average mileage for a day...

[fujiwara takumi]

if all goes well and life is good how far do you think you could get in a pleasant day of sailing, mileage wise.

i know there are a million variables, but for example, outside of variables in a nice day of driving i might cover 300 miles, but in a LONG hard day of driving I could cover 1000.

[29cascadefixer]

Sailboat does about 5-6 miles per hour. On a coastal cruise from point to point , sunrise to sunset,figure 50 or 70 miles. Ocean cruisers, from what I can gather, aim for 100 miles per day . Nascar this ain't ! As an aside , most places of haborage on the US side of the Great Lakes are placed about 15 miles apart. This means you can travel as little, or as much as you want .

[walnut]

It's not the quantity but the quality. The best part is switching of the engine and letting the wind do the work for you. When on a passage, I allow an average speed of 5-6 knots(6-7 mph). If it is a lovely day and I don't have to be anywhere, it is blissful just to switch of the engine and float along through the water at 1-2 knots, going with the tide that's about 10-15 miles in 5 hours. There is no stress and I feel at one with the world. A book I have just read said that 'sailing is the slowest form of transport that is enjoyed by man'.

[tenknots]

Over 3 years of cruising, we averaged four knots.

100 miles for 24 hours of sailing. 70 nautical miles is a long day of sailing.

[GordMay]

Which raises the question of how Tenknots came by his screen name.

[Jeff H]

In some ways this is another 'how long is a piece of string?' type of question. We have been getting a lot of those lately.

Much of this depends on the boat, the skipper, the passage and your goals. Historically a 100 miles a day was a good turn of speed. More modern cruising designs are quite a bit faster. For example a sistership of my 38 foot boat was single-handed to the Caribbean from South Africa a couple years ago. She averaged 175 miles a day for the first ten days and 160 miles a day over the whole trip which included passing through the duldums.

Coastal cruising, I found that a 30 or 40 mile day was a very long day on my prior boat (a 28 footer) but is not all that bad on my 38 footer. By the same token I often would cruise with a friend who had a more traditionally designed 30 footer and he considered 20 miles a long day coastal cruising.

Jeff

[tenknots]

Alas, ten knots is the fastest I've ever gone under wind power. If I could get a ride on a friend's racing cat, I'd have to change my screen name.

[BC Mike]

To echo what Jeff said, the longer baot is going to do the miles easier. Our 29 foot LOA boat will do 6 knots on the wind, 7 1/2 on a reach and more on a broad reach and run. These are sustained speeds not bursts. But for cruising it has to do this on its own while the crew attends to other things. To limit the amount of tippy and have the boat tend itself we may have to slow down and thats where the 100 mile days come from. A larger heavy boat may not do much better especially in light winds. But a longer moderate displacement boat with a sensible fin keel is able to keep the speed up and tend to itself better, so 150 mile days seems appropriate. To answer the original question, plan on 100 mile days for boats up to 30 and heavy boats, and 150 mile days for sensible boats 36 to 40 feet. In ideal conditions add to both totals.
BC Mike C

[BC Mike]

Try and get a ride on a Hobie 18 or similar. Twenty plus knots is realistic. It is worth it. BC Mike C

[Alan Wheeler]

OR even better, get a ride on one of the big girls down in the Southern Ocean, where they clock off 500- 600 miles a day. Now that would be something. Although I would expect many of us would turn a shade of grey faster.
Wheels

[fujiwara takumi]

when im curious about distance i go to maps.yahoo.com and punch in the zips. It has only distance information for driving on a street though...is there such a thing for water distance, without looking at a paper map? i just like to estimate things.

[CSY Man]

Try this one, it will give ya the great circle distance between any 2 points on earth....

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=T...avy&MAP-STYLE=

[JusDreaming]

we average 5 knts on our 37' cat, so an average of 60 miles is a relatively easy day sail

[exposure]

5 knots in a CAT....

It's about time someone admitted they don't spend hours cruising around in double digits in their cat. I was getting a complex thinking of the 5 knots we usually see in our prout.

[Sonosailor]

I know what you are saying, Exposure, but I am still hopeful that I can average 7 plus from Saint John to Bermuda in November in my Tobago 35. How long does one want to live in a storm suit while the boat grows frost on all surfaces?

With the money I am throwing at new sails and a folding prop, I am very hopeful...