Reasons to stay "Monohull"

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Polux

You are very mean and I remember not long ago you salivating for a cat, a Lerouge design that made a hell of a passage on the ARC.

An interesting article about cats on the ARC:
Crossing the Atlantic on a Catamaran with the ARC - Sail Magazine

I am promiscuous. Or so I like to think of myself. For I love them all, that is, the pretty ones!

;-)

The black and white one is a Royal Huisman S&S 1965. Deciding between a Cigale and a classic like this could be a real pain. I am lucky to be one of the few who can have them both.

b.

[nortonscove]

The part about the consultants over complicating things is probably the single most accurate or indisputable statement in this thread. It's an assumed reality in the circles I formerly ran...government programming, that consultants would essentially take a proposal highlight some of the work already done and a free with what you wish to hear while over charging you for what you already know.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Polux

....think they are mostly sold to Russians (70% of them) to sail on the med

So, let's see about the med and those 70% of Russian owners:

A good measure to see the use that is given to the boats is to check the boats that are used for Atlantic passages (they go and they come back) and regarding that the more than 200 boats a year on the ARC provide reliable information.

In what concerns those boats you will find that regarding the overall number of Beneteaus and Oysters, you will find a much bigger percentage of Oysters doing it than Beneteaus showing that in fact Oyster owners do perceptually a much bigger use of their boats on passage than Beneteau Owners.

Let's look at those numbers regarding the number of Halberg-Rassy that like Oyster (and for the same reason) have on the ARC perceptually a big number of boats participate on the event and comparing that number with the ones of the X-yachts doing it, on the last two editions.

Off course we have to take in consideration that Halberg Rassy is making boats for a much longer time than X yachts and also that X yachts was for many years a very small production shipyard and only on the last 7 or 8 years have become a Scandinavian major brand.

On the last two ARC editions participated 13 Halberg-Rassy, a very considerable number and considerably more than the ones of other single brand of medium displacement cruisers, with exception to maybe Oyster even if many Oyster are not medium displacement cruisers.

On the last two editions the number of X-yachts doing the ARC was the same as the number of Halberg Rassy, 13 yachts, even if 3 of them have made it on the racing division and not on the cruising division.

And regarding those Russian med owners and this opinion of yours:

None of the 13 boats was Russian but that 11 out of 13 were from North European, American or Australian owners and only two from the med (italians) : Norway 3, Netherlands 3, Great Britain 1, Australia 1, US 1, Germany 1, Austria 1.

So it seems you are talking about your sea culture and about the type of boats that you like and not about the ones that constitute the sea culture of those countries, that is diversified: Some like more for ocean sailing medium displacement boats, others like more performance cruisers to do that.

Since I was looking at numbers on the ARC I took the opportunity to have a deeper look at the difference of speed on the Atlantic passage, while cruising, between all those Halberg Rassy and X-Yacht considering the two editions of the ARC.

Since I am interested in loaded boats cruising I did not consider the 3 X-yacht that make it on the racing division and regarding maintaining comparable size I did not consider two smaller HR, a 31ft and a 35ft boat.

The average size of the X yacht was 45.2ft versus 44.8ft for the Halberg Rassy, the average difference in passage time was 2 days 11hours, a result that is consistent with other data regarding average passage times on the Atlantic between performance cruisers and medium displacement cruisers of about the same length.


Yes, I have sailed on the Baltic even if not extensively but I do have seen some X yachts on the marina. I don't remember if I saw any sailing and yes, I have traveled on Scandinavia and have looked at several marinas.

I agree that you that the Baltic is not a reference in what regards Ocean sailing, the ARC is a much better one.

ARC boat's are sailing to CARIBBEAN so you are again talking about boats intended to be sailed a great part if not solely in the warmer part of this planet. Wherever the owner happens to live or where the boat is registered has very little to do with anything (except to you)

BR Teddy

[Polux]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I am promiscuous. Or so I like to think of myself. For I love them all, that is, the pretty ones!

;-)

The black and white one is a Royal Huisman S&S 1965. Deciding between a Cigale and a classic like this could be a real pain. I am lucky to be one of the few who can have them both.
b.

So you are one of the lucky ones. I hope you invite for a ride on either of those because I do love both even if in what regards the choice it would be easy for me, unless I could have both, kind of a woman and a mistress. The Classic boat is like a very pretty and elegant girl on high heels. Lot's of trouble and work to keep satisfied, the other one is just a nice girl on tennis shoes that does not mind to work and is not to demanding in what regards constant attention.

If you are really undecided you can have one of the new classic, with better performance and less maintenance even if not at the price of a similarly sized Cigale and not close in what regards functionality, interiors space or speed but what a joy to own and sail a beauty like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSIM...&nohtml5=False

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUao...&nohtml5=False

[Polux]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

ARC boat's are sailing to CARIBBEAN so you are again talking about boats intended to be sailed a great part if not solely in the warmer part of this planet. Wherever the owner happens to live or where the boat is registered has very little to do with anything (except to you)
BR Teddy

They come back and when they come they will go sailing more to the North. passing Azores and from do you think that those two Norwich or the two Dutch not to mention the German, the British or the Australian ones come from and from where they are going to be sailed to?

There are X yacht making circumnavigations and a middle weight cruiser is not necessarily a more seaworthy boat than a performance monohull cruiser, if it is to that you want to say in what regards sailig on the warmer part of the planet. There are some that are designed specifically as voyage boats but then there are also performance cruisers designed as voyage boats.

The choice of one over another for passage making is a personal choice that has to do with what one wants from his boat, more comfort and more loading capacity or a reasonable loading capacity and more fast passages and more fun while sailing.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Robert,

As you are such a fine guy and refrain from throwing your anchor chain mud at people anchored in respective distance (which cannot be said of everyone on this thread) I will also try to be a fine person and, should I find my older xls files with Transpac and ARC data, I will share the findings with you, over a PM.

You are right about it not being likely to draw valid findings from our one off experiences, even when we relate them to a broader sailing backdrop of many boats sailing events like ARC et all. But much as or single experiences tell us nothing, when you draw conclusions from many data points (many experiences) about classes of objects, you come to quite clear, even though at times surprising, findings. At a point like this we may either shut our eyes and keep on repeating we are right and the data is wrong, or else face the figures and admit some girls are bigger than others.

It is not a hard promise though, as I did that work on my ex computer and I may have as well lost the sheets by now. Unfortunately, it is not a 5 minute job to repeat the research as ARC (used to) publish that data in pdf files which were not readily convertible to xls sheets. That is to say, they could be, if the person creating the pdfs knew what data exchange is and why it is a nice thing to write so that others could read. ;-)

Bueno. From the top of my head I can tell you count on 0.9 to 1 sqrt of the lwl in average ARC conditions. I am talking about speed made good, not speed made ahead. Disregard the outliers, UNLESS you are sailing one. VOR 70 is an outlier and that boat that motored for 800 hours is another.

So. What can I say. Making xls sheets is not a good reason to stay mono. I hope someone will find one today.

b.

I'd enjoy reading whatever info you have, always interested in learning. Cheers, R

[Polux]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

I hope I don't divert the conversation any further however I would also add that while there is a bit of a shift and the cats are becoming more accepted as time progresses, so to is the market in sailing shifting. By this I mean that even if we consider only monohulls, the market is shifting in the type of monos for sale. The market is much more oriented towards high end and there are far fewer boats available for the "average" Joe. In particular, you can see this at the boat shows. The prices and amenities are much more lavish than they ever were.
...

Yes that is true that cats, specially "condo" cats are much more popular and increasing, it is also true that the market (the global one) is more diversified now than ever offering boats specifically designed for many purposes including fast monohull passage makers (increasing also) but the main market is full of inexpensive boats that have nothing to do with luxury.

I doubt that in any time it was offered so much for the money regarding sailboats, as it is now.

Regarding less expensive boats, with good build in what regards structural and essential parts but without equipment or interior that can be considered luxurious, Hanse have made an experience with the Varianta, a very good sailboat at an unbeatable price and the sells have remained low. I believe the boat is imported to US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94vvD7lMQs8

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Polux

I have already said this but you seem not to have understood: ...
If you have a fast performance sailing cruiser, that sails well on light winds you don't need to touch the engine on the trade winds and on medium and stronger winds the boat goes faster sailing than motoring and that explains why the ones that motored are slower: they cannot go at full motoring speed because for motoring 4 days they have to go more slowly, not wasting too much fuel.

If you want to go faster motoring have some thing like a motor Dashew, or a Nordhavn, not a sailboat motoring.

I understand your idea -- that a boat which sails faster will make faster passages without having to resort to their motor. In theory, it sounds great. The question then becomes, how much advantage does the faster sailing boat have under sail, how much disadvantage does it have under conditions where its sailing performance is inferior to the other boat's motoring advantage, and how often does one of these factors outweigh the other.

I see two big holes in that argument.

First of all, the data you provided has not pointed to any advantage as compared to a full-displacement performance cruiser under cruising circumstances. Such data *may* exist, but you haven't cited it. If your best efforts to argue this point cannot offer any relevant data, that either says something about the incomplete state of your knowledge or about the lack of existing data. Since I believe you to be knowledgeable, that suggests that there is no data available to support your argument.

Second, your assumptions about the suitability of conditions for sailing (vs motoring) while offshore are very far from my experience and the experience of hundreds of other cruisers -- specifically, I find that sometimes the wind blows and sometimes it doesn't.

I could go on and on expanding on these points, about the different frequency of different windspeeds on the different parts of this planet, about weight of cruising gear, about different approaches taken when racing vs. crising, about the difference in experience and capability of crew for cruising, etc. but what it comes down to is that I believe that I understand your argument, and that I see two large holes in it.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Polux

...

Najad bankrupted several times was bought ...
...
the Finngulf are no more, they bankrupted some years ago ...

...
Sweden yachts bankrupted at even more time ...


Malo has ... diminished considerably his production and the demand is very scarce....

Baltic and Swan did not bankrupted...changed altogether their production, that is a very small one, to the production of big semi custom performance yachts.

This would seem to indicate that building well-made cruising boats is often bad business.

Please forgive me if I don't fully understand your argument -- is it that many builders have gone out of business and therefore one may only conclude that their products were ill-suited to cruising?

[gjorgensen]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

The ARC results have always left me wondering as often there is no rhyme or reason to some of the results. I looked back a few years ago and there were almost as many old Moody's as Beneteau 's even though the British boats haven't been built in almost 20 years and Beneteau is the largest builder of sailboats. Many of the ARC boats stay in the Caribbean and are not sailed back the next season or go to other parts of the world. Sailing times are all over the map. We left the Canaries the same time as the ARC and took 18+ days to cross and later I find all sorts of so called faster boats that took longer. I think you can learn something about performance while tracking the racing division but not so much tracking the cruising division. During our crossing we kept in touch with a Cat that we were sharing the ocean with and while they were several feet longer than us their daily runs were only a few miles better and I know for a fact it is capable of doing much better so I think that many of the skippers sailed their boats very conservative, deep reefing them at night and underpowered during the day, what is there to learn from that? I think we cherry pick information that confirms our biases and spout that info out and support it with ARC results that in my opinion don't mean very much.

Totally agree. You can really only look at broad averages across large numbers, because the individual results are all over the place. I would guess t's the same with any group of cruisers doing ocean passages. Heck look at that Manta in my PPJ spreadsheet, which is a reasonably fast cat. It had the longest overall crossing time. Maybe they suffered a major gear failure or something, I really don't know.

I also think your point about how the boats are being sailed is central to a lot of the discussion and disagreement in this thread. Regardless of the paper speed potential of a boat, how they're sailed on ocean passages is often very different from the optimal configuration on which the polars and speed predictions are based. What's more, from boat to boat it's hard to tell which how aggressively or conservatively they're being sailed. A lot of cruisers run underpowered a lot of the time just for safety. In an event like the ARC, much of that may depend on the sails the owner has and whether they're sailing mom-and-pop or with a crew of 6.

I think you mentioned you've done a number of deliveries back from Hawaii to the US west coast. I've done one, but had the luck to do it in a sled. I think of how we sailed that 70 footer, the sails we used (the main was dacron and undersized for the boat), and the extras we had (like a bunch of fuel bladders) and have to laugh at how far below speed potential we sailed.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Polux

They come back and when they come they will go sailing more to the North. passing Azores and from do you think that those two Norwich or the two Dutch not to mention the German, the British or the Australian ones come from and from where they are going to be sailed to?

There are X yacht making circumnavigations and a middle weight cruiser is not necessarily a more seaworthy boat than a performance monohull cruiser, if it is to that you want to say in what regards sailig on the warmer part of the planet. There are some that are designed specifically as voyage boats but then there are also performance cruisers designed as voyage boats.

The choice of one over another for passage making is a personal choice that has to do with what one wants from his boat, more comfort and more loading capacity or a reasonable loading capacity and more fast passages and more fun while sailing.

Might be north for you but I'm around 70N and was just on a holiday in south, in Iceland, so saying Azores being north is a joke. So you see it's relative and so are also most things regarding boats. To gain in one aspect you loose in on another and there's nothing nobody can do about it. Fast and fun boat to sail in the med can be wet, uncomfortable and slow in somewhere else or in "wrong" weather. It's what you prefer you pick but there's no perfect boat for everywhere or everyone, not even close.

BR Teddy

[Polux]

Originally Posted by accomplice

I understand your idea -- that a boat which sails faster will make faster passages without having to resort to their motor. In theory, it sounds great. The question then becomes, how much advantage does the faster sailing boat have under sail, how much disadvantage does it have under conditions where its sailing performance is inferior to the other boat's motoring advantage, and how often does one of these factors outweigh the other.
...

I guess you are not understanding me: I am not saying you have not a great boat neither that your boat is not perfect for you neither that a performance cruising boat is better to do passages then your type of boat.

That will depend of what each sailor wants from his boat and they don't want all the same things and that is why there is such a variety of yachts.

This all started with you saying that your boat was optimized for doing fast passages and with me disagreeing. I was thinking about sailing passages, not motoring passages.

A sailing boat is not a motor boat optimized for doing fast passages motoring. In what regards that a cat is a much better option, regarding sailing boats.

And if the passage is big (crossing oceans) no way a sailboat will have tankage to do that, not even for doing a substantial part of the passage and for using the engine for a long time the sailboat will have to do adopt an economic motor cruising speed, a slower speed.

The boats designed to do what you are talking about are motor sailors and very few have autonomy to cross Oceans, but some have, like the Nordhavn.

The most efficient way of moving a boat or a ship is motoring that is way the Dashews passed to motorboats and that's why ships don't use sails anymore. I am not contesting that.

But most on this forum sail and they sail because they like it or because they don't want to spend a lot of money in diesel or because they don't want to have an engine doing many hours and having more maintenance or because they don't like to use the engine.

The only thing I said and it is a fact, is that the sailboats that made faster passages on the ARC, on the many that I followed, never were the ones that used more the engine and that most of the ones that used more the engine were the ones that made slower passages. It is a fact that you can check out. Why is that so? I tried to find an explanation, one that you can accept or not, but more important that any explanation is the fact itself.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Might be north for you but I'm around 70N and was just on a holiday in south, in Iceland, so saying Azores being north is a joke. So you see it's relative and so are also most things regarding boats. To gain in one aspect you loose in on another and there's nothing nobody can do about it. Fast and fun boat to sail in the med can be wet, uncomfortable and slow in somewhere else or in "wrong" weather. It's what you prefer you pick but there's no perfect boat for everywhere or everyone, not even close.

BR Teddy

I still don't understand your point regarding sailing at higher latitudes. I have already told you that a boat like a X yachts is not less seaworthy than a boat like an Halberg Rassy.

Some years ago a Bavaria 44 made the Nordwest passage and some of those X yachts are from Norway and Oslo is at 60º latitude North. I can tell you that a X yachts for the same size is way more seaworthy than a Bavaria, with a considerably better stability.

May be more uncomfortable than a medium displacement boat, certainly faster, some boats (not the Halberg Rassy) offer interior protection to the cold (among those most cats). But there are some that prefer to sail outside, even on colder climates, so what is your point?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

The ARC results have always left me wondering as often there is no rhyme or reason to some of the results. I looked back a few years ago and there were almost as many old Moody's as Beneteau 's even though the British boats haven't been built in almost 20 years and Beneteau is the largest builder of sailboats. Many of the ARC boats stay in the Caribbean and are not sailed back the next season or go to other parts of the world. Sailing times are all over the map. We left the Canaries the same time as the ARC and took 18+ days to cross and later I find all sorts of so called faster boats that took longer. I think you can learn something about performance while tracking the racing division but not so much tracking the cruising division. During our crossing we kept in touch with a Cat that we were sharing the ocean with and while they were several feet longer than us their daily runs were only a few miles better and I know for a fact it is capable of doing much better so I think that many of the skippers sailed their boats very conservative, deep reefing them at night and underpowered during the day, what is there to learn from that? I think we cherry pick information that confirms our biases and spout that info out and support it with ARC results that in my opinion don't mean very much.

No, not many Moodies doing it now, in fact very few and some with bad results. That means that the sailors that had them, upgraded for more modern boats and it is not to be surprised. Moody bankrupt quite a long time ago and Europeans don't fancy older designs, if they can have newer ones and the ones that make the ARC are normally wealthy cruisers.

Regarding results on the ARC it works this way: Racing division is not to be regarded since the boats are not loaded and are being raced.

The ones in the cruising division if they would want to race would be on the racing division so they are cruising and their boats are loaded. Completely different situation.

Regarding the cruising division I agree that there are all sorts of paces with inexperienced sailors, scared wives and all the rest but if a fast boat can be sailed slowly a slow boat cannot be sailed fast, specially if the boats are on the same condition, meaning loaded for cruising.

So all you have to do is to see what a particular type of well sailed cruising boat can do while cruising and for that you just have to look at the best 10 or 15 from each type of boat and see the differences between then if any.

And there are differences and they are very clear in what regards performance cruising boats and medium displacement cruisers.

Regarding that, the comparison between Halberg Rassies and X yachts on two consecutive ARC are very neat regarding what to be expected.

On 2014 only a single Halberg Rassy was faster than a single X yacht and by only two hours. If we consider that the faster HR was a 54ft and the slightly slower X yacht was a 42ft, belonging to the slower XC line, we can understand that size by size the X yacht was much faster.

There was 7 HR and 6 X yachts making the ARC and all other HR stayed at more than 2 days of any of the other X yacht.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Polux

I still don't understand your point regarding sailing at higher latitudes. I have already told you that a boat like a X yachts is not less seaworthy than a boat like an Halberg Rassy.

Some years ago a Bavaria 44 made the Nordwest passage and some of those X yachts are from Norway and Oslo is at 60º latitude North. I can tell you that a X yachts for the same size is way more seaworthy than a Bavaria, with a considerably better stability.

May be more uncomfortable than a medium displacement boat, certainly faster, some boats (not the Halberg Rassy) offer interior protection to the cold (among those most cats). But there are some that prefer to sail outside, even on colder climates, so what is your point?

My point, aspects favourable in one condition are a liability in other conditions. If you optimise for light winds you loose in high. Build highest quality, be overpriced. Same with every possible characteristic of a boat you can think of and vice versa. There's no perfect boat, not even close, but there are boats pretty good for specific tasks.


There's summer in Oslo, we have the best time of the winter