Modern Production Cruisers at Sea

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Explain to me why wetted area is a defense in heavy weather ?

Dave

Hi Dave,

Can you not see the obvious? I like fast boats, and I may even be buying Peterson 34 this weekend which has very little wetted surface. I'm too tired though tonight to go into to much detail. I overdid it running and on the bike plus sailing last few days..............

How about this (or you can check the seaworthiness book you say you have) basically you have more "expletive" stuff under the water which will help stabilize the "expletive" boat.

Aren't you the guy though that doesn't believe in learning from book? Books are bad to you correct?

Tom

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by settingsun

.
t the more common long-term tropical cruising scenario I've seen (I'm not talking about Transpac racing or sailing within 500 miles of home) is a couple in their mid-60's with a 5-10 year cruising agenda who have scrimped and saved and planned for years to go sailing in the tropics. They have set aside $150k-$250k for their boat and another $25k-$35k a year for living expenses.

They have high expectations.

They aren't happy spending that cruising kitty and their precious retirement time replacing major systems in their boat.

If they had gone with a newer production boat rather than a name brand old boat that was "more seaworthy," they would have been much less likely to need major system replacements during their cruise to Paradise.

Another way to look at this situation is that as they near the end of your postulated 10 year cruising agenda, their "newer production boat" isn't so new any more and will likely need all the things done that they would have needed on the older, higher quality boat... and at a time when the kitty may be depleted and their energy flagging.

How do I know about this? Well, Setting Sun, we've been doing this full time cruising thing since 1986 and we're older than dirt. I'm pretty glad that our about to be 23 year old boat was built by a master shipwright with no need to consider the marketing department nor the accountants bottom line when making important design decisions.

Have we had to do repairs/upgrades? Of course we have, but so have the many folks we've met with production boats that are 5 to 10 years younger than ours.

And what design school is she? A bit on the performance side of things, certainly in the "big dinghy" sort of hull shape category. And despite what the traditionalists think, she is pretty comfortable at sea. The main attribute of this sort of hull is greatly reduced pitching compared to traditional shapes (short LWL, long overhangs, lots of rocker in the plan view). Unless hard on the wind in a bit of sea we sleep forward under way... something we could never do in our previous older hull shape boat. She is not as directionally stable as a longer keel design, but the auto pilot has no problem steering her, even with pretty harsh conditions, and to me that is the big factor.

I'm not saying that one shouldn't go to sea in a production cruiser... not at all, for we see countless successful voyages in such boats, and the crews are generally content with their boats. But I do believe that there is a good case for buying quality and for straying from the standard production formats that we are offered by the big name mass producers. As always in yachting, the choices are driven by circumstances and the tastes/expectations of the individual sailor. Ain't no one answer!

See y'all out there someday...

Jim

[neilpride]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

If so, what does this story tell us of their skippers?

b.

A good old boat in the right hands can be a big surprise??

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Hi Dave,

Can you not see the obvious? I like fast boats, and I may even be buying Peterson 34 this weekend which has very little wetted surface. I'm too tired though tonight to go into to much detail. I overdid it running and on the bike plus sailing last few days..............

How about this (or you can check the seaworthiness book you say you have) basically you have more "expletive" stuff under the water which will help stabilize the "expletive" boat.

Aren't you the guy though that doesn't believe in learning from book? Books are bad to you correct?

Tom

Other then an obviously ad hominem attack , you haven't advanced a single reason or answered my question

I've sailed in excess of 50 designs over 20 years , I've visited many of the factories mentioned. Go on enlighten me.

What. " stuff" under the water stabilises the boat. , ballast is primarily to counter sail forces. What about dynamic forces like roll moment of inertia. Dynamics play a far larger role then statics.

But " expletive " proceed.

No one is arguing pound for pound an oyster or HR is the same as a Beneteau. I have argued that using price as an indication of quality is entirely misleading. I would argue that modern appendages make BETTER heavy weather boats. Boats that are more controllable , faster and less likely to broach , boats that can claw to wind wand etc.

Long keels, and barn door rudders came from an era when hydrodynamics was less understood

As the science improved , these designs disappeared.

Saying modern boats dont cross oceans is irrelevant. The worlds biggest production builders are in Northern Europe , at these latitudes this is serious sailing in waters you 40 to 40 types will never sea , where an mob is dead in 30 minutes , when f9 common in summer and we have 3000 miles of fetch.

The fact is tiny tiny percentages of people are sailing long keel teeky leekies , so its its a relevant statistic. Its like arguing airships are better at crossing the Atlantic then a Airbus 380.

Pleeeeze

Dave

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Have we had to do repairs/upgrades? Of course we have, but so have the many folks we've met with production boats that are 5 to 10 years younger than ours.

I'm not sure there's a consistent argument here. If the one-off has a Yanmar 4JH-3TE, and my production boat has a Yanmar 4JH-3TE, what makes his last longer than mine? Does your Harken hardware last longer than mine? Is your North 3G gennaker better than mine?

There were indeed a few places where corners were cut on my boat. I've already replaced the Force 10 water heater with an Isotemp. I started out with a single Racor fuel filter system that I replaced with a dual system. After owning my boat for a year I replaced all the cheap foam inside my leather cushions with expensive foam that was more up to liveaboard demands. The bottom line, however, is that boats costing twice as much as mine are not twice as nice. Nor are they twice as seaworthy.

Too often, people who pay for brand names get nothing more than brand names. The point is to realize when it's better to pay for quality, and when a more expensive product just isn't worth the money. I know better than to purchase OEM sails on a new boat. I also know enough about systems to realize that the plumbing, pumps, batteries, wiring, rigging, hardware, winches, windlass, drive train and electronics on my boat are as good as on any stock Oyster or Hinckley.

I refinanced my boat last year, and had to have her surveyed. The boat is a 2006, and still appraised for more than her base price. Granted, I've added custom systems like solar, wind, and davits, and those were a wash, and granted that there has been no deferred maintenance, but at this point I there just aren't areas where custom or semi-custom boats are going to cost less to maintain than my production boat.

If your bottom paint is lasting longer than my bottom paint, I suggest that you just haven't been sailing her as hard.

[settingsun]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Ain't no one answer!

Great point, Jim!!

That's why I said:

"The greatest thing about cruising is that you can do it in any style on any budget anywhere."

[sailorboy1]

Since even though we normally think otherwise we are really talking "yachts", I wonder if it really is impossible one way or the other to not have a big snob factor.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Other then an obviously ad hominem attack , you haven't advanced a single reason or answered my question

I've sailed in excess of 50 designs over 20 years , I've visited many of the factories mentioned. Go on enlighten me.

What. " stuff" under the water stabilises the boat. , ballast is primarily to counter sail forces. What about dynamic forces like roll moment of inertia. Dynamics play a far larger role then statics.

But " expletive " proceed.

No one is arguing pound for pound an oyster or HR is the same as a Beneteau. I have argued that using price as an indication of quality is entirely misleading. I would argue that modern appendages make BETTER heavy weather boats. Boats that are more controllable , faster and less likely to broach , boats that can claw to wind wand etc.

Long keels, and barn door rudders came from an era when hydrodynamics was less understood

As the science improved , these designs disappeared.

Saying modern boats dont cross oceans is irrelevant. The worlds biggest production builders are in Northern Europe , at these latitudes this is serious sailing in waters you 40 to 40 types will never sea , where an mob is dead in 30 minutes , when f9 common in summer and we have 3000 miles of fetch.

The fact is tiny tiny percentages of people are sailing long keel teeky leekies , so its its a relevant statistic. Its like arguing airships are better at crossing the Atlantic then a Airbus 380.

Pleeeeze

Dave

Maybe this will simplify it for you:

https://www.google.com/search?q=cont...e7%3B509%3B462

And here is more help for you. The dude crewing is actually handling the boat in a lot of this video. These experiences appear to help ones understanding of sailing more than visiting factories etc. Sailing various designs is nice now try racing them and realize if you have sheeted in maybe an inch too little or too much you lose!

Sailing Tornado - YouTube

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by neilpride

Randy define old, and slow.. in the recent Transpac Honolulu 2013 in divion 8 a 80 years wooden s&s beat the new modern production fleet aka Beneteaus and Jeaneaus. Another wrong thinking, Old=Slow...

Transpac 2013 Unfiltered - Dorade - YouTube

nothing wrong with an old war horse and a good crew.. and I'm one to respect them... on time, the crossing was 12 days, 5 hours, and 23 minutes.. not the fastest crossing for the race but respectable..
many factors come into play on that race so its really not fair to judge any boat for boat comparable. to correct out above another boat is a complacated proceedure and a guess at the most..
again, a very respectable time and a very nice boat..but a very rare one at that...

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Explain to me why wetted area is a defense in heavy weather ?

Dave

It's not...More keel area in the water creates more lateral stability but also produces more wetted area. It's a bi-factor. i thought you said you read all those books?

[neilpride]

This is a very interesting topic by Don Casey posted in sailnet. .....................




Some time ago SailNet citizen Wayne Wilson of Virginia wrote to inquire about the issue of seaworthiness when applied to modern production sailboats. Specifically, he wondered if there were any tangible evidence to support the frequently heard opinion that "a Beneteau, Hunter or Catalina [is] not up to an Atlantic crossing, but a Hylas, or Hallberg-Rassey, or Cabo Rico is?" Wayne was looking for something more substantial than "vague opinion, arm waving, and sentimentality."
I do my best to make sure that my opinions are never vague; wrong maybe, but not vague. It's a start.
The problem with seaworthiness is that the term means different things to different people. Is a canoe seaworthy? Presumably everyone that buys one thinks so. Of course, that is predicated on using the vessel in relatively benign waters. If your canoe sinks on the way to Bimini, there is not likely to be much discussion about whether the canoe was an Old Town or a Wenonah. A reasonable person would conclude that the sinking was a human failing, not a problem with the boat.
However, reasonable people can be hard to come by. All of those ridiculous warning labels (I told you my opinions aren't vague) pasted all over ladders are there because of a series of jury awards to people who, for example, stood on the top rung then, duh, fell off. A particularly notorious case involved a farmer who, in the early morning hours, placed one foot of his ladder on a frozen cow patty. When the ascending sun melted the dung, the ladder sank on one side and toppled, bringing the farmer with it. Twelve reasonable people thought the ladder was at fault—or at least that the ladder manufacturer probably had more money than the farmer. But I digress.

The reality is that most sailors rarely stray more than a few miles from home, so the term "seaworthy" takes on an applicable definition.

The reality of sailing is that nearly all of us do it in mostly good weather and within a few miles of our homes. Not surprisingly, this is the target market for the mass producers of sailboats. The design emphasis is on fun at a competitive price. It is wrong, I think, to indict Beneteau, Hunter, and Catalina or any other builder for giving us exactly the boats we want.
In any case, where we are talking about reputable builders, seaworthiness is determined more by design than by manufacturer. Boats that are fun to sail in light air and smooth water—the kind of sailing most of us prefer—are, by design, less suitable for heavy weather. Why? The primary issue is stability.
If the righting moment of a hull is inadequate to resist the wind pressure on the sails, the boat will blow over. This happens to dinghies all the time. In larger boats, we prevent this with ballast. The more ballast and the lower we place it, the less the boat heels. This is good, but too much draft limits where we can sail, and extra weight makes a boat slower in light air. Consequently, most production-built sailboats boast relatively modest draft, and in pursuit of the light-air performance that buyers demand, designers take weight out of these boats. Weight is also sacrificed for economic realities. But a lighter hull won't hold the mast upright when the wind intensifies—unless we make the hull wider. The end result is that the lighter a boat is, the wider and flatter it is likely to be.

"But a lighter weight hull won't hold the mast upright when the wind intensifies."
This is a win-win situation for the way most of us use our boats. Wide beam improves initial stability, meaning the boat heels less. But when conditions deteriorate, wider beam makes the boat more susceptible to capsizing and to remaining inverted. Some wide, shallow boats have a range of positive stability—the heel angle at which they turn turtle—as low as 110 degrees. Of course, the wind can't push the mast below horizontal, but ocean waves can easily roll a boat well beyond 110 degrees. For offshore sailing, any range below 125 degrees is marginal at best—and the higher, the better. A range of positive stability approaching 180 degrees was not unusual for designs from the first half of the twentieth century. Designers calculate this number and the manufacturer should be able to provide it to you for a specific boat.
An alternative numerical evaluation is the CCA Capsize Screening Formula, which offsets beam against displacement. Divide the gross weight of the boat in pounds by 64 (to get the volume of displaced seawater), then divide the cube root of this number into the maximum beam. This formula fails to take other factors into account, most notably ballast, but for comparing boats designed within conventional parameters, it remains a telling indicator. If the result is more than two, this is probably not the best boat to take to sea.

High freeboard and large windows are areas to worry about when considering a long offshore passage.

Making boats lighter, besides leading to excessive beam, tends to make the boat less durable. It can be helpful to think of pounding your way across a wide ocean as participating in a demolition derby. Are you more likely to triumph in a Caddy or a Corvette? Light can be fast and maneuverable (translation: fun) and sufficiently strong for coastal cruising, but when it comes to being pummeled for days on end, four laminates of cloth beats three every time.
High freeboard is often another consequence of wide and flat. When not much hull is in the water, you need more out of the water to get equivalent interior volume. High freeboard raises the center of gravity, but perhaps the more significant seaworthiness implication is that high freeboard impairs windward performance. In strong winds, the windage of the hull overpowers the drive of reduced sails and the boat will only go downwind. An offshore boat must be able to claw to windward and away from a lee shore.
All seamanship texts warn about large windows, and prudent offshore mariners fit oversize portlights with metal, plywood, or thick polycarbonate storm shutters. But what does one do about the great expanses of overhead clear plastic seen on lots of modern production boats? Even if the plastic is thick enough for the task—and I'm not saying it is—what effect do these openings have on the strength of the deck? A wave falling onto the deck of a 38 footer weighs 10 tons per foot depth, never mind that the impact might be at 30 knots or more. In the absence of credible evidence that a builder has beefed up what deck is there to compensate for what isn't there, I would opt for fewer and smaller deck openings.

The potential consequences of flaws in construction increase proportionally with the distance from land.

The potential consequences of shortcomings in a boat's design or construction increase with your distance from land. A weak or vulnerable rudder disqualifies a boat for offshore use no matter who the builder is; likewise, a spindly rig or shoddy construction. For offshore use, I want a hull-to-deck joint that is (at least) bolted together, not screwed. I want the cockpit separated from the interior by a high bridge deck. And I want ample, strong handholds, rounded furniture, and real sea berths.
As a general rule, boats designed specifically for crossing oceans satisfy more of these requirements. (They are also more expensive and less fun to sail on a summer afternoon.) That doesn't mean mass-produced boats can't cross oceans. A number of boats built by the very companies Wayne asks about have successfully circumnavigated, but these same manufacturers—and lots of others—have also built boats that going to sea aboard is about as advisable as standing on the top ladder rung. Come to think of it, maybe a few warning stickers defining unsafe usage for a particular boat wouldn't be a bad idea. Until then, you'll have to make your own evaluation. Do it based on the boat, its design characteristics and construction, and not just the brand name.

[muskoka]

Many of the criticisms of "production" boats are quite literally made from ignorance.

For example, both heat exchangers in a 3-year old Lagoon's engines failed. Certain "experts" around the club were mumbling that the owner should have bought a quality boat. I pointed out that the engines were the same reputable brand used in production boats and semi-custom boats and they sure as hell weren't built by Lagoon. The part failed probably because the engine builder got a batch of faulty parts from a supplier.

It seems there's a lot of cognitive dissonance: When third party equipment fails on a production boat, the boat builder is obviously crap. When it fails on a "yacht" no one would think to tar the boat builders reputation.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Bash

I suspect that this is because you don't own one of the boats that inevitably gets trashed on threads such as this. Can't imagine this thread being much fun for Beneteau owners.

Oh, I don't know about that. My style of boat gets called out for being slow, uncomfortably sailing on it's ear, pitching excessively due to a short waterline and long overhangs, having hard-to-maintain teak, having too much electronics that will fail at the worst possible moment, being too expensive, etc. Even Bob Perry says bad things about it (and Bob is a personal friend of mine).

And that's OK. There's a large kernel of truth in these accusations, and I accept that. I still love the boat.

And I have good friends with Bene's and Hunters, and all the other boats that us Crab Crushers like to badmouth. One friend, who has sailed to Hawaii aboard my boat, has been cruising Mexico with his wife and cat aboard their Hunter. They are now in Guatemala and are loving it. Their Hunter is perfect for them.

The insight that I take away from these conversations is that different boats have different characteristics, and almost all of the boats we sail will take us where we want to go. And that those who try to claim that there is only one correct answer are certainly wrong.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Bash

I suspect that this is because you don't own one of the boats that inevitably gets trashed on threads such as this. Can't imagine this thread being much fun for Beneteau owners.

On further reflection, there is some truth in what you suggest. I do think (or at least hope) that an owner has learned to enjoy the strengths, and accept the weaknesses of their boat. All boats have some of each, but most general-purpose boats built in the last 30 years or so are entirely capable of prudent cruising.

[boatman61]

Actually.... as a former Bene' 321 and 331 owner I find it all extremely amusing...
Solo'd both across the pond and around the Atlantic Islands/Carib etc... no problems.