Beneteau 45f5 for Circumnavigation

[Sjora]

Originally Posted by Gerrycooper56

Does the 45f5 have the main traveller in the cockpit or on the cabin top?
I would suggest, being a wimp that a full enclosure is a very important thing to have ranking far above a Pullman berth.

Gerrycooper56 - the 45F5's traveler is aft cockpit. I don't know about a full enclosure but a dodger is nice. It is my opinion that the 45F5 is a really nice and capable boat. For shorter passages it would be ok for four people. On longer passages with four onboard it might show some of its shortcomings.

We are sort of partial to Rassy's and you can find many of them in Europe in the $150-300K range. Fewer in the US, but they are out there. The thing with the Rassy is that even the old 35 Rasmus was designed from the keel up for CE A cruising and they were never really thought of as a dual-purpose coastal/offshore cruiser. So you really can't wrong if you buy one for long distance cruising. Our old '78, which is one of the original Olle Enderlein designs (but after Christoph Rassy bought the yard from Harry Hallberg, and before German Frers got into bed with them), has not really been improved upon except now they make them bigger so crews of 4-6 can cruise in comfort.

That is just our preference, and there's lots of other really good boats out there. But the Rassy's are overall low maintenance boats because they're well designed by people with generations of experience in building boats for offshore cruising. You'll never have problems with chainplates coming loose, etc., with a Rassy, and a lot of the other boats will tend to nickel and dime you to death as they get older. A Rassy stands the test of time and thousands and thousands of miles of cruising without falling apart.

So for somebody like YoloSF who intends to make a circumnav, you can buy a Rassy with a current survey, end up not having to stick a lot of extra money in it to fit it properly, and when you are done with your cruise you can sell it easily for what you got in it. Some of the others are not as easy to sell.

[YoloSF]

Originally Posted by Sjora

We have seen lots of people that stow jerry cans of fuel on deck in the lower latitudes and they seem to get away with it just fine. However, if you plan on sailing the North Atlantic or Southern Ocean it is probably not the best idea to stow heavier items that far above the waterline and center of rotation of the hull. You would be better off to refit for additional fuel capacity as low as possible, or select a different boat that has the required tankage.

Even in the lower latitudes you can end up with interesting handling characteristics in some places like the Gulf of Mexico or Indian Ocean, depending on the time of year, with your boat too top heavy. But generally speaking, we see a lot of people that sail the trades do it with no problems.

The 45f5 has 70 gallons for fuel. That's more than enough for 5 days of running the engine non-stop. What more can you need? Who said I'd be storing things above the waterline?

Also, I won't be running the generator because one of the things I mentioned this boat needs is solar/wind generator.

I really wish people would be less condescneding on the forums. The more condescending the response, the less useful. Plus, it's the grumpiest people that give responses way off topic! I wonder if cruising maybe isn't the right thing for them, it seems to stress them out...

[Sjora]

Originally Posted by YoloSF

Also, I won't be running the generator because one of the things I mentioned this boat needs is solar/wind generator.

Believe me, you'll be running your generator or propulsion engine every day. 4 people onboard = 300 amp-hours/day. You got a full complement of electronics going 24/7, hot water, nav, cabin lights at night, watermaker, etc.. Our boat carries 120 gal fuel, 145 fresh water (we don't have a watermaker because they use a lot of power). That's barely enough for two of us for 20 days at sea. And we got 1 kW solar. Never bothered with wind because wind turbines, even catching the wind off the main'sl, don't produce enough energy to make them all that useful for a decent sized boat.

If you use seawater for showers and the galley for things you don't need fresh water for, refit with a recirculator valve on the hot water so you don't waste a single drop getting hot water, etc., you might be able to get by. But it'll be tight unless you live pretty spartan.

I'll also clue you in on the fact that some of the more obscure ports you'll visit don't have diesel fuel or fresh water that's fit to put in the tanks. We took on 250 liters of fuel in Tonga once that included our fresh water and diesel fuel coming out of one nozzle. We used every fuel filter we had onboard for the generator and ended up dumping used fuel filters out and cooking them on the grille to evaporate water out of the pleats in the filter to get the generator to run - for the next 10 days.

[Kevin84]

Originally Posted by YoloSF

The 45f5 has 70 gallons for fuel. That's more than enough for 5 days of running the engine non-stop. What more can you need? Who said I'd be storing things above the waterline?

Also, I won't be running the generator because one of the things I mentioned this boat needs is solar/wind generator.

I really wish people would be less condescneding on the forums. The more condescending the response, the less useful. Plus, it's the grumpiest people that give responses way off topic! I wonder if cruising maybe isn't the right thing for them, it seems to stress them out...

Don't look now, but you're being condescending. You will need a gen set for four people on board. Unless you plan to use strictly oil lamps for light, no hot water for showers. Dont use the boats pressure water system. Or a microwave. Or any other electrical device except your instruments and running lights. As for fuel, that is only 5 days worth in ideal conditions. Something you will rarely encounter while cruising. How about water capacity? A watermaker is NOT the answer. It will definitely help, but it cannot keep up with four people unless it is run constantly. Which means running your engine or gen set constantly. And the constant running will cause those systems to fail sooner rather than later. Pay more attention to systems and build quality than whether or not it has the berth style you like. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Volunteer to crew on yacht deliveries a few times. It will give you real world experience and you'll find out what does and doesn't work for you.

[svHannabel]

Excellent thread. There's some great practical advice and experiences documented in here. Amazing the amount of knowledge that pours out when someone asks for a simple opinion about a Beneteau. Thank you!

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

The draw back of a pullman berth is that the inside sleeper must wake up the outside sleeper if/when they get up at night.

You spend plenty of time sleeping so main bed choice is quite important. For my wife and I an island queen was a must have but in a proven blue water yacht. Good sea berths were also as important while underway.

We recently bought a Liberty 458. It took us 18 months to find a good, dry well equipped vessel. It's the safety critical things that consume most of the thought process now we are living aboard. We look for five levels of redundancy for safety critical aspects. Things like hull integrity, manoueverability, etc.

Being able to repair and maintain all systems ourselves is important. I am an engineer with 3 trades; mechanic, aircraft welder and toolmaker. My wife is a sail maker. So we can fix just about everything.

Weight, storage and access will limit what you can have onboard. We have 106 lockers and still have to pick and chose what we can cruise with.

[Gerrycooper56]

I don't know about others but we spent more time in the cockpit than any where else , either at anchor or sailing. The Caribbean wasn't so bad with short hops but once through Panama we virtually lived in the cockpit. On longer stretches with interrupted sleep we found at night, even the tropics we would get cold - to the point we would wear beenies and a fleecy. It is then important not to get wet and have a good cockpit enclosure is critical. The side curtains serve another very useful purpose at night of keeping the flying fish out.(can scare the crap out of you when they hit though)

[donradcliffe]

You not only need an anchor and all chain, you need a windlass pull it up. You need at least 400 ah of batteries and 500W of solar. You need a dodger and a bimini. You need a liferaft. You will need 4 good seaberths. With a 70 gallon fuel tank, you will want to carry 20 gal in jerry jugs, not just because you might need it, but you need the jugs to refuel.

What you really needed to do was buy my Bene 456 which had been RTW and had all this and more for $65k.

[Sjora]

Another sort of a hint that we've found with solar panels for onboard power - and it would be interesting to hear other's experiences with them - is that we get about 40-50% of their nameplate capacity for output during the day when under sail. So 1 kW of installed capacity will produce about 170-180 amp-hours per day under sail for a 24V system. They tend to work way better dangling on the hook than they do at sea because they don't get shading from the sails and tend to catch more sunlight with the boat at zero heel.

On overcast days it doesn't seem to make much difference, but they only produce about 20% of their nameplate on those days.

So I consider them a supplement and not your primary power source at sea. On the hook, they can easily power our boat 24/7 with nice sunny days. But the generator is primary - the solar panels just reduce how much the genset has to run at sea.

And the other thing is that solar panels are heavy. Ours weigh something like 50-60 lbs each (four 250w panels). We have ours on the aft deck and our boat is a ketch so the mizzen tends to be a problem with shading. On a sloop they might work better at sea due to less shading problems from the main'sl than we get from the mizzen.

It would be nice to hear others experiences with them on various boats. We talk to people, some who are happy with them, some that don't think they were worth the money. Overall, we're happy with them due to the fact that they allow us to have onboard power without running the generator on the hook - and we like to dangle on a mooring ball instead of renting a transient slip just to get shore power.

[RedFeather]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

...What you really needed to do was buy my Bene 456 which had been RTW and had all this and more for $65k.

Don't suppose that boat is still for sale?

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Sjora

We have seen lots of people that stow jerry cans of fuel on deck in the lower latitudes and they seem to get away with it just fine. However, if you plan on sailing the North Atlantic or Southern Ocean it is probably not the best idea to stow heavier items that far above the waterline and center of rotation of the hull. You would be better off to refit for additional fuel capacity as low as possible, or select a different boat that has the required tankage.

Even in the lower latitudes you can end up with interesting handling characteristics in some places like the Gulf of Mexico or Indian Ocean, depending on the time of year, with your boat too top heavy. But generally speaking, we see a lot of people that sail the trades do it with no problems.

[Neptune's Gear]

Just for those who say you can't, I've done about 40,000 NM on my 12m boat (40ft) with 220ah of battery bank, 100w solar panels and wind gen. No genset, no watermaker.

We hold 800 litres (abt 180 gals) water. That can last 2 of us 4-6 weeks depending on conditions.

I run a PC most of the time, with AIS, and a broadband radar a lot. Everything that can be is LED. In the higher lats, the wind gen is great. Not much good near the equator!

Over the last three year voyage we averaged just over 2 hours per day engine running. That included a hell of a lot of motoring in SE Asia because there was no wind! We hold 110ltrs of diesel, (25 Gall UK, 30 Gal US), we had twice that on deck in jerryjugs. I allways said I'd never do that! Once we motored 1300 miles due to no wind. Made it in with about 5 litres remaining.

Take a water separating fuel filter - like the baja - filter all fuel in SE Asia at least twice before putting it in the boat. It's cheap, but its dirty! We use 0.75 litre per hour at a fraction under 5 knots to get best economy. Normal cruise is 7knts. The boat is 8500 KG loaded, 5800 kg empty. She sails well in the light (its a Farr) but we still motored a lot. Can't sail when there is no wind!

Matt

[savoir]

If you guys think a few jerry cans on deck will affect the boats sailing characteristics . . . . what are you sailing on ? A J24 ? Maybe if there were 20 full cans on deck.

Time to quit smoking the cheap stuff.

[Sjora]

Originally Posted by savoir

Maybe if there were 20 full cans on deck.

Oh yeah. We've seen boats with at least 15 cans before.

Our home port is in the North Sea/North Atlantic. No experienced captain that I have ever met will do it. When you're sailing in 40kt wind and 20-30 foot seas the forces of a wave coming over the deck and hitting a row of cans lashed to the stanchions (or anywhere for that matter) has to be seen to be believed. I don't care how big your boat is.

[donradcliffe]

I lashed the cans in the cockpit on passage, and never had a problem. I also lashed a kayak I'd won in a Malaysian regatta to the stanchions. The Kayak wasn't a problem for the trip across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, across the Atlantic, a couple of years going between Trinidad and Maine, and then down through Panama, out to Hawaii, and back to Santa Cruz. Guess I was just lucky, but maybe its because I decided not to go to the North Sea.

Sorry, but the 456 has been sold after 15 years and 90,000 miles--it was standing in the way of doing the Great Loop.