Engine-less Cruising

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

To be sure he would have, still it was a remarkable feat, try navigating Cook inlet sometime or Turnagin arm, where 10' standing walls of water are a common occurance. When you have a 25' verical change of tide every 6 hours it can be challenging even with engines.

They sailed with the tide back in the day so no real problem there. Plus, they had lots more patience than we do now as their lives went at a much slower pace.

I raced catamarans for years without an engine. This included five or six 100 mile races. You get used to it, but also it doesn't take much wind to get a small catamaran up to 10-15 knots.............

[captain58sailin]

Yes Sir, I realize that, I grew up here, and we work with tide even today, with engines.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Yes Sir, I realize that, I grew up here, and we work with tide even today, with engines.

Roger that!

I must say old Capt Cook sure got around from the tropical islands to Alaska. That must have been an exciting voyage even at the slow pace they were cruising at.

I may have to find a good book about his voyage(s).

[captain58sailin]

One of the things to bear in mind, is that in his day, he was creating the charts, not sailing by them, so he was the trail breaker, and had no way of knowing what was around the corner.

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by Dexterbase

The thought of cruising sans motor is very romantic and I know there are tons of skilled sailors doing it.

I'm not sure about the "tons of skilled sailors doing it" part, but I do know about the 'romantic' part. IT ISN'T. It's a pain in the a**. It's dangerous at worse and very much a hassle at the least. If you have no other option than going motorless, sure. Otherwise it's a very stupid, IMHO.

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by rtbates

I'm not sure about the "tons of skilled sailors doing it" part, but I do know about the 'romantic' part. IT ISN'T. It's a pain in the a**. It's dangerous at worse and very much a hassle at the least. If you have no other option than going motorless, sure. Otherwise it's a very stupid, IMHO.

actually , I would say they do... at least around here.. On any given day you'll see a good number of boats leaving and entering the marina without motors..
We have a fleet of 5.5s and echels here that are dry sailed, and many others, those are 30 foot boats , none of which have motors.. like anything else, its a learned practice ..

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

actually , I would say they do... at least around here.. On any given day you'll see a good number of boats leaving and entering the marina without motors..
We have a fleet of 5.5s and echels here that are dry sailed, and many others, those are 30 foot boats , none of which have motors.. like anything else, its a learned practice ..

Seems like the examples of engineless boats that are posited are either pretty small and handy(Etchells, Contessa 26, etc) or quite large with big professional crews (Cook & co).

Neither of these categories are representative of the kind of boats that are actively cruising, at least in the cruising areas that I frequent. It is quite a different thing to sail your Etchells or equivalent in and out of a marina compared to a typical 40+ foot cruising boat, especially those of the traditional style. Many marinas expressly forbid this practice, BTW!

Years ago when I was sailing my Catalina 22 I routinely sailed in and out of my marina single handed. It was pretty easy and I seldom even bothered mounting the little outboard. When I bought my Yankee 30 I did it with crew a few times when my less than perfectly reliable Anemic-4 was on strike. It was successful , but not easy and would not have been practical single handed in most instances. Then when we bought the first Insatiable, a 36 foot IOR boat, I viewed it very unlikely to be successful... same marina, same narrow fairway to tack up... just because the physical dimensions were less compatible and the boat somewhat slower to respond. Now with a 46 foot boat I don't try these things.

I guess the point that I am attempting to make is that cruising, which involves dealing with a wide variety of conditions and situations, often in unfamiliar areas, is not easily accomplished in an engineless vessel of the sort in which most of us actually cruise. One can choose to not enter marinas, and in fact we seldom do so, but there are other situations that are untenable under sail. Entering passes in the Tuamotus, where the current always is running out and the wind is always on the nose comes to mind, and working one's way into mangrove anchorages for storm protection, and winding one's way through a field of coral bommies to reach an anchorage in any number of lagoons... and so on. All of these are things we have done under power and would not have been able to accomplish sailing in our boat(s).

We do practice engineless maneuvers, sailing on and off moorings and anchors and such, just to keep the skill levels up for the unforeseen emergency... and have been glad of it a couple of times. But, I would not deliberately set out to go cruising without an engine... no way!

Simple passage making under sail alone is not difficult. It is dealing with the bits at either end that are challenging! I suppose that for some the ideal of Romance overwhelms the practicalities of survival; I suspect that most of those folks have done few sea miles.

Cheers,

Jim

[captain58sailin]

When I was younger and cruising with my family, my Father would have unannounced MOB drills at arbitrary times whilst under full sail. I have to say we did quite well in recovering what ever he saw fit to jettison. Dousing the sails in a timely fashion and coming about while keeping an eye on the "victim" proved to be a challenge on the high seas, and as we performed the drill we got more proficient in our sail handling. We also practiced sailing into an anchorage and setting the hook. There was not the traffic that we have today. One vessel that I helped catch that came into the Port Townsend harbour could have benifited from some practice with engineless maneuvering. When ever there is a lot of shouting, it usually means non - comprehension. They had fouled their prop. and blew out their Genny, combined with 25 knot wind, made things interesting coming into the harbour, no chance of getting the vessel into the slip, by the time we got the vessel secured enough for them to relax, they were exhausted from their odeal, it was an all night affair.

[LBW399]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Seems like the examples of engineless boats that are posited are either pretty small and handy(Etchells, Contessa 26, etc) or quite large with big professional crews (Cook & co).

Neither of these categories are representative of the kind of boats that are actively cruising, at least in the cruising areas that I frequent. It is quite a different thing to sail your Etchells or equivalent in and out of a marina compared to a typical 40+ foot cruising boat, especially those of the traditional style. Many marinas expressly forbid this practice, BTW!

Years ago when I was sailing my Catalina 22 I routinely sailed in and out of my marina single handed. It was pretty easy and I seldom even bothered mounting the little outboard. When I bought my Yankee 30 I did it with crew a few times when my less than perfectly reliable Anemic-4 was on strike. It was successful , but not easy and would not have been practical single handed in most instances. Then when we bought the first Insatiable, a 36 foot IOR boat, I viewed it very unlikely to be successful... same marina, same narrow fairway to tack up... just because the physical dimensions were less compatible and the boat somewhat slower to respond. Now with a 46 foot boat I don't try these things.

I guess the point that I am attempting to make is that cruising, which involves dealing with a wide variety of conditions and situations, often in unfamiliar areas, is not easily accomplished in an engineless vessel of the sort in which most of us actually cruise. One can choose to not enter marinas, and in fact we seldom do so, but there are other situations that are untenable under sail. Entering passes in the Tuamotus, where the current always is running out and the wind is always on the nose comes to mind, and working one's way into mangrove anchorages for storm protection, and winding one's way through a field of coral bommies to reach an anchorage in any number of lagoons... and so on. All of these are things we have done under power and would not have been able to accomplish sailing in our boat(s).

We do practice engineless maneuvers, sailing on and off moorings and anchors and such, just to keep the skill levels up for the unforeseen emergency... and have been glad of it a couple of times. But, I would not deliberately set out to go cruising without an engine... no way!

Simple passage making under sail alone is not difficult. It is dealing with the bits at either end that are challenging! I suppose that for some the ideal of Romance overwhelms the practicalities of survival; I suspect that most of those folks have done few sea miles.

Cheers,

Jim

I tell you one thing, if that is your boat in your avatar, which I would assume it is, then it is a very fine looking specimen indeed.
I thought the name 'Sayer' was associated with ferro cement designs that us cheapo Kiwis were fond of in the 70's. But perhaps the name is just a coincidence.
My boat too is stip-planked, but is only half the size of yours!

cheers.

[pistarckle]

What about Don Street ? He sailed all over the Atlantic , back and forth to Ireland most years . At the age of 80 years , he last year sailed back to Ireland and put the boat up for sail . Hell of a man . We all are just one dead battery from being engineless .

[Jammer Six]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

The Pardeys touted engineless cruising for years, all the while waiting outside harbors to get towed in by other peoples' engines.

Ann, do you have a citation for this claim?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Kiwi399

I tell you one thing, if that is your boat in your avatar, which I would assume it is, then it is a very fine looking specimen indeed.
I thought the name 'Sayer' was associated with ferro cement designs that us cheapo Kiwis were fond of in the 70's. But perhaps the name is just a coincidence.
My boat too is stip-planked, but is only half the size of yours!

cheers.

Well, thanks for that, mate! We agree, by the way... she's a pretty damn nice boat!

The Jon Sayer who designed our boat is the son of the ferro cement Sayer (also Jon??) in NZed. I guess that when he started designing timber boats the FC fans drove him out and across the Tasman.

The Aussie JS is well known in short handed racing circles in Oz. He has done a number of Melbourne-Osaka doublehanded races in boats of his design and build, winning at least one of them IIRC. Nice chap, too... we had him come out and give us some advice about rig tuning when we first bought Insatiable II, and he was very helpful.

Finally, I hope that you are as chuffed about your strip planked boat as we are about ours... a lovely way to build a yacht!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled arguments about engineless cruising!

Cheers,

Jim

PS I have added a couple of interior pix to my album if you are interested.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

One of the things to bear in mind, is that in his day, he was creating the charts, not sailing by them, so he was the trail breaker, and had no way of knowing what was around the corner.

I went to the library and got a book on Captain Cook. I know I wil enjoy it and maybe others will also.

From the book:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...sm-115822.html

[rognvald]

Originally Posted by Kiwi399

Has it gone too far the other way, where people call themselves sailors, yet they are motoring most everywhere, and sailing only when the breeze is **perfect**?

I dunno. One could look at the likes of those fuzzbummles or whatever the hell they called themselves -- they basically motored round the world on their Cat didn't they?
Would you call people like that sailors?

The Pardeys may have waited outside a harbour for the odd tow, but if you had to choose someone to teach you to sail, would you choose Larry, or some guy like the fuzzbum guy who motors most everyhwere?

I think Kiwi has made a good point and, in reality, the "fuzzbummles" probably outnumber the people who truly sail their boats. Before buying our present boat, we were small boat sailors on Lake Michigan and honed the skills necessary to sail our boat in all conditions without a motor. It was these skills that enabled us to feel confident in our next(larger) boat when we headed south into the Caribbean. In our first trip to the Exumas, we were amazed that very few sailed their boats but motored into the light prevailing easterlies when a window opened rather than waiting for a better angle on the wind to sail. Occasionally, some boats hoisted their main or headsail and "motor-sailed" as their motor pushed them along at 5-6 knots towards their destination. We found this to be the norm rather than the exception. We always felt the reason was that 1.) the destination was always more important to them than the passage, 2.) they were on a time schedule, 3.) they wanted to minimize time on the water versus time at anchor, in a marina or on shore, 4.) their boat was too big and not easily handled by two people, 5.) they travelled in a group and needed to keep up and 6.)many truly did not how to sail. So, if you survey a group of people with this mentality, the concept of engineless sailing could never be possible nor would it be acceptable. It doesn't fit their model. Engines are infinitely advantageous when they run but when they don't, what do you do? As others have mentioned, there are those like the Pardeys and Tristan Jones who have eschewed the iron duke for a simpler mode of transport relying on confidence, knowledge of the sea and sailing skills. However, most neither desire this level of competence nor will attain it since an engine has become an important and integral part of their cruising experience.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by rtbates

I'm not sure about the "tons of skilled sailors doing it" part, but I do know about the 'romantic' part. IT ISN'T. It's a pain in the a**. It's dangerous at worse and very much a hassle at the least. If you have no other option than going motorless, sure. Otherwise it's a very stupid, IMHO.

Might not have put it quite the same but agree pretty much. Having done it solo but not through choice. Fine offshore but severely limiting, no trips up rivers, not always possible to risk the bay where customs and immigration are located, not always possible to risk leaving an anchorage at 3am after an unexpected windshifts. The list goes on. Not romantic at the time.