What Makes a Boat "Bluewater" Capable?

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by boatman61

A successful Ocean crossing...

Come on Phil you must be kidding! In the past couple months we have had a few members saying with absolute belief on other threads that the mere fact of 1,000s of boats doing so in the past proves nothing about their seaworthiness!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Come on Phil you must be kidding! In the past couple months we have had a few members saying with absolute belief on other threads that the mere fact of 1,000s of boats doing so in the past proves nothing about their seaworthiness!

no its merely demonstrates that those few know little of what they are talking about
Dave

[Cruiser2B]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

1) Skipper / Crew having a sense of humour .
2) Skipper knowing ass from elbow (about boats and sailing).
3) Boat in seaworthy condition.
4) Adequate storage - and when filled boat still somewhere near designed waterline .
5) Bucket(s) onboard.

Or as Don would say: A Hunter .

Nice post DOJ! Sense of humor, good one and true....because SH!t happens no matter how prepared one maybe!

Reality is there is/are and have been all types of boats that have made bluewater passgaes. No one boat is right unless it is right for you. Don likes his Hunter and MarkJ like his Bennie, Both have proven Blue water capable. I like my Alberg, While my boat has been proven to cross oceans I havent done it on her yet. Sharpen your sailing skills, maintain your boat and go sailing!

[smj]

A boat with more than one hull, and you can leave the lead at home.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Some people in these type of threads always start referencing books written in the 80s about boats for the day and older. There never seems to be much credit given to designs that take advantage of advances in both design and building technology.

I wonder how many people believe the same holds true to everything else in the world? Should we buy old 1980s products over modern ones just because there is a book published way back by a writer from the day?

In principle, I agree with you. But, I would posit that boats are not the same as "products."

I would compare the boats of the 60s and 70s to the spacecraft of the 60s and 70s. Sure, there have been advances since then, but the physics of getting Apollo to the Moon have not changed and even though there's less "pure awkwardness" (read: 8 bit flight computers) needed to make the trip, there's still plenty of "brute force" (i.e., same basic chemical rockets).

To me that mirrors cruising boats. The physics of getting safely from point A to point B have not changed and while the designs have been tweaked and improvements have been made, things really haven't changed that much.

The fact is that today, the Saturn V rocket would still be a very good way to get to the moon and a lot of production boats from the 60s and 70s are still very good ways to cross oceans. Are there some that are faster? Yes. Some that are more comfortable (at least from a size POV)? Absolutely. Safer or more reliable? Perhaps marginally so, but that's mostly due to advances in electronic navigation - same as it would be if we sent astronauts back to the moon today.

Apollo 11's landing computer overloaded and the landing site picked out by NASA turned out to be a boulder field. But a skillful skipper, a guy named Neil Armstrong, was smart enough and experienced enough to overcome those problems, find a better landing site and bring the LM down manually before it ran out of fuel for the descent engine (<30 seconds to spare). So, the skipper did/does make a difference - but not all the difference ...

Just fast-forward two missions to Apollo 13. As we all know, that catastrophic failure (due to faulty wiring) was neither the skipper's fault (Tom Hanks, uh ... I mean James Lovell ) nor was it possible for him to complete his mission. Yes, he got his ship home, but that was touch and go. If things had been a little worse ...

[goboatingnow]

Yes but we do have the benefit of greater hydrodynamic understanding and analysis, we have improved manufacturing techniques and composite engineering and then add in the huge improvement in sail training ( availability , market penetration , etc) . Then overlay that with vastly improved and accessible weather information, EPIRbs, GMDSS, better rescue, more reliable engines, feedback from high tech racing etc, better marina facilities, etc etc

in 1960s sailing around the world in a small boat got you knighted, today it hardly makes the back page of the Sunday supplement. It has got easier, through improved boats, better education, improved technology.

Dave

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Yes but we do have the benefit of greater hydrodynamic understanding and analysis, we have improved manufacturing techniques and composite engineering and then add in the huge improvement in sail training ( availability , market penetration , etc) . Then overlay that with vastly improved and accessible weather information, EPIRbs, GMDSS, better rescue, more reliable engines, feedback from high tech racing etc, better marina facilities, etc etc

in 1960s sailing around the world in a small boat got you knighted, today it hardly makes the back page of the Sunday supplement. It has got easier, through improved boats, better education, improved technology.

Dave

I would argue that of all those "revolutions" in cruising, only two have actually changed the dynamic much - GPS and improved weather information. If it hadn't been for those two, none of the other advances, IMHO, would not have done much to entice more people to go offshore - and of course, GPS and weather forecasting apply just as much to a Westsail 32 as a Pogo 40.

Let's face it, celestial navigation was a huge obstacle, along with the more general uncertainties of pre-GPS nav. And then, the fear of the unknown, represented for most people by the chance of getting caught out in survival conditions.

Once people became convinced that they would always know exactly where they were and that the chances of being at sea in severe weather were minimized, everything else fell into place and the number of cruisers went from dozens or hundreds to thousands.

Nothing else much mattered, in my opinion.

In every other respect, it's no more safer today than it was when Slocum and Chichester did it.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Some people in these type of threads always start referencing books written in the 80s about boats for the day and older. There never seems to be much credit given to designs that take advantage of advances in both design and building technology.

I wonder how many people believe the same holds true to everything else in the world? Should we buy old 1980s products over modern ones just because there is a book published way back by a writer from the day?

80s? Don't be a confounded fool and go believe'n in that new school of thought. (fiberglass Bah!) Stay with the tried and true:

A good bluewater sailboat shall have a keel laid down of the finest hickory available. The ribs shall be of white oak attached with oaken nails. (not iron) You Fore, Main and Mizzen Masts must be on a true vertical plane perpendicular to your laid keel................

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sneuman

I would argue that of all those "revolutions" in cruising, only two have actually changed the dynamic much - GPS and improved weather information. If it hadn't been for those two, none of the other advances, IMHO, would not have done much to entice more people to go offshore - and of course, GPS and weather forecasting apply just as much to a Westsail 32 as a Pogo 40.

Let's face it, celestial navigation was a huge obstacle, along with the more general uncertainties of pre-GPS nav. And then, the fear of the unknown, represented for most people by the chance of getting caught out in survival conditions.

Once people became convinced that they would always know exactly where they were and that the chances of being at sea in severe weather were minimized, everything else fell into place and the number of cruisers went from dozens or hundreds to thousands.

Nothing else much mattered, in my opinion.

while I agree with the two points you raise, I would argue that GPS and weather routing merely gave people the confidence to try. The point is when they tried it they found modern boats more then up to the challenge. Hence the combination of position fixing, weather routing AND easily accessible, widely available , low cost ( everything is relative) ocean crossing sailboats.

Dave

[carstenb]

Hell's Bell's Thomm, what's with all that new-fangled nonsense? A true bluewater boat is made of straw and logs. Kon-tiki and Ra. Boat evolution, for all practical purposes ended there.

So all youse guys with long encapsulated keels, skeg hung rudders, blah, blah blah, can go home.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

while I agree with the two points you raise, I would argue that GPS and weather routing merely gave people the confidence to try. The point is when they tried it they found modern boats more then up to the challenge. Hence the combination of position fixing, weather routing AND easily accessible, widely available , low cost ( everything is relative) ocean crossing sailboats.

Dave

I agree that affordability is also key, but that really hasn't changed much since the 60s/70s either. Relatively speaking, the cost of a cruising boat is essentially the same (adjusting for inflation). To the extent they have gone up in price (in absolute terms), it is more a function of their increased size/amenities than anything else ... of course those things are important to the equation, too.

In any case, I would put improvements in design via better understanding of hydrodynamics, i.e., "faster" boats at the bottom of the list. Some people obsess on such things, but many others do not.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sneuman

I agree that affordability is also key, but that really hasn't changed much since the 60s/70s either. Relatively speaking, the cost of a cruising boat is essentially the same (adjusting for inflation). To the extent they have gone up in price (in absolute terms), it is more a function of their increased size/amenities than anything else ... of course those things are important to the equation, too.

Id love to see the data thats backs that ascertain. Production sailing boats have got progressively cheaper ( or more affordable) even today the second hand market here in used productions boats often means its cheaper to buy new.

IN the 70s/80s ocean going yachting was the preserve of a very small group of wealthy individuals or extreme adventurer types.

Dave

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Id love to see the data thats backs that ascertain. Production sailing boats have got progressively cheaper ( or more affordable) even today the second hand market here in used productions boats often means its cheaper to buy new.

IN the 70s/80s ocean going yachting was the preserve of a very small group of wealthy individuals or extreme adventurer types.

Dave

Well, naturally that's not easy to quantify, but a new Tayana 37 listed for $72K in 1984 and now it is more than double that. In that same time period, a 2nd quintile household's income has roughly doubled in absolute terms (from about $40,000 to $80,000). See: U.S. Household Incomes: A 44-Year Perspective

Of course, real income for that group has not gone up nearly that much - in fact, it has famously stagnated since the 1970s.

This is a single data point, for sure, but I think if you tried running the numbers for other boats over even more extended time periods, you'd find much the same.

Now throw in the expense of gee-whiz electronics, life-rafts, EPIRBS, etc. and I suspect that in real terms, yachting has become, if anything, more expensive, not less so.

[sneuman]

... and now that I think of it, I'd add EPIRB (i.e., the perceived availability of instant rescue) and the Internet/sat phones (i.e., the ability to communicate with friends and family) to the list.

So ... I'd argue that the revolution in cruising has been almost entirely one of electronics and communications.

In short, these are the things that have made a difference:

GPS
Weatherfax (or more generally, the easy availability of good weather info)
EPIRB
Internet and satellite communication

Take those away and we're right back to Moistessier and Chichester.

[MarkJ]

You haven't used AIS.

That's a huge difference in maritime safety.

So my list of advances electronically
GPS,
Information Disemination while at sea... Mainly I mean satellite
Chart Plotters
AIS
EPIRBs

On equipment side the advances:
design advances
CAD computer aided design or whatever they call it in boat building
Materials... everything really, including the 'exotics' of carbon fiber etc but all materials are pretty different now...
The production line abilities now, and moulding, injection infusion methods.
Equipment advances: everything on the boat from anchors to sheets and sailcloth.