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Originally Posted by 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. |
I don't think anyone is senseless enough to interpret any comment I made about bigger boats being safer as meaning, for example, some crappy 50 footer designed by some imbecile was in my mind safer than a 35 footer designed by a competent yacht designer
. There are, of course, always exceptions.
Regarding your examples, those are all little non fixed ballasted boats either dinghies or little more than dinghies, and all very different styles of boat, that you are comparing against each other and nothing to do with comparing 50-60 foot cruising boats against smaller ones as the original poster raised his question about. Quote:
Originally Posted by Amgine 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. |
If you reread my posts you will see that I was very careful to refer to cruising vessels. I think it is obvious that race boats may, and sometimes do, go to the extremes in matters that may affect their ability to defend against knockdowns (stability, initial stability, sail area, sail plan, design compromises to meet rules, etc), sometimes on purpose and sometimes unintentionally, in order to meet priorities of speed or rating.
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Originally Posted by Amgine 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. |
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Originally Posted by Amgine 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. |
Not sure what all that means except to deliver a message that you have made up your mind. Furthermore, it and the dinghy type comparision examples you gave above indicate to me that you either do not understand the issues or are just trying to put matters at large by muddying the waters with examples which are entirely irrelevant to what has been said. So best I leave it at that and not respond to any further comment you may make on this topic.