The Perfect 60' to 65' Cruising Boat

[Fuss]

Perfect 60-65' Cruising boat....

What makes the Perfect 60-65' Cruising Boat is just one thing.

A combination of crew member/s who are capable of fixing or jury rigging everything on board. They must be able to find a solution to every problem without calling for outside assistance. The ultimate jack of all trades/competent/safety conscious sailor/s who also get on well.

Without this one thing, a 60-65' Cruising Boat is an accident waiting to happen.

And, when it has this one thing that makes these normally complex boats perfect, it could also have some of the things below that might for some people, make it even more perfect.....

Furling gennaker/code zero on bowsprit.
Lazerette you can climb inside.
Walk in engine room.
Sail locker you can climb inside.
Lots of general locker storage.
70 kilo anchor, 100m 10ml chain.
All electric cooking maybe.... with an electric installation to match..eg 24v electrics, 800ah batteries, 400w solar, 200ah Alternator, 2x3kw victron multiplus, prop shaft alternator, 4kw generator.
1500l diesel.
1000l water and watermaker.
Cockpit design so you can still sail without guests under your feet.
Solid spray dodger.
Watertight companionway.
Bilge pumps that are capable of saving your boat in an emergency, at least 100l per minute. Can your pumps pump at least 100l per minute?
Hatches dog down on 4 corners.
Decent tender and engine system.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's what waterline length and 160hp can do. I should have conditioned my remark with the phrase at a sustainable power level. If I'm willing to run my engine up to 3600 rpm and burn huge amounts of fuel, I can also get up more meaningful speeds against wind and sea, but 2800 RPM is just about the limit of what I'm willing to run my engine for more than brief periods. And even that doesn't really feel sustainable and uses several liters per mile, compared to a liter or less per mile at 2200 in calm conditions.

I usually cruise at 2000rpm, which turns out to be about 1.2L/mile for us. At 2800rpm that is near 5L/mile. Not worth it, in my book, unless there is an emergency.

It feels much better and much more efficient to motor sail.

By the way, one thing I noticed which could be helpful to others is that RPM vs speed when bashing upwind is not always linear. I found that there is often a minimum power setting setting, below which the seas frequently knock your way off, and above which you can usually keep up momentum. So you might get double the average speed at 200 rpm more.

I don't find that, so much. Bliss is a moderately heavy boat, 70,000#. As long as I'm moving along (4+ knots?), she'll go straight.

Well, sometimes you really need to get there, for whatever reason (weather window, just to name one example). When your VMG to whereever you're going fall below 5 knots, you start to simply not get anywhere. And sometimes -- for whatever reason -- you can't afford to just bob around for days waiting for the wind to change.

I've just been through this in real life, and so I am maybe a little oversensitized to the issue, but for me it's a key goal to be able to get upwind under sail in a wide range of conditions.

For me, comfort is important. I admit, though, that even with my best attempts at planning I sometimes find myself spending days going to weather. I try not to plan a trip against prevailing winds, though.

Generally, I'd rather get somewhere comfortably at 5 knots than uncomfortably at 7. (or comfortably at 7, than uncomfortably at 9, etc.) Don't knock 5 knots -- in my former boat I was very happy to average 5 knots for a trip. If speed is that important, a sailboat may not be the best way to travel.

It depends on how your boat is rigged. My boat short-tacks like a dream. The high-cut yankee gets across the inner forestay without furling and without any problem. The powered winches greatly reduce the labor involved. And the boat holds her speed through the tack much better than smaller boats I've owned previously. I love short tacking up channels and into harbors.

big thumbs up for powered winches, but larger sails still require longer sheets which take longer to haul in. I prefer the longer sails (measured in hours or days, not feet) to shorter ones -- I find them much more relaxing. Granted, sometimes I need to take out friends for the day.

(on davits) Ugly, troublesome, adds a lot of windage, adds weight in the worst place, adds weight high up (reducing stability), increases LOA, interferes with docking stern-to, interferes with wind vane mounting, creates risk of bashing the dinghy into things in harbor, shall I go on? I have strong and high-off-the-water davits now, and hate them.

I cannot say they add to appearance, but I don't find them that ugly. The weight isn't *that* high-up -- about 12-14' above the water. I don't find that 100 pounds, 12' up, on a 70,000# boat, has a noticeable effect on stability (and compared to on deck, where it'd be 4-5' up ... really?). In our case, the transom is raked back significantly (deck doesn't go as far aft as the steps), and the dinghy sits over the steps, so it doesn't extend LOA or bash into anything that the hull wouldn't. I don't have a wind-vane (redundant autopilots instead). The davits are imperfect, but IMHO they're a good solution.

(on weight) Here we'll have to disagree. More weight adds to stability, if it's well distributed, at least, but that's the only good thing. Everything else is bad.

But more weight is slower. Because every kilogram of weight has to be buoyed up by a certain volume underwater -- has to displace that amount of water. That means more wetted surface and more energy to drive the boat. Plus more energy to accelerate the boat.

To make up for it, you need a larger rig, larger sails, etc., all of which go up in cost in a non-linear fashion.

Yes, adds to stability, but needs to be offset with larger rig, so costs go up -- not just for the rig, but for most everything. That's my point, weight isn't bad, just makes it expensive (I remember years ago a friend of mine was commenting on one of his boat purchase criterion was dollars per pound). More weight also brings more weight carrying capacity, greater tankage, more storage space, and (hopefully) beefier construction. On docking, weight can make it harder (or nearly impossible) to haul on a line by hand, but also makes the boat less susceptible to wind. On the hook, I find weight makes for a calmer night's sleep.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by DoubleWhisky

At least on my Raymarine plotters it has a drawback of being displayed in very tiny fonts
And it really differ (in minus) from calculated VMG available on instrument display in easily readable fonts!

Anyway for me it is easier to steer using COG and heading lines, than checking the VMG number all the time - specifically the number on the plotter

On the other hand Dockhead has a Zeus plotters, and these can be better for this - I do not know!

I mean VMG to windward, velocity made good towards a destination dead upwind. You don't necessarily need it displayed on your instruments to know what that is, as anyone who has struggled upwind knows

If your instruments don't display it, it's simple trig to work it out --

If your boat speed is 7 knots and your tacking angle (the angle between COG on both tacks) is 110 degrees, then VMG to windward is 4.02 knots.

If your boat speed is 7 knots and you can get that angle down to 100 degrees, then VMG to windward is 4.5 knots. At the magic 90 degrees (unachievable on cruising boats with exceptionally rare exceptions), you almost crack the magic 5 knots -- 4.95.

It means that if you can maintain 7 knots of boat speed hard on the wind, and you tack through 110 degrees, you will get 100 miles upwind in 24.9 hours. At 90 degrees, it will take 20.2 hours.

[daysgoneby]

"By the way, in-mast furling becomes a Godsend when the sails get to this size. It requires a fraction of the force to roll an in-mast furling mainsail in or out horizontally, compared to hoisting a conventional battened main vertically. At some point it becomes almost impossible to get a battened main up single handed without a powered winch, whereas even a very large in-mast furling mainsails require very little force".

64ft Pilothouse Ketch | J. Simpson Ltd. Marine Designers and Consultants

This yacht which was built about 35 years ago has such a system, interesting to note how simple this boat is compared to modern yachts and the owner would single handle her all the time. From current owner-
"So, in 2009, I singlehanded the boat from the Puget Sound on a nonstop trip to SE Asia"
http://simpsonmarinedesign.com/marin...nerVupdate.pdf

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

If your boat speed is 7 knots and your tacking angle (the angle between COG on both tacks) is 110 degrees, then VMG to windward is 4.02 knots.

If your boat speed is 7 knots and you can get that angle down to 100 degrees, then VMG to windward is 4.5 knots. At the magic 90 degrees (unachievable on cruising boats with exceptionally rare exceptions), you almost crack the magic 5 knots -- 4.95.

I have two nits to pick with that. First, I think most people refer to the angle they tack through to be the change in compass heading of the boat. In other words, how many degrees must the helmsman (or autopilot) steer through. The compass heading is often a few degrees different from COG upwind as there are usually a few degrees of slippage.


Second, whether tacking through 90 or even 100 degrees is achievable is, IMHO, very much a function of the wind speed. In light winds, the apparent wind is pushed farther forward; in heavier winds, the amount the wind angle moves forward is much smaller. You can do the math, but it isn't hard to see that a boat that will sail comfortably at 32 degrees to apparent wind will have no problem tacking through 90 degrees if the apparent wind is within 13 degrees of the true wind. I'd venture to say that many cruising boats will sail happily at 30-35 degrees apparent.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by StuM

It is real speed of progress towards your destination.

Yes, but often upwind VMG is more useful.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by accomplice

Yes, adds to stability, but needs to be offset with larger rig, so costs go up -- not just for the rig, but for most everything. That's my point, weight isn't bad, just makes it expensive (I remember years ago a friend of mine was commenting on one of his boat purchase criterion was dollars per pound). More weight also brings more weight carrying capacity, greater tankage, more storage space, and (hopefully) beefier construction. On docking, weight can make it harder (or nearly impossible) to haul on a line by hand, but also makes the boat less susceptible to wind. On the hook, I find weight makes for a calmer night's sleep.

For docking, I do agree that weight is good on balance -- heavier boat is not blown around as much. Once you lose the ability to horse the boat around by hand -- and that happens below about 50 feet in any case -- it doesn't matter how heavy the boat is, for docking -- you're moving the boat around anyway by purely mechanical means.


But as to sailing performance, weight is nothing but bad, and it is not entirely compensated by a larger rig. Ask any racer!

The reason is that if you've got a given LWL to carry your boat's displacement in, the heavier it is, the slower it will be, even if you increase the sail plan proportionately to get the same SA/D. That's because every foot of waterline is carrying more weight, so needs more buoyancy, so you have a less and less efficient shape (either wider in the water or deeper or both) as the boat gets heavier for the same waterline.

You have to increase the sail plan disproportionately to get similar speed, but then you have to reef earlier, and you have disproportionately larger sails, rigging, etc.

So saving weight pays off in spades in sailing performance -- it sets off a virtuous cycle -- and this is really worth doing on a boat big enough to be comfortable without being heavy. This is reflected in the key metric of D/L, which tells so much about how a boat behaves under sail. Whether a boat is tank-like (300 or more) or gazelle-like (200 or less). Once a boat gets above 50 feet, you can have your cake and eat it too! You can have a sparkling D/L of 200, or even less, without the boat's becoming uncomfortable or unstable.


I'm not racing (even if two sailboats sailing in vaguely the same direction is always a race ), but speed is life. Speed gives you the length of your legs, and at the very low speeds we travel at, small differences in speed make big differences in where we can get in x number of days. Without speed, cruising is just bobbing around in the ocean. That's not what it's about, for me at least. Inability to produce miles is a prime reason why many cruisers hang around in port most of the time, instead of sailing. I really, really like to sail. I like to explore, I like to go places. And for that, you need to get places, and thus, make miles.


Sorry, I'm a little obsessed with it at this moment. My summer cruise this year consisted of migrating from the UK to Eastern Finland, 1500 miles away, during May, spending two months in Finland working and weekend cruising, then migrating back to the UK during August. Making those 1500 miles there and 1500 miles back is a significant challenge. I was mostly short handed and making most legs in long day sails -- 80, 100, 120 miles at a time. And mostly upwind, against the prevailing SW winds all the way back, and going there against a perverted NE wind which lasted almost the whole month of May. To get 1500 miles in one month, you've got to average 50 miles, day in and day out, including the days you sit out bad weather. You can't faff about, and you can't just say "I'll wait around and drink G&T's and wait for the wind to change", you've got to crank out those miles day after day. Since the wind may not change for a month, anyway, you just might not get there, if you take that approach.

This experience gave me a lot of time to think about what qualities of my boat I would change, if hypothetically I had a chance to do so, and that is the origin of this thread.

[weavis]

Very Pretty..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKAAvbQgGoQ

[Panope]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sorry, I'm a little obsessed with it at this moment. My summer cruise this year consisted of migrating from the UK to Eastern Finland, 1500 miles away, during May, spending two months in Finland working and weekend cruising, then migrating back to the UK during August. Making those 1500 miles there and 1500 miles back is a significant challenge. I was mostly short handed and making most legs in long day sails -- 80, 100, 120 miles at a time. And mostly upwind, against the prevailing SW winds all the way back, and going there against a perverted NE wind which lasted almost the whole month of May. To get 1500 miles in one month, you've got to average 50 miles, day in and day out, including the days you sit out bad weather. You can't faff about, and you can't just say "I'll wait around and drink G&T's and wait for the wind to change", you've got to crank out those miles day after day. Since the wind may not change for a month, anyway, you just might not get there, if you take that approach.

This experience gave me a lot of time to think about what qualities of my boat I would change, if hypothetically I had a chance to do so, and that is the origin of this thread.

Dockhead,

I wonder: if you already had this better performing boat that you dream of, would you have planned for an even more ambitious summer cruise?

If you are like me, it really does not matter how fast or capable the boat (or plane) is. I will generally use the device to its limits. And sometimes you go over them.

Steve

[monte]

I was surprised by some of the tacking angles quoted above. We generally tack at 90 degrees, sailing at around 33 degrees to apparent wind. The rest is leeway and the difference in true wind. If we fall off boat speed increases but I doubt enough to improve the VMG.
As an example, the track below is in 20k true wind with 1.5m messy seas from close the the direction of the wind, not ideal but SOG was around 7.5k average. Had we motored the rumb line we would have made 5k SOG very uncomfortably. Most of the other yachts were motoring the rumb line and I thought they were just too lazy to sail, but maybe with tacking angles in the 50+ degree range that's the reason? We could have fallen away a few degrees and increased speed to 8k but I'd guess VMG wouldn't have improved. I understand motor sailing when the wind is too light to sail, but from aft of the beam, it can add a knot or so, but when it's forward of the beam and strong enough to sail I can't see the point..

[savoir]

What a way to sail !

Push a cuppla buttons, wander up to the bow and hang out there for a bit looking cool and composed, stroll nonchalantly back to the cockpit where a cute girl awaits . . . .

Man o man, those Moody owners sure have it made.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by accomplice

I have two nits to pick with that. First, I think most people refer to the angle they tack through to be the change in compass heading of the boat. In other words, how many degrees must the helmsman (or autopilot) steer through. The compass heading is often a few degrees different from COG upwind as there are usually a few degrees of slippage.


Second, whether tacking through 90 or even 100 degrees is achievable is, IMHO, very much a function of the wind speed. In light winds, the apparent wind is pushed farther forward; in heavier winds, the amount the wind angle moves forward is much smaller. You can do the math, but it isn't hard to see that a boat that will sail comfortably at 32 degrees to apparent wind will have no problem tacking through 90 degrees if the apparent wind is within 13 degrees of the true wind. I'd venture to say that many cruising boats will sail happily at 30-35 degrees apparent.

Everything you say is true, but I would comment that AWA by itself is meaningless, what concerns performance upwind. Likewise your tacking angle through the compass. Difference between true and apparent wind depends on boat speed. Getting upwind depends on optimizing boat speed and COG -- which unlike compass heading considers leeway. So your best VMG to windward will never occur at the narrowest AWA. Your best COG won't even occur at the narrowest AWA -- at some point another degree closer to the wind will add two degrees of leeway and you are sailing further, not closer towards your destination.

Therefore, the only tacking angle which means anything is the difference between COG on both tacks. And even that is not the whole story, since higher boat speed may give you higher VMG to windward even at wider angle between your COG and wind direction.

This is kind of Sailing 101, but worth remembering considering how few of us cruisers really understand all this.

Racers -- and the worst racer among us forgot more yesterday about getting upwind, than the best of us cruisers will ever know -- know that (I've heard tell ) pointing is all about boat speed, getting and maintaining boat speed, bearing off in the lulls, heading up in the gust, etc., etc., etc. -- keeping leeway under control and staying in the groove where VMG to windward is at maximum, avoiding pinching at all costs. That's never going to occur at a 30 degree AWA on any cruising boat I've ever been on -- that's pinching horribly on any boat other than a very hot racer. On my boat, in good conditions, with the old sails, optimum VMG to windward usually occurs around 37 degrees AWA. In a heavy sea, more, in lighter or heavier air, more, almost never less. I'm hoping with new sails and improved sheeting angles, I'll do better than that, getting my 100 to 110 degree tacking angle down to something less than 100 degrees.


Some of my friends on here will be tired of hearing this story, but I hope will understand how much pleasure I get from telling it. We were sailing two-up from Nyninghaven in Sweden to Visby on Gotland last month and had to get through a gap in the archipelago which was dead upwind. Conditions were good -- 15 knots of true wind. My boat's bottom was somewhat dirty (had not been cleaned since 1 April!), but we were sailing ok. But not working very hard -- tacking towards the gap in a leisurely fashion. Suddenly we notice a boat -- a Beneteau First 39 with carbon sails and Swedish racing numbers -- was getting ready to pass us. Who likes to be passed? Who can resist such a challenge? I'm not a racer, but I confess that I never can. So we set about working to get to that gap first, which pleased the other skipper, who likewise set about sailing harder.

My shipmate on that day, a Finnish guy, is a much better sail trimmer than I, and we set about coaxing more speed out of the boat. Set the staysail. Rigged our barber haulers. Played the traveler; played the sheet leads; played the vang. Went up to the mast to harden the main halyard a notch, even if draft control in my baggy old mainsail is marginal at best. I switched off the pilot to play the gusts and lulls by hand. The Bene was pointing higher and tacked inside us, but we were steadily building up boat speed. We battled it out, tack for tack -- boat speed versus tacking angle, mile after mile, hour after hour. It was close -- until just a couple of miles from the destination, the other skipper forgot about the knock he would get as he approached land on one side, tacked too late, ran into bent wind, and we walked away from him and out through the gap.

We had an unfair advantage of much greater waterline length, of course, but a long, hard windward leg against a racing boat with gorgeous, winglike carbon sails is a pretty good test for any cruising boat, I daresay, whatever the waterline length advantage. Our AWA was never less than 37 degrees and we were tacking through a little over 100 degrees (according to COG, not compass). The story, besides being fun to tell , illustrates that when a cruiser sees a say 34 degrees AWA and tacks through say 90 degrees on his compass, he doesn't actually know anything so far about his progress upwind, and is in all likelihood pinching and not making optimum progress upwind.

However dissatisfied I may be at the moment with our performance upwind, I do think that decent upwind performance is not impossible to achieve on this boat. New sails, better sheeting angles, more practice and skill -- I hope next year will be significantly better.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by monte

I was surprised by some of the tacking angles quoted above. We generally tack at 90 degrees, sailing at around 33 degrees to apparent wind. The rest is leeway and the difference in true wind. If we fall off boat speed increases but I doubt enough to improve the VMG.
As an example, the track below is in 20k true wind with 1.5m messy seas from close the the direction of the wind, not ideal but SOG was around 7.5k average. Had we motored the rumb line we would have made 5k SOG very uncomfortably. Most of the other yachts were motoring the rumb line and I thought they were just too lazy to sail, but maybe with tacking angles in the 50+ degree range that's the reason? We could have fallen away a few degrees and increased speed to 8k but I'd guess VMG wouldn't have improved. I understand motor sailing when the wind is too light to sail, but from aft of the beam, it can add a knot or so, but when it's forward of the beam and strong enough to sail I can't see the point..
Attachment 88060

Brilliant upwind performance , especially for a boat not known to be a hot sailer upwind. Are you possibly getting a lift from the tide? A favorable tide will close up your tacking angle over ground, sometimes dramatically. If not, then that is extraordinary performance. I don't think my boat can sail upwind like that, without a lift from the tide, even with new laminate sails, although her polars predict over 9 knots of boatspeed in 20 knots true and 50 degrees TWA (and about 8 knots boat speed at 35 TWA, but I can't achieve these numbers in real life).

All the more since you say true wind was 20 knots -- that will give apparent wind, when sailing hard on the wind, of as much as 25 knots or more -- and most boats will be reefed by then and losing speed and tacking angle.

That's quite remarkable -- you should be racing. That is far better performance than what is predicted by your boat's polar diagram: file:///C:/Users/csawyer/Downloads/polaire_400.pdf

which predicts about 5.5 knots of boat speed at 50 degrees TWA, in 20 knots of true wind.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Panope

Dockhead,

I wonder: if you already had this better performing boat that you dream of, would you have planned for an even more ambitious summer cruise?

If you are like me, it really does not matter how fast or capable the boat (or plane) is. I will generally use the device to its limits. And sometimes you go over them.

Steve

Indeed!

[monte]

There's no tidal effect there, just the usual surface current to go with the wind. I'll share another track heading north along the Italian Coast with a very strong tidal current against us in the later stages. Conditions were similar, slightly worse sea state, but as we approached the straights of otranto the current was approximately 3 knots against us. Apparent wind on this sail was 25-30k and although the last 10 miles was a very slow sail against the current, it was a fun days sailing. SOG averaged 7k. Once again there were quite a few yachts motoring the rumb line and we generally didn't lose any ground on them.
The additional track below is from the day before when we abandoned the sail due to poor conditions and a late departure. Conditions were similar the next day but we left early enough to arrive before dark.