Boat length NOT increasing over the decades

[JPA Cate]

Mike, Jim and I were talking about it, and I'm questioning the sample. First off, it is limited to people who reported to Latitude 38, who would be only a small proportion of circumnavigators. It is a San Francisco Bay Area publication, and, for instance, I would think Europeans and the British would be very under represented, plus, even East Coast US Coast. So, there's no data relative to other groups' boat sizes.

Another source you could look into would be SSCA, they give awards to people who request them upon circumnavigation. This does mean that not all SSCA member circumnavigators would be shown, because of differences in how they view a circumnavigation. Some people find it incidental, they got finished cruising and want to go "home." For others, it is a form of counting coup, and those would get the award.

Another difficulty for me are the time spans considered. It might be more informative to compare decades, starting with the '70's and working forward, and also look at prosperity for the homeland nations during those times, too.

Here's an hypothesis: countries ranked in the top ten for standard of living have been producing more boats over 40 ft of length since 1985. You'd need a research grant, and helpers, a huge effort.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Mike, Jim and I were talking about it, and I'm questioning the sample. First off, it is limited to people who reported to Latitude 38, who would be only a small proportion of circumnavigators. It is a San Francisco Bay Area publication, and, for instance, I would think Europeans and the British would be very under represented, plus, even East Coast US Coast. So, there's no data relative to other groups' boat sizes.

Another source you could look into would be SSCA, they give awards to people who request them upon circumnavigation. This does mean that not all SSCA member circumnavigators would be shown, because of differences in how they view a circumnavigation. Some people find it incidental, they got finished cruising and want to go "home." For others, it is a form of counting coup, and those would get the award.

Another difficulty for me are the time spans considered. It might be more informative to compare decades, starting with the '70's and working forward, and also look at prosperity for the homeland nations during those times, too.

Here's an hypothesis: countries ranked in the top ten for standard of living have been producing more boats over 40 ft of length since 1985. You'd need a research grant, and helpers, a huge effort.

Yes, all good points. I’m not trying to suggest this is the full picture. But it is the only dataset I’m aware of with this kind of information. It’s not large enough to be definitive, but it is not small either. And while it is very specific to west coast circumnavigators, I don’t see an obvious reason why this wouldn’t be reflective of the circumnavigation community.

The findings DO compare decade to decade. That is how I was able to say the average LOA hasn’t changed. This is what prompted this thread.

I’ve heard (and believed) the anecdotal evidence that says boats sizes were smaller in the 70s, and have increased over time. This dataset shows this is NOT the case, at least when it comes to circumnavigators from the west coast (and yes, likely a subset of those).

I would love to get my hands on better data. SSCA might be a good source, although ironically I just let my membership lapse (not enough value for the cost to me). If you know of any datasets that I can get a hold of, I’d be happy to try and crunch the numbers.

Comparing LOA by country would be another fascinating way to look at all this. But yes, I’d need money, and a lot more time, than I currently have. I’m still willing to process more data though, if anyone knows of good datasets.

As we all know, anecdotal and eye-witness reports is the worst kind of data. It’s ripe with bias of all sorts. This is why I am interested in this unbiased, although admittedly narrow and limited, dataset. It certainly challenges some of my own assumptions and beliefs.

[Souzag818]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

In my travels I would agree that it probably averages out about 42'. I think it would be more if not for the "kids" of the cruising community that are on smaller less expensive to buy boats.

OH, I saw what you did

[contrail]

I think if you looked at dockplans for marinas back in the 70's and 80's you would see they were laid out for smaller boats than now.....sure of it.

I cruised a 33 footer, back then, an it was larger than quite a few others who had more folks aboard. 40 feet was BIG, and I had a friend with a 49 footer and it was the giant of the fleet. This is West Coast Canadian, US and Mexican coastal cruising.

By the time I stopped cruising that boat, in 2004, people called it a "micro cruiser", but it had not gotten smaller!

Cheers,
Tim

[james247]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

The answer really is 42





There is the oft-touted belief that average boat size has been increasing over the decades. I’ve read it. I’ve repeated it. It turns out it may be wrong.



Latitude 38 maintains a "West Coast Circumnavigators’ List” dating back decades. The database is available, but in raw text form. I took an initial stab at tabulating and analysing the data, but doctorcam, a SN user, took the analysis all the way (My deepest thanks to Doctorcam, whom I hope will comment on this thread).



His findings really bust this myth about boat length.



It turns out the average boat length in this group has changed little over the decades. When considering only “normal” cruisers (not RTW racers, not other odd vessels like corporate ‘tall ships’ or mega yachts), the average boat length has remained virtually identical at ~42 feet.



To be clear, the data does show a small average increase over time, but this increase is almost fully driven by a very few large vessels. When these outliers are removed (considering boats within 1 standard deviation of the mean), the length of “normal” circumnavigators from the west coast of North America has remained amazingly static.



What do people think about this result? With the constant discussion about bigger is better, and the idea that technology makes it easier for small crews to handle large boats, these results seem counter intuitive.



Are average boat sizes getting larger? This data is for circumnavigators, not coastal cruisers or 'dock queens’. But intuitively I’d assumed that if boat size is increasing, so would boats that are taken around the world. This appears NOT to be the case.

Research on this topic is relevant to what. Is this something that you want the American government to legislate. You can only do a circumnavigation if your boat is average
I find averages to equal mediocracy
I have found personally a 50 to 55ft boat suites my skills and comfort levels for both solo and short crew cruising.
I don't care what's average or whether the average is increasing or decreasing.
I do know size counts.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Mike, does the data distinguish between mono & multi?

The average cruising boat may not be getting longer, but they have definately gotten wider.

I just splashed from Linton Bay Marina, Panama and the majority of the boats in the yard were catamarans.

Sorry, I missed your questions earlier. There’s no specific identification of monos or cats. But the types of boats are often named, so as with LWL, you could probably go through and add that date to each entry. It would have to be done manually though.

I would expect there to be an increase in cats over time … but that’s what is fascinating about this dataset; it seems to be challenging some of my long-held assumptions.

Originally Posted by james247

Research on this topic is relevant to what. Is this something that you want the American government to legislate. You can only do a circumnavigation if your boat is average
I find averages to equal mediocracy
I have found personally a 50 to 55ft boat suites my skills and comfort levels for both solo and short crew cruising.
I don't care what's average or whether the average is increasing or decreasing.
I do know size counts.

Huh? Where did you get any hint that this had anything to do with government .

It’s rather amusing that you say you don’t care about this, but you seem to care enough to read the thread, and even to comment — who’s funnier than people .

[GordMay]

Some statistics:

“The total value of recreational boats sold reached over 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. The greatest portion of this value came from sales of boats with a length between 36 and 45 feet.”
➥ https://www.statista.com/topics/1138...ional-boating/
➥ https://www.statista.com/statistics/...-by-length-us/

“95% of boats on the water (powerboats, personal watercraft, and sailboats) in the U.S. are small in size at less than 26 feet—boats that can be trailered by a vehicle to local waterways.”
➥ https://www.growboating.org/toolkit/...d-figures.aspx
➥ https://www.nmma.org/statistics/publ...tical-abstract

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by james247

I don't care what's average or whether the average is increasing or decreasing.
I do know size counts.

As the actress said to the Bishop..
The funny thing is.. 90% or more of the circumnavigations that are recorded or written about pre 2000 are on boats under 40ft..
Studying statistics from the richest state in the Union are kinda useless really.
Caviar to Doughnuts..

[poiu]

Median boat lengths are in fact increasing as was the fleet size until the recession. Average numbers may be different. Not so easy to get at.

I was curious in the past about this question. In 2009 I got some figures from a search of yachts available for sale on Yachtworld. To minimise distortion I excluded small and big boats. I should really have looked over 60' though as there are quite a lot made in that size especially in recent years. In 2010 to 2014 the size range 60' to 80' would add 129 or 6.5% to the fleet looked at, but in 1985 to 1989 only 85 or 3%.

The information on depreciation is also interesting. You need to factor into this inflation to refine things and given that new boat prices roughly follow inflation you have some good information to understand the depreciation profile of boats. You can look at this by brand too. Exchange rates confuse things though.

Sept 2009 Yachtworld information.
1975 to 1980 (6 years) yachts from 28 to 60' built in the years shown there were 2300 for sale and the median price was £31,000 and the median length was 36'
1981 to 1984 (4 years) 2139 £41,200 36'
1985 to 1989 2813 £55,900 37'
1990 to 1994 2097 £84,400 40.5'
1995 to 1999 2379 £96,300 40'
2000 to 2004 4348 £119,300 41'
2005 to 2009 4100 £135,800 40'
Checked just now (so info date 2018 Mar):
2010 to 2014 2044 £145,800 43'

Sorry I don't know how to format this better, my tabbing gets deleted.

[Group9]

We started out with a 25 footer and six boats and twenty four years later, we finally bought our (first) 42 footer. We're on our second 42 footer now, so I think we have maxed out. So our average sized boat over the years has probably been abour 34 or 35 feet.

I don't know if that means anything or not, but there it is!

[james247]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Sorry, I missed your questions earlier. There’s no specific identification of monos or cats. But the types of boats are often named, so as with LWL, you could probably go through and add that date to each entry. It would have to be done manually though.



I would expect there to be an increase in cats over time … but that’s what is fascinating about this dataset; it seems to be challenging some of my long-held assumptions.







Huh? Where did you get any hint that this had anything to do with government .



It’s rather amusing that you say you don’t care about this, but you seem to care enough to read the thread, and even to comment — who’s funnier than people .

The American government

[old pirate]

If anyone could get some stats from Panama Canal authorities on boats transiting over the years, these could be a good indication of size variation.

[anacapaisland42]

I "think" it was Eric Hiscock who...many many years ago...said the average size of the boats he and Susan came across ....was 32 feet.

For anyone who hasn't heard of Hiscock, he and Susan were world wide cruisers ....I think before there were "Marina's. . He wrote extensively nice "gentle" cruising books!
Bill

Originally Posted by boatman61

This side of the pond 36ft was considered the optimum size for long distance cruising.. but many did it in slightly smaller.
Sailing dinghies were for short hops to France..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by old pirate

If anyone could get some stats from Panama Canal authorities on boats transiting over the years, these could be a good indication of size variation.

That’s a good idea. I’ll poke around, but if you have any ideas or access to this data, let me know.

Originally Posted by poiu

Median boat lengths are in fact increasing as was the fleet size until the recession. Average numbers may be different. Not so easy to get at.

That’s what I believe as well. So boat lengths are increasing, but at least in the dataset I’m examining, LOA hasn’t changed for circumnavigators. Why?

Like I say, I fully expected to find an increasing trend over time. This is partly why I thought it was worth discussing.

BTW, the mean and the median came out to being almost identical, which is interesting in itself.

Originally Posted by boatman61

The funny thing is.. 90% or more of the circumnavigations that are recorded or written about pre 2000 are on boats under 40ft.

It would be great to have this in quantifiable form Boatie. Where do you get this number? I want data!

Originally Posted by boatman61

Studying statistics from the richest state in the Union are kinda useless really.
Caviar to Doughnuts..

All the more reason why I'd expect there to be an increase over time. Again, there is none in this dataset. Perhaps other areas would show a change, but like you say, this is from a “caviar” boating area. I’d really expect it to show up here.

Originally Posted by GordMay

Some statistics:

“The total value of recreational boats sold reached over 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. The greatest portion of this value came from sales of boats with a length between 36 and 45 feet.”
➥ https://www.statista.com/topics/1138...ional-boating/
➥ https://www.statista.com/statistics/...-by-length-us/

“95% of boats on the water (powerboats, personal watercraft, and sailboats) in the U.S. are small in size at less than 26 feet—boats that can be trailered by a vehicle to local waterways.”
➥ https://www.growboating.org/toolkit/...d-figures.aspx
➥ https://www.nmma.org/statistics/publ...tical-abstract

Thanks Gord. With a bit of crunching we could infer the number of boats being sold. Now we need historic data going back to the 1970s. Any thoughts you data whiz?

[fatherchronica]

In general I think that cruising yachts may have stalled getting longer for awhile because with the popularity of catamarans they are getting wider instead.