True blue water boat extinction a fait accompli?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

...
Glad to have you back, Pol -- surgery go ok? It's been dull around here without you

Thanks mate Yes , the recovery is a pain in the ass. I am working like an athlete, well ex-athlete to burn the recovering time and be in shape for the sailing season. So far so good...the nurses are impressed and I hope to be walking without aids in less than a month.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Polux

Thanks mate Yes , the recovery is a pain in the ass. I am working like an athlete, well ex-athlete to burn the recovering time and be in shape for the sailing season. So far so good...the nurses are impressed and I hope to be walking without aids in less than a month.

If its not too personal what kind of surgery did you go through? Easy on the nurses...you will have lots of time to debate here while you rest in between getting yourself back in shape.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

An interesting thing is that you'll get a very different picture depending on the native tongue of the people you ask...

Ask the French what their ultimate BWB is, and they'll present you with an RM, and Allures, or if they're of a more conservative bend, an OVNI... It they want to go extreme they'll propose a Boreal.

Boreal extreme? No, a Pogo is extreme - good offshore boat for some though.

Boreal is a conservative boat that can go anywhere.

[Ericson38]

Originally Posted by JulieMac

You make my point. If the offshore market is 1% or 3%, then finding an affordable BWB less than 25 years old will disappear. If not now, then in a decade.

Maybe the big story here is the vanishing offshore market.

I agree with you, but then we are over 60 now, and all my sailing books have become vintage items.

We just purchased a 1991 Taswell 49 2 cabin CC model late last year,with a scheel keel and ICW mast, is not dark blue, and has a non teak deck. We had two Ericson 38s in the past on the west coat. We are probably old school, as we were looking at the Tayana 42, 47, 48, and 52, as well as various Passports of 90s vintage, and a couple of AMELs and a steel ketch. Finally settled on Bristol 45 or 47 as the boat, and travelled two years on the east coast looking at them, but could not find one for sale that had equipment and been treated well and not maintenance deferred. So many criteria in play and weighed against each other.

The Taz (a 1988 Dixon deisgn that finished out in 2000) has a partial skeg, so the boat steers by your fingers in high winds, as there is rudder in front of the post also.

I sailed in 30 knot winds in the Santa Cruz channel in a KP 44 10 years ago that fought its helm like a bull dozer while on a reach, with two reefs in the main, flat with traveller dropped to leward, and the stay sail up. It has a large barn door rudder, and had gentle motion in that stuff, compared our E38, but she was not happy. She most likely has 4 inches of layup around the keel root, and back then, was considered the boat to take to Mexico since Jack Kelly started importing them in San Diego in the late 70s.

Ever read Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi ? Try his later work, "And the Sea will Tell". True story, and the KP (or Formosa) is a player in the story.

[Panope]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

.........As the old western singer Tom T Hall sang, faster horses, younger women...more whiskey.

Sorry Robert, too good a lyric to go un corrected:

"It's faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money"

Steve

[Polux]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

Boreal extreme? No, a Pogo is extreme - good offshore boat for some though.

Boreal is a conservative boat that can go anywhere.

It is all relative. For some this type of very beamy, flattish hull with all the beam pulled aft and with chines is not conservative at all (Boreal 44).
Glad to know that for you it is a conservative one

[Exile]

Welcome back Polux! Good to hear you're on the mend and looking forward to sailing season. I've been through quite a bit of rehab myself in the past year and it's always good to have a goal.

[Cruiser2B]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I'll provide reference when you provide reference that they know everything we know today.

Of course they didnt know what we know today, don't be absurd. But to say they didn't know the strength or structural integrity of fiberglass is based on what?

I'll type this, I certainly dont have to worry about my keel falling off in the middle of the Altantic, that helps me sleep at night and make me feel good about taking my "engineering guess" tank sailing offshore. Mind you my boat was not intended for offshore use, but the old design inherently makes her safe for that purpose. i need to beef up my boats hull to deck joint. I will be adding tankage and upgrading a few things to make her more of a BW cruiser. One thing I know I do not need to worry about is the hull shape and design being a safe one.

Valhalla, sail whatever boat you want, I wish you the best of luck. I hope it lasts as long as my "engineering guess" of a design Alberg 30. More importantly I hope the boat you choose gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of security should you find yourself in storm.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Ha ha ha.....
Well there's the problem right there...a false assumption.
Do a search for the words "Blue Water Boat" on the Cruising Forum search and you will quickly realize it's not the destination it's the journey with these type of posts. Kinda like the Anchor threads. Or the How much does it cost to cruise threads....or the....or the....

Correct. Seems BWB is the replacement for the anchor threads since the debates have gone out of the anchor threads.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Concerning Polux's opinions, I forgot to mention how much he likes to argue

Glad to have you back, Pol -- surgery go ok? It's been dull around here without you

Polux,

Dockhead set you up for a lengthy reply with his English baiting.

Glad to hear your recovery is on track.

[oldragbaggers]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

BINGO.....then to justify their cost savings or perhaps their likes and tastes in buying an older (cheaper) boat they feel the need to bash the newer more expensive boats. Human nature is to justify your decisions.

I think the older boats are taking much more of a bashing here than the newer expensive ones are. I have seen them called everything but a floating outhouse so far in this thread, and the inference seems to be that those of us that sail them must be either holding on to financial solvency by a thread, just cheap by nature, or plain stupid.

I'll admit that frugality is part of our reasoning, but only part. We could have easily afforded the payments on a newer boat. But there are many other things we like about our boat design than just the price. And we aren't even planning blue water. We like working on boats, but we also like sailing, so if I didn't like this boat so much on her own merits I wouldn't have even considered taking on this rebuild. In my mind she was worth it. She is worth saving, worth owning, and worth sailing.

We have owned a number of sailboats over the years. Some were the "slack bilge, barn door rudder, obsolete, old and outdated, can't get out of their own way, antiquated, (and any number of other less than complimentary adjectives I've seen on this thread).... and some were fin keel, spade rudder. We like the motion and ultimate stability of the boat we have better. We didn't dislike any one of our other boats. They fit a need at the time we owned them. But our current boat "does it for us." We like her lines. She pleases our eyes. When we're approaching her from a distance the view of her brings a smile to our faces. Down below she's warm and inviting. I don't like to leave at the end of the weekend. We like the ultimate stability, the solid feel of her when things get snotty. Actually there are so many things we like about her that I could go on for quite some time. And I hope that everyone else feels the same about their own boat no matter what kind of boat it is.

There's a bit of emotion involved in the choice of a boat. To try and figure out why a person likes a certain boat over others is like trying to figure out why they fell in love with their mate. They saw what they saw and felt what they felt.

But mostly I truly do not get why these threads always have to take this same negative path. Why can't people just say, "I like a certain type of boat for cruising because....," without going into the realm of how out of touch a person must be if they like the "other" kind of boat. It always has to be a "I like my boat because owning the other kind of boat would be [insert negative implication here...].

I came to this forum looking for a community of people who seek to come together over their mutual love of the water and boating for the purpose of supporting and educating each other and making friendships. Not because I want to have my boat choice judged and insulted (even if only indirectly) in pretty much every other thread. It really is possible to be positive about your own choice without being negative toward someone else's.

Oh, and by the way....if this poor horse isn't dead by now, he really should be.

Signing out.

[sv Winterlude]

We love our heavy displacement cutaway keel 1980's vintage bluewater cruiser.... a 1985 Passport 37 (a Robert Perry design, little sister of the Valiant 40). However, sometimes I wish for a slightly shallower draft and a slightly faster boat.... But the sea motion is to be treasured, as is the storage and other positives.... to each his own....

I'm convinced there is NOTHING we can do in our boat that's more dangerous than the hours we just spent in traffic returning from the Miami Boat show....

[Polux]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

If its not too personal what kind of surgery did you go through? Easy on the nurses...you will have lots of time to debate here while you rest in between getting yourself back in shape.

An hip prosthesis. Too much activity over my life and it wear out. No regrets, I had a lot of fun...and still plan to keep on having fun...just need to adapt to the new hardware

Thanks to all that welcomed me back and wished me a quick recovery (that's my plan and I am firmly set to it).

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Polux

An hip prosthesis. Too much activity over my life and it wear out. No regrets, I had a lot of fun...and still plan to keep on having fun...just need to adapt to the new hardware

Thanks to all that welcomed me back and wished me a quick recovery (that's my plan and I am firmly set to it).

With your attitude you will do fine. I had a bad motorcycle accident 3 years ago and broke my ankle/leg, broke my back in 3 places and broke my shoulder followed by 12 fractured teeth and a bad concussion. It was a hell of a job to recover from that as I have just seen my last birthday with a 6 in it. 3 days a week at the gym and pain from hell but a year later I was back on my bike doing track days so don't let up on your training and work your ass off in the gym and you'll be back in fighting shape before you know it. Glad to have you back.

[colemj]

Again, let me point out that the topic of this thread was about these old designs no longer being made (or almost extinct). It was never about people buying an older boat (for good reasons like cost and preference) - although those that have bought older boats seem to think it was.

Terms like slack-bilge, barn-door rudder, heavy-displacement, low-aspect rig, etc are not pejoratives. They are actual descriptive terms that you will find in design books and objective discussions about design. If one finds those terms offensive, then one has personal issues around them.

There are many reasons designers and builders have moved away from these designs (and build methods). Many of those reasons have nothing to do with cutting corners, providing pop-up TV's, pandering to the charter crowd, etc. They have to do with building a better, safer, stronger and more comfortable off-shore boat.

There are very good reasons why the Dashews, Starzinger/Leonards, Cornells, etc of the world have chosen completely different designs than these old ones in which to do expedition and long-term offshore cruising.

The OP posed a question and topic that many of us were trying to put in proper perspective since there was so much that was mistaken about it. Then it appears that people who bought older boats of older designs took things personally and started defending the impossibility of their keel falling off, etc - and even spawning whole new threads about why their choices were better than new designs, and problems with new designs, etc. Others just turned it into another "huntabenelina" bashing.

Such sensitivity. You should try owning a Hunter or a multihull...

Mark