satori/ if you haven't heard this. It's
a perfect example of how the right boat and the right sailor can
weather (potentially) even the most hellish storms. Of course, if you
get killed by a rogue wave, it's your time to go, but a well-sailed
smaller boat of certain qualities will give you that much more of a
fighting chance than a different (NOT better or worse, note) type that
will tend to exhaust and sicken its crew in a lumpy seaway.

Westsail 32s, Contessas and the like are great seagoing boats that
few current sailors would find comfortable, but I would gladly cross
an ocean in them because of their great track record as "survival
boats" that "take care" of their skippers in a way a lot of newer
designs can't do, because they are faster, bigger, have a Jacuzzi and
a garage for the Zodiac, etc.... I like steel cutters and ketches made
for the North Sea for the same reason...not fast, but easier sailing
in waves and can sustain a lot of punishment.

Read the post-war early cruising stories. Not only were most of those
boats wooden, they were 30 feet or less (Wanderer II and III and the
Roths, Pardeys and so on come to mind), had oil lamps, canvas sails,
hank-ons, wooden masts and a compass and sextant. Maybe the
best-equipped would have a battery radio (receive only!), and three,
instead of two, small one-speed winches.

Typically, they would self-steer, and rigged twin headsails for
downwind work. All pumping was manual, and if they had inboards, they
were one-cylinder gas or paraffin engines or heavy diesels that might
give four knots in a flat sea.

They would be narrow, deep and dark below, because lots of light meant
lots of places for water to get in, and that meant more pumping. On
the up side, they might feature carpets, bookshelves and small
fireplaces to make everything snug.


I have the impression that if my boat would have
been larger I would not have been able to go up and down the 40 foot waves.
That does not mean that I do not want a larger boat!

As do we all, but like anything else, there's a tradeoff. I have
decided personally to restrict my "dream boat for world cruising"
search to the 38 to 45 foot range, because less is too small for
stores and one wife and one kid plus me and a workbench G and 45
feet is about the limit for sail handling without complex mechanical
aids. Even then, I would prefer a split yawl or ketch rig so I
wouldn't need a monster main or genoa.,,and I believe (currently) 45
feet is my limit. If my wife was six feet tall instead of five feet, I
might go 50 feet, but she's unlikely to grow now!

R.

"don't leave the boat until you have to step up into the life raft".
If my memory if correct when I read the book about the Fastnet Race. Some
crewmen were left for dead on board sailboats while others stepped in life
rafts. When the abandon boats were checked after the storm.
Un-conscientious crewmen were found badly wounded but still alive. The
other thing is when more than 1-2 people start to vomit in a life raft its
no joke. Taking see sickness pills before the going gets too bad or
stepping up into a life raft is not a bad idea. Now days, where the water
is cool, the use of survival suits is getting more popular.




"rhys" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 20:38:16 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

'smaller boat can be safer in the sense that a compact cabin doesn't have
a
lot of room to fall in the case of a knockdown, and usually has handholds
everywhere.'
This statement makes sense. I got involved with my 27' sailboat in 40
foot
waves. My wife and I were unable to remain inside the cabin. First thing,
the boat has to be steered up and down the crests. The boat was not the
problem. It's me that was the problem. I was throwing up most of the time
and could not hold any food or liquid. I was tied to the cockpit with a
plastic bucket between my legs. Most sailboats will survive a severe
storm
it's the human that can't.

This is basically my point: the crew, not the boat, is the weak link.
That's been proven for years, is case-studied in books like "Heavy
Weather Sailing", and is found in the old saying: "don't leave the
boat until you have to step up into the life raft".

Recall the Westsail 32 of the "Perfect Storm"...the real story is
interesting in that the skipper who wanted to stay with the boat fared
worse in the rescue than the boat...which safely grounded itself!

See http://world.std.com/~kent/satori/ if you haven't heard this. It's
a perfect example of how the right boat and the right sailor can
weather (potentially) even the most hellish storms. Of course, if you
get killed by a rogue wave, it's your time to go, but a well-sailed
smaller boat of certain qualities will give you that much more of a
fighting chance than a different (NOT better or worse, note) type that
will tend to exhaust and sicken its crew in a lumpy seaway.

Westsail 32s, Contessas and the like are great seagoing boats that
few current sailors would find comfortable, but I would gladly cross
an ocean in them because of their great track record as "survival
boats" that "take care" of their skippers in a way a lot of newer
designs can't do, because they are faster, bigger, have a Jacuzzi and
a garage for the Zodiac, etc.... I like steel cutters and ketches made
for the North Sea for the same reason...not fast, but easier sailing
in waves and can sustain a lot of punishment.

Read the post-war early cruising stories. Not only were most of those
boats wooden, they were 30 feet or less (Wanderer II and III and the
Roths, Pardeys and so on come to mind), had oil lamps, canvas sails,
hank-ons, wooden masts and a compass and sextant. Maybe the
best-equipped would have a battery radio (receive only!), and three,
instead of two, small one-speed winches.

Typically, they would self-steer, and rigged twin headsails for
downwind work. All pumping was manual, and if they had inboards, they
were one-cylinder gas or paraffin engines or heavy diesels that might
give four knots in a flat sea.

They would be narrow, deep and dark below, because lots of light meant
lots of places for water to get in, and that meant more pumping. On
the up side, they might feature carpets, bookshelves and small
fireplaces to make everything snug.


I have the impression that if my boat would have
been larger I would not have been able to go up and down the 40 foot
waves.
That does not mean that I do not want a larger boat!

As do we all, but like anything else, there's a tradeoff. I have
decided personally to restrict my "dream boat for world cruising"
search to the 38 to 45 foot range, because less is too small for
stores and one wife and one kid plus me and a workbench G and 45
feet is about the limit for sail handling without complex mechanical
aids. Even then, I would prefer a split yawl or ketch rig so I
wouldn't need a monster main or genoa.,,and I believe (currently) 45
feet is my limit. If my wife was six feet tall instead of five feet, I
might go 50 feet, but she's unlikely to grow now!

R.

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 23:33:20 -0500, rhys wrote:

Typically, they would self-steer, and rigged twin headsails for
downwind work. All pumping was manual, and if they had inboards, they
were one-cylinder gas or paraffin engines or heavy diesels that might
give four knots in a flat sea.

=================================================

Also typically, they would plan their route to be exclusively downwind
because the boats they were on were almost incapable of meaningful
work to weather, and even if they could have, conditions would have
been hell on board.

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 08:44:17 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 23:33:20 -0500, rhys wrote:

Typically, they would self-steer, and rigged twin headsails for
downwind work. All pumping was manual, and if they had inboards, they
were one-cylinder gas or paraffin engines or heavy diesels that might
give four knots in a flat sea.

=============================================== ==

Also typically, they would plan their route to be exclusively downwind
because the boats they were on were almost incapable of meaningful
work to weather, and even if they could have, conditions would have
been hell on board.

That is largely true as well, although some boats in the "crossover"
period of the '60s were cold-molded composite hulls with
race-influenced rigs that featured enough foredeck to work upwind. But
yes, many of the older "cruisers" did not work well to weather, for a
number of reasons.

They typically took a lot of water over the decks in a way
unacceptable to current thought. On the other hand, they were also
designed to bob free of that same water and didn't ship tons of it in
huge cockpits.

But in other ways, they had highly desirable sea-keeping
characteristics. That why I like 25 year old Ted Brewer/Bob
Wallstrom/Roger Marshall/Bob Perry designs, for instance, that in my
limited experience of looking at plans and sailing on a few examples
in heavy weather, seem to combine a lot of the old with the new and
more efficient hull shapes developed since, say, 1960.

We have better boats today than 50 years ago, in nearly every respect.
That's categorically true, in my opinion. However, marketing to a
generally coastal cruising/entertainment-oriented pool of potential
boat buyers has meant that some aspects of sea-kindliness have been
sacrificed, again in my opinion. There are vastly greater numbers of
recreational sailors today, but the number of truly skilled sailors,
able to get the best out of their 35-45 foot boats in all weathers, is
probably a smaller proportion today than 40 years ago, if only for the
simple fact that then, if you couldn't sail yourself to safety, you
were very likely dead. Today, you trigger the EPIRB and get into the
liferaft and two hours later, the helicopter lands and someone hands
you a nice cup of chicken soup. While this is not a bad thing in any
sense, we have made some compromises in boat design and general skill
level that would have seemed questionable to the Don Streets and the
Pardeys still sailing among us.

R.

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 13:44:53 -0500, rhys wrote:

we have made some compromises in boat design and general skill
level that would have seemed questionable to the Don Streets and the
Pardeys still sailing among us.

============================

Of course the boat manufacturers are quite aware of the fact that less
than one percent of boat owners will actually go on an offshore
passage of any significance. It costs quite a bit more to build a
boat for that market and the vast majority of folks don't really need
it, and are not willing to pay for it. If you go to some of the
international cruising centers of the world where people have actually
made offshore passages just to get there, you will find very few boats
under 40 feet, and most are bigger.

If you go to some of the
international cruising centers of the world where people have actually
made offshore passages just to get there, you will find very few boats
under 40 feet, and most are bigger.


not true. what IS true is that in expensive international cruising centers of
the world you WILL find more expensive boats. Generally, longer seaworthy
boats are more expensive than shorter seaworthy boats.

Go to the back waters away from large "cruising centers" and you will find lots
of smaller boats that have some great distances.

Keep in mind that *most* people on the water are scared to death of the water.
Therefore, they want bigger boats because they "heard" that bigger boats are
somehow "safer". Most people who cruiser want as many comforts of home as they
can find. Most women who consider going offshore with their man believe they
need to store a complete wardrobe of clothing and a couple dozen pairs of
shoes.

Yes, a quality 45 foot of excellent seaworthiness is perhaps a better sailing
boat than a same quality 27 foot boat of excellent seaworthiness, but you are
then talking about maybe 4 times the price.

Hold price constant and a smaller boat will give greater quality and greater
seaworthiness than the longer boat (remember, same dollars spent).

There is, however, the issue of crew. A seaworthy 45 footer needs more crew
onboard to safely sail long distances than a smaller seaworthy boat. I have
never seen a woman who could take down an 800 square foot mainsail by herself,
and damned few men who could either.

And few women, or men for that matter, who can raise a 65# anchor by hand when
the windlass breaks.

If safety is defined as space to knock around inside both at anchor and at sea,
then the larger boat is where it's at. If, on the other hand, safety is
defined as arriving at your destination with the crew you have available, then
the safest boat is the one you can handle under any foreseeable conditions.

As in airplanes where a good landing is one you can walk away from, in boats a
good landing is one you can take your dinghy to shore.