Ocean-Going

[cat man do]

Plenty of light long boat's sailing around the world in single handed races.

I've always thought that if you had one of these with a strategic few hundred kilo's of extra reinforcement in areas like keel attachment, mast B/H , chainplate areas, bow areas that they would probably make a good fast lightweigt cruiser.

You can alway's sail around with a couple of reef's in the main and a smaller heady if you don't need the HP, yet still average good speed in comparison to other's.

Of course if one spend's all their time at a Marina, the extra waterline is a killer.

Dave

[CSY Man]

Does light mean fast? Does heavy mean slow? Or, can you have a heavy boat that will perform and sail well and a light one that will not?

Gee, I may not be the guru with the answers on those.

I have only owned and sailed 2 boats in my life and they were both "heavy"...But not slow when the winds picked up and the "light" boats headed back to the marina.

I know, I know, some guys cross the globe in a Hunter or O'day or a MacGregor or whatever the lights boats are called...My hat of to them guys.

I just don't have balls to go into harms way in some vessel that is built like a model-airplane with balsa for weight savings and thin structures with hulls a 1/4 inch thick with nylon through-holes and all this other modern stuff that looks so slick at the boat show.
.
It may indeed be the way to go these days, and the fastest ride on the sea, but perhaps I am not a good enough skipper to do that of stuff:

So I have to agree that what makes a boat "offshore capable" is really the skipper.

And if the skipper falls over in the violent ride and breaks his leg the boat is doomed?

Guess I am old-fashioned and like boats that can take care of themselfes even when the crew is down and out.

(Ref the sailboat, a Westsail 32 mentioned in the book and the movie "A perfect storm".)

At any rate, if some folks like to sail here and there in light boats, by all means: Go for it and my hat off to you for doing it.

[Richhh]

Notwhithstanding differing shapes, prime difference between 'ocean' and 'coastal' design seems to be the strength and the redundancy of engineered 'safety factor' inbuilt to the design. A true blue water design seems to always calculate out to having a 5X or 6X inbuilt safety factor, coastal @ 2.5-3 X and a single purpose round the buoys only racing boat at 1.5X. Meaning the structure of a blue water boat is intentionally built twice as strong as a 'coastal' design.
I seems that designers start out with the mast artifiailly/conceptually heeled at about 45 degress over .... then back-calculate everything else based on the resultant/induced stress and 'target' loads of that 45 degree 'heeling' ... then build it 5-6 times 'normal' stress for a blue water design, etc.
Simple answer - a blue water boat is twice as strong as a coastal boat .... and strength isnt (nor shouldnt be) a factor of weight/mass.

Interestingly an inbuilt safety factor or 5 or 6 would equate to super-critical stress designs such as cranes, aircraft, bridges, etc. ..... all stuff thats purposely designed 'never to break' even in beyond 'normal' conditions.

[CSY Man]

Interestingly an inbuilt safety factor or 5 or 6 would equate to super-critical stress designs such as cranes, aircraft, bridges, etc. ..... all stuff thats purposely designed 'never to break' even in beyond 'normal' conditions.

Hmm, perhaps that is why I feel good about my "heavy" boat, even if the skipper/owner is not always top-notch.
Need all the help I can get....

[cat man do]

[quote=CSY Man]

I just don't have balls to go into harms way in some vessel that is built like a model-airplane with balsa for weight savings and thin structures with hulls a 1/4 inch thick with nylon through-holes and all this other modern stuff that looks so slick at the boat show.

Just because a boat has balsa in it does not mean it is weak.
most production boat's use polyester resin with the balsa, and polyester resin is weak and does not stick to timber as well, or have the strength of epoxy.

Duflex http://www.atlcomposites.com/products/cores/end%20grain%20balsa/index.htm WRC and epoxy,other light timber's and some foam sandwich layup's have been proven again and again to be superior than solid polyester, CSM, woven roving and chopper gun layup's.

This is nothing new.

I am taking my Bronze skin fitting's out, and using composite tubes for my application, though I have used Marelon on many boat's with no problem's and would again.

They won't be blown out due to lightning strike or rot out due to an electrolosis issue, not that I have witnessed either.

It may indeed be the way to go these days, and the fastest ride on the sea, but perhaps I am not a good enough skipper to do that of stuff:


Get your skill's up. Fast is fun in the right weather, and you can alway's put the brakes on in the rough.


And if the skipper falls over in the violent ride and breaks his leg the boat is doomed?


Guess I am old-fashioned and like boats that can take care of themselfes even when the crew is down and out.

(Ref the sailboat, a Westsail 32 mentioned in the book and the movie "A perfect storm".)


Plenty of light boats survive just fine when heavy ones have sunk

Here a catamaran left to it's own devices survives just fine after the vessel was abandoned in the 1994 storm of NZ
Queens Birthday Storm 1994 - HMNZS MONOWAI

A few heavy, well built vessel's did infact sink .



At any rate, if some folks like to sail here and there in light boats, by all means: Go for it and my hat off to you for doing it.

Not a problem, I will thank's, on a well built ,well designed vessel.

Dave

[CSY Man]

Aye Mr. cat man do:

We can all build a case for what we believe in, I am not the exception, nor are you.

Lets just agree to meet at some quiet anchorage over a cold rum drink and talk sailing in general, and good times in particular.

See ya there....

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Aye Mr. cat man do:

We can all build a case for what we believe in, I am not the exception, nor are you.

Lets just agree to meet at some quiet anchorage over a cold rum drink and talk sailing in general, and good times in particular.

See ya there....

I'll bring the Rum, you bring the mixer.

I distill my own, can't drink that store bought crap anymore.

Dave

[CSY Man]

I distill my own, can't drink that store bought crap anymore.

Would that be Light Rum.....?

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Would that be Light Rum.....?

Dark rum, a bit like Captain Morgan, Inner Circle and Bounty blend.

MMMMmmmmm Rum, on that note, think I'll go and Liquer up, being Friday arvo and all.

Peter's Rum Pages - Australia and Oceania: South Pacific Distilleries

South Pacific Distilleries, Ltd.

Inner Circle Rum



Dave

[David_Old_Jersey]

Light and Heavy?

I think this "debate" also gets mixed up with design and build quality.

[frogman27]

A few years ago I read a report about a bad weather ARC rally. They got into a storm and 4 or 5 boats abandoned ship. All the sailors were recovered, but several spent a couple days floating around in their life raft. After the storm was over all their big boats were recovered intact. All of the sailors would have been better off and safer staying on their boats, but they didn't have confidence in them.

Any boat will get a good crew across an ocean. If you read enough you'll find stories about everything from sailing canoes to row boats making the trip. When you do read about modern boats going down it's usually due to running into something at sea, extreme crew error or extreme equipment failure. The boat hulls will withstand more than you or I, and a properly prepared boat will have equipment to deal with the damage of a crash or a serious equipment failure. All that's left is making sure the crew knows what it's doing.

We have a 37 Lagoon catamaran and we've sailed in some rough weather. The worst was an offshore race in 9-12 foot seas with 25 knot winds gusting to 35 for about 60 miles. It took an hour for the crew to settle into the rythm, and the rest of the voyage was great. I sailed a 25 foot seaward 60 miles in 6-8 foot seas and 20 knot winds on the nose. That was a much rougher ride, but we knew the boat would take it and the crew was prepared.

I guess what I'm saying is pick a boat you want to live on, get the necessary gear to sail safely, and then concentrate on getting you ready. Don't worry about the boat. It'll handle it.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Richhh

... Interestingly an inbuilt safety factor or 5 or 6 would equate to super-critical stress designs such as cranes, aircraft, bridges, etc. ..... all stuff thats purposely designed 'never to break' even in beyond 'normal' conditions.

Although most, but all, crane & aircraft accidents are attributed to "operator error", most bridges don't have operators, and (still) bridges "fail (especially in the Province of Quebec).

SAFETY FACTORS ARE very often UNCERTAINTY FACTORS:
The larger the safety factor, the more uncertain the enginering.

The safety factor chosen for any structure is often simply an expression of the state of knowledge (or lack thereof) at the time, and should allow for any future uncertainties as well as present uncertainties, such as quality of the parts used in the structure. So the safety factor might be termed an uncertainty factor. When knowledge of strength and quality is lower, then the safety factor is higher.

Most if not all engineering systems experience a strength versus weight conflict of some description. The contradiction most commonly manifests itself in the balance designers attempt to strike between the need to ensure adequate strength, and the parallel desire to utilise the minimum amount of material, and thus achieve the lowest cost. This strength/weight conflict plays a particularly important role in the design of bridges and boats. In order to remain competitive in the bridge & boat engineering sector, designers are forced into a perpetual drive to achieve designs which use less materials than their predecessors.

Historical evidence firmly suggests that, using traditional design approaches, this quest for ever better strength/weight ratios – coupled with other factors - inevitably leads to some kind of catastrophic failure. Following each incident, the experience of one failure influenced the design of successive designs; usually prompting a modification in design style and an increase in safety factor levels. Then, as experience with the new design style increased, the safety factors are gradually reduced again… until the next failure occurred. And so on.

When John Roebling was asked whether his proposed Brooklyn Bridge wouldn't collapse, like so many others, he said: “No, because I designed it six times as strong as it needs to be, to prevent that from happening.”

What Roebling actually meant, was that he designed it to be 6x stronger than he THOUGHT it probably had to be, at a minimum. His notes and letters on the design of the Brooklyn Bridge still exist, and they are a fascinating example of a good engineer recognizing the limits of his knowledge. He knew about aerodynamic lift on suspension bridges; he had watched it. And he knew he didn't know enough to model it. So he designed the stiffness of the truss on the Brooklyn Bridge roadway to be six times what a normal calculation, based on known static and dynamic loads would have called for.

[Nyssa]

What is the difference between an ocean going and a coastal cruiser? I sail a Catalina 32'. Here on the East Coast of Australia there are many production boats like Catalinas, Beneteaus, Jenneaus that sail up and down the coast hopping between ports and waterways 1 or 2 sailing days apart. Regular southerly "busters" can see winds of 25-35 knots & seas of 10-15 ft. If the skipper knows what he's doing then these boats are easily up to the task. Where I start to have doubts is something like a passage to Lord Howe Island. That is about 400nm out into the Pacific (actually Tasman Sea). It's a trip I've done as crew on a 50'er and I'd love to do one day if it was feasible on my boat. With a liftraft, EPIRB, HF Radio, and all other required saftey gear, who would try it on a Catalina 32'? At an average speed of 4 kts, that's at least 4 days at sea.

[rtbates]

Amazon.com: The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat: John Vigor: Books

[sailorboy1]

I knew I shouldn't have started reading this thread (again). I was getting my boat choices narrowed down, now I'm just all messed up in the head!

Maybe we should start new one of these, and this time every poster has to list what sailing experience they have in that directly supports the super strong boat etc. We all know most people are really cruyising on "coastal crusiers". Hell I think I'm going to take a look at boats waaaaay out of my price range, look past the fnacy interiors etc and see how they compare to the 20+ year old "coastal crusiers". Wonder what that will tell us (nothing I bet because the answer will that computers allow better material use etc, even though we don't really understand sails, and I doubt most boat builders have pHD fiberglass guys).

WOW, I vented :-)