[Amgine]

Making broad generalizations such as "bigger boats are safer" is simply not true. On an occasion I was involved in there were three different boats of less than 20' in length - a 49er, a Lightning 19, and my Benford 18' gaff catboat - in a squall off West Point near Seattle.

The Lightning capsized violently, losing her centreboard. The 49er capsized repeatedly; the third time carrying her crew up and over in a 180 as they tried to right her. I had trouble getting my stupid jib in, but reefed my main down to about the same amount of area as the Lightning carried and sailed on. It wasn't the size of the boats, and it sure wasn't the sail area (I had about twice as much sail up to begin with), but it was the ultimate stability and the displacement.

Racing dinghies are not that different from the extreme race boats. It takes a very specialized crew to keep the right side up with their sail areas, and they don't always succeed. In fact, if you were to compare the number of, say, open 60s ever built with the number which have capsized, I think you'd find the ratio would suggest bigger boats are less safe. But those are extreme boats.

The number of small cruising boats built versus the number which have capsized would probably look pretty good, for equally bogus reasons. Fewer of them are in conditions which might induce a knock-down. Most of 'em probably rarely leave the dock.

Still, the number of reports of knock downs here on this board seems pretty randomly distributed - very few from big boats, but there are very few big boats, and a few in the smaller boats, but there are dramatically more smaller boats involved. If small boats were so much less safe you wouldn't hear of any big boats getting knocked down, but almost all the small boats would have been.