Length vs Beating, course vs pounding

[markbarendt]

A few weeks back my wife and I did our bare boat training practicals in the BVI's. (We passed.)

We were there on a Beneteau 50 and, late in the week, in the afternoon, we got to beat our way up the Sir Francis Drake channel from Soper's Hole to Norman Island against 25 gusting 35 and decent size waves and chop. We had reefed appropriately and were under the watchful eye of a competent instructor.

It was rough enough that the Catamaran in our flotilla needed some rigging maintenance and other boats (unrelated to our group) that arrived at Norman Island that afternoon had ripped their genoas to shreds.

My expectation leaving Spoer's Hole, given the Bene is not a classic blue water design, was that the ride was going to be rough; but it wasn't. (The guys on the Cat did complain.)

It was a pleasant surprise to find in fact that it was generally comfortable and easy to make the ride more comfortable, and drier, with very minor course adjustments.

Three ideas/possibilities seem to stick out here for me.

First, is that in general, a 50' boat may simply ride better than say a 35' or 40' boat.

Second, is that maybe that beating to windward, in general, gets a bad rap simply because we try to 'bite off' too much. What I'm getting at is that many stories of epic, uncomfortable beats, seem to be where people are obviously push to get 'a bit extra' out of their path or some other artificial constraint like wanting to keep land close.

Third, seems to be a testament to the comfort and durability of a mono as the sea state gets more challenging. While our buddies were licking their wounds we we took the dinghy to the beach.

Am I reading too much into this or are these ideas realities you've seen in the real world too?