Quote:
Originally Posted by robert sailor
We are waiting out a cold front that is holding us back from leaving so my boat jobs are just about wrapped and I have some spare time on my hands so why not revisit this crazy thread again, see if some people are still picking flyshit out of pepper, LOL
Many of the threads are good debates and that includes parts of this one however it’s a bit like debating religions. Who is really right? The answer is of course both sides, sort of.
If you own a boat that has been glued together you can make a case for glue being best and if your preference is tabbing then you can make a case for that. Glues have become more popular because it reduces the skilled labor needed and is the perfect answer for boats built on an assembly line with unskilled labor. This results in large cost savings and allows a lower price, on that there is no debate.
There is growing evidence that many of these boats, particularly the lower priced ones have a lifespan that is much less than boats built to the old methods. Some of the more knowledgeable members on this site have explained that these new CE ratings are based on a certain number of cycles and in one example used it was calculated that if a boat was raced hard and sailed offshore for a number of years that it was quite possible that it was basically used up. In other words it had used up the cycles it was originally designed to be able to withstand before things started to break.
Now that was one example and I’m quite sure that it was an extreme case as most sailboats sit in marinas for 95% of their life and get sailed on weekends in the summer months so it’s unlikely that it would ever see a boat used up, so to speak.
Glass tabbing of bulkheads is still very alive and well in the higher quality boats and is even finding its way back into some of the larger entry level boats but it is skilled labor intensive and is not a natural for assembly lines. Tabbing bulkheads to the hull means that the builder can not use a full liner and has to resort to smaller modules if they use liners at all which adds to the costs. Usually that’s not an issue because the larger more expensive boats are built in much smaller volumes and the builders know that this group of buyers do a lot more due diligence when buying so they are sensitive to the quality standards expected.
Offshore sailing is a completely different kettle of fish as many of these boats get more wear and tear on them on a long passage than a weekend warrior would get in their lifetime of sailing. Think about it, a typical weekend sailor might get 4 hours of sailing in each weekend for 20 weeks a year and that is generous because if you miss one weekend then you need to sail 8 the next to keep pace. That amounts to 80 hours of use a year, usually in protected waters. The boats are rarely subjected to really harsh conditions because if it really starts to blow the sailors simply don’t leave the dock.
Take an offshore passage like Mexico to the Marquises, many of these boats took 25 days to make this passage so let’s see, 25x24 is 600 hours or about equal to 7 ½ years. The same number of accumulated hours to see you get to NZ and now you are up to 15 years of cycles on the boat and rig compared to the average weekend warrior.
So it only makes sense that depending on what your plans for sailing are that you might choose a boat accordingly.
Does a light racer/cruiser as Polux suggests make sense? Well like everything, that depends. If you are going to load the boat up with all the stuff cruisers like to carry with them including a heavy dink on davits, several jerry cans of fuel and diesel, tons of spares and tools and enough food for a couple of months then maybe not because the boat will have been designed for a certain amount of weight and storage and if its overloaded then it will be subjected to rigging loads it wasn’t designed for as well as the performance would suffer as it sunk on its lines. This of course can be solved by choosing a much bigger racer/cruiser but even Polux is suggesting his next boat would be in the 36-38 foot range. Maybe the best choice here is a cruiser/racer.
If on the other hand you are more of a minimalist and can travel really light then sure some of the racer cruisers might be a good option. Just keep in mind that none of these boats sail in much under 5-7 knots of wind offshore because the larger swells are constantly shaking the wind out of the sails. Yes they can sail very well in light air in places like the Med but offshore the swell is always there and it is really hard to sail in light air in those conditions.
Others, like Dockside have expressed views that a, built like a tank, heavier/medium displacement vessel makes more sense for offshore cruising as they can pack huge loads and have room to spare. If the wind is light they just simply push a button and bring in the iron jenny to cover the light airs.
Maybe the answer for many sailors is somewhere in-between, heavy enough to be well built but light enough to be able to sail in lighter winds, this could depend on where in the world you plan on sailing.
As far as trying to make the best decision on older more robustly built boats or newer lighter built boats for offshore use it’s really a crap shoot. If the boat is new or on the newer side, say less than 10 years old and you are planning to cross a couple of oceans then there is a good case to be made for the newer boat no matter how its built because the systems aboard will still have some life in them and the hull and rigging will not have been exposed to that much use. Once the boat is well past 10 years old then it starts to get down to how old each of the components are. I have seen many boats that are 25 years old that are in much better condition than others that are 10-15 years old. Keep in mind that it is rare to have a glass boat actually come apart at sea; it’s the loss of a rudder or a failure in the rigging that is the more common occurrence. Yes it happened to Blue Pearl and CR but those were oddball cases, we hope!
There are so many choices out there and none is perfect for everyone. The sort of throw around money you have plays a huge role. Obviously if Smack had the coin to buy a new Oyster or the like we wouldn’t be having this debate. Smack chose a Hunter and I expect for the money he has invested (bad choice for sailboats I know) and the use he is going to put the boat through he has made a good choice. Similarly it looks like Dockside is in the same position, for his use a wonderful well built boat. Polux our speed freak friend (my wife always says, why do you even use that word speed with things that move the same speed as I can walk) is on the lighter and faster is better side, looks like his choice is a great one as well.
So what is your religion and what will you say to get me to change mine?? The answer of course is you can’t so all the great ideas and information here falls on deaf ears because all the players had their minds made up before the game started. Our boat builder friends here are very opinionated and that comes from deep experience. Experienced offshore sailors are deeply opinionated and that comes from years of experience. That of course does not stop the less experienced from having their views, that’s what CF is all about.
And finally and to me this is very important and that is pride of ownership. When we dingy away from our boat do we slow down for a minute and look back and admire our little ship? Do we have deep confidence in how it was put together? Are we proud to have others aboard? No matter the costs is it giving us a payback in the enjoyment we feel when we are using it.
We are off and running again, catch up with you guys later. R |
Good luck and fair winds!
I generally agree with all of this. This:
"Others, like Dockside have expressed views that a, built like a tank, heavier/medium
displacement vessel makes more sense for offshore cruising as they can pack huge loads and have room to spare. If the wind is light they just simply push a button and bring in the iron jenny to cover the light airs.
Maybe the answer for many sailors is somewhere in-between, heavy enough to be well built but light enough to be able to sail in lighter winds, this could depend on where in the world you plan on sailing."
is worth clarifying a little.
My personal taste does not favor heavy displacement boats. I love speed, and weight is the enemy of that. Others have different points of view, but that's mine.
For my purposes, a lighter displacement, achieved by coring the hull, using Kevlar, etc., and not just by making everything thinner, is very desirable. But light displacement boats become automatically less
seaworthy. So to make up for that, the boat needs to be much bigger.
The much bigger boat, at the same time, is less affected by the loads of crap you need when living aboard/long term cruising.
The much bigger boat has a longer waterline, so will be altogether faster.
All good so far -- the downside is cost.
My boat has D/L of under 200, so actually falls in the "cruiser-racer" category.
Light wind performance suffers because of the low SA/D -- 16.5 in my case. The normal working sails are sized for stronger conditions in these latitudes, and you either need different light air sails (I'm working on a light Code 0 for my boat) or the
engine, when the true wind is below 15 knots.
By the way, Polux mentioned outsailing a
Jeanneau 57 in light air -- that's hardly a surprise since the J57 has a pretty heavy displacement at 27 tons lightship, which gives it L/D of 210. That will be because it's uncored below the waterline. And the
Jeanneau has a really small SA/D of under 15. These are good numbers for up here -- this will be a good boat for the
English Channel in F7 or F8. But you won't get anywhere at any speed in 10 knots apparent. I know that boat; I have a friend who has one. Nice boat.
That boat will not be much, if any faster than mine in most conditions, as the waterline length is less than a meter more, and the J57 is quite a bit heavier and with less sail area. With that SA/D, you won't need to reef in less than maybe 25 knots true, so in 25 knots true, it will run away from my boat which already needs the first reef in. The J57 will be great in those conditions. I will have an advantage upwind with deeper
draft. Also on some points of sail, my staysail will be an advantage over the Jennie's
sloop rig, particularly a reach. I will be faster than that Jennie on a reach right up to the point where I have to start reefing (and he doesn't yet). Another advantage I have is
I had an exhilarating battle upwind with a Bene First 40 last summer, not fully crewed, but kitted out for
racing with carbon fiber sails. I was off the
East Coast of
Sweden on the long trip back from
Finland, and we both had to get through a gap in the rocks 10 miles away and dead upwind. The Bene guy was working hard. I had 14 year old blown-out sails (and the headsail was destroyed a few weeks later, so these sails are now retired) and a barnacle farm on the bottom (we scraped off 50 kg of
barnacles in Cowes later), and I could not even come close to his AWA. I was using 37 degrees and he was at least 5 degrees closer to the wind than we were. It was about 15 knots of true wind which is on the low side for my boat, greatly favoring the Bene with its much greater SA/D. But we beat him. He just could not match our boat speed -- our greater boat speed more than made up for our lower AWA. Also he
lost a lot more speed in his tacks than we did. He did not like losing to a cruising boat with a fat
dinghy hanging off
davits and at the end of a 3000 mile
cruise and a ton of tools and spare
parts and canned
food on board, but he did. In other than very light wind, it's very hard for a 40' boat to sail faster than a 54' boat.
And that's why size is one possible approach to solving the speed problem. The big downside is cost.
I think about an even bigger boat. I started a thread on it a few months ago. The perfect size for me is about 65' feet. I did a lot of dreaming about a custom build, and if I come into a lot of money, that would be the perfect way to do it. But looking at normal series built boats, my favorite so far is the HR64.
This boat is quite economical compared to a custom build -- the base
price is 2 million euros (without VAT) and for that is pretty well equipped. I think with 23% VAT and a few
equipment upgrades it would still be well under 3 million euros.
Unfortunately, HR's have undergone a certain "optimization" of production methods over the last decade, which some people would call cutting corners, so it's not as well built as some other boats of this class. It's certainly less strongly built than my present boat is. It has a number of other drawbacks, like the simplified rig, no
compass at the binnacle (horrors!!!!), quite modest nav station (less than my present one), etc.
But it has some huge advantages -- I love the narrow beam and modest freeboard. It will be very fast! And it has brilliant
dinghy storage -- one of the biggest and most unsolveable problems in cruising boat design. It has a fabulous
engine room. It has a 300 horsepower (!)
diesel, so you can just
motor at 10 knots into a F7 if you need to. You can also order it with the front part of the cockpit enclosed in a hard enclosure with glass windshields -- a semi-pilot house which is a Godsend on long voyages at these latitudes.
So it's so far on the top of my list. I wouldn't want a Moody 66, the big brother to my boat. First of all, it's not made anymore, so I would have to buy used. Secondly -- I just don't like it. It's just a scaled up version of my boat; the spaces aren't optimized for the size.
Or I'll just keep my own boat for a while. We shall see.
) so I prefer to sleep on the 
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