35-40' Cruising Boat

[Jon Neely]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Most the boats mentioned are slower than your Pearson, they require more sail area to move them and so will not be a better plan for you. The Waquiez is an exception. Believe me, a big difference in your Pearson and say a Hans Christian 38 (my avatar at the left) the HC38 is a PIG to sail.
There are plenty of boats within your stated price range so you shouldnt have troble finding a good one. If you like your Pearson you could spend the money to add a Solent rig or a Staysail for ease of handling.
Maybe a PS or Cape Dory?
Have you consider an Islander 36 Pilot house? Up in your area that might be nice.

Not trying to pick a fight but just wanted to mention that the Hans Christians I have sailed; Ours a Hc33, HC38 Telstar and a HC38T all have performed well in all wind conditions if you fly the right sail. Out of the Hans I have have sailed our Hc33 sails the best (my opinion, but why we bought one). I would even describe her as light footed in tight quarters. We had a 28 foot fin keel medium displacement boat before our hc33 and I can maneuver the hans and all 42 feet of her in almost the same fashion. Again Never having sailed the 38 MkII I can not comment, but so far my experiences have been defiantly not pigly. Our friends on the HC38 Telstar averaged 140-180 days in the trades on their circumnav (S/V Horizon) and other friends on a HC33 (S/V Bella Star) averaged 170 days while transiting Galapagos to the South Pacific.
Are there faster boats? Yes. Are Hans Christians the Slowest thing on the water? No.

Cheers,

Jon

[gonesail]

the older IP 35 is shoal draft and might be worth looking at. also consider the cabo rico 38 and the southern cross 35 and pacific seacraft 34 or 37. all are well built cruisers IMHO. good luck

[robert sailor]

Jon...Its a real stretch to believe a HC 33 averaged 170 mile days. I know there are areas in that part of the world that has a favorable current helping out but to average 170 mile days you need something a lot quicker that a HC 33.

[malbert73]

In 20 knot downwind trade wind sailing, no reason many 33foot boats can't sail at 7 knots with poled out genoas, etc. but you'd need perfect conditions. 7 knots = 168 mile days. as long as wind stayed up astern or on broad reach you could hit it in many boats.

[carstenb]

Maximum hull speed is a function of length of water line. A 33 ft waterline = 7.7 knots. A 33 foot boat will have about a 30 foot water line (depending on design etc etc).

Running continually at 7 knots means the boat is continually at maximum hull speed. Can be done, but probably not 24/7

[malbert73]

True- and we know waterline length trumps many things. I have found that smaller boats often can stay at hull speed more on passages by deploying different sails simply because the gear and sails are smaller. Handling a cruising chute or whisker pole on a 33 footer is easily done by a human. On a 45 footer? Much more scary so these boats often fly more conservative sailplans on passage. The load on the sheets for a large genoa on a 45 footer I've crewed on are really scary, but not nearly as much for my smaller boat

Human size and strength don't increase proportional to boat size...

[robert sailor]

Remember the sailor posted "average" speeds of 170 mile days. If he said 1 or 2 170 mile days then maybe but average, hell 1/2 the Cats don't average 170 mile days.

[Jon Neely]

I was speaking more along the lines of daily averages,not voyage averages. It would be very difficult to keep near hull speed for any extended amount of time on any boat. But in my experience, just like others have mentioned, the smaller the boat the more obtainable hull speed is. Here is the info from Bella stars last pacific crossing:
PASSAGE FACTS (Galapagos, Ecuador to Marquesas, French Polynesia):*
Total nautical miles traveled: 3,302*
Number of days at sea: 25*
Fastest 24 hours: 171 nm (average speed 7.1 knots)*
Slowest 24 hours: 113 nm (average speed 4.7 knots)*
Number of flying fish on deck: oodles and oodles

This is me not saying hcs have mystical powers that make them go faster. All I trying to point out is that property sailed they are really not much slower than anything else with the same waterline.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by Jon Neely

I was speaking more along the lines of daily averages,not voyage averages. It would be very difficult to keep near hull speed for any extended amount of time on any boat. But in my experience, just like others have mentioned, the smaller the boat the more obtainable hull speed is. Here is the info from Bella stars last pacific crossing:
PASSAGE FACTS (Galapagos, Ecuador to Marquesas, French Polynesia):*
Total nautical miles traveled: 3,302*
Number of days at sea: 25*
Fastest 24 hours: 171 nm (average speed 7.1 knots)*
Slowest 24 hours: 113 nm (average speed 4.7 knots)*
Number of flying fish on deck: oodles and oodles

This is me not saying hcs have mystical powers that make them go faster. All I trying to point out is that property sailed they are really not much slower than anything else with the same waterline.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Well your friends did not average 170nm days going across. 3302/25/24 = 132nm average. Average hourly speed is 5.5 knots.

Any boat sailed properly will outperform a boat not sailed properly. I have no bones with an HC - but thinking you can sail it at hull speed most of the time is perhaps, shall we say, optimistic

[robert sailor]

A couple of things...typical average passages for a 33 foot boat on that route are around 130 miles with best days in the 160-170 range. There is a favorable current with the boats most of the way which allows these numbers. These are sailing numbers, not motor sailing or doing a lot of motoring so don't be surprised to have a few days well below a 100 miles.. Anyone who has done that route knows that to get a steady 20 knot wind for 24 hours is quite rare, even for the lovely looking HC 33.

[Jon Neely]

Guys, I completely agree with both of you, again as mentioned above 170 mile days where not sustained more than a couple of times during that passage. On our last sail down the west coast we averaged 5.3 knots. Nothing special, wind wasn't good at all but for a boat near 30 feet we did alright for s 6 day sail.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Bella Star]

Happened to see this post and thought I'd chime in. It's true, the Hans Christian 33 is not a racing boat - but she's no pig, and we were as surprised as anybody at our daily averages. For long haul passages boats tend to bunch up and leave at the same time when the weather window opens, so we have frequently been able to compare ourselves to a variety of other vessels underway with the same destination. We're usually the smallest boat or nearly the smallest, but we consistently finish in the middle of the pack and usually better than that. On shorter passages under 5 days or so where we can leave with a decent wind forecast we easily turn in 150 mile days. It's always fun to check in to a net, give our position and then get the surprised feedback from people astern

So we've been happy with her performance on passage. And honestly we're not expert sailors or racers. But I do think we sail less conservatively than some boats. When we left for our first offshore passage on Bella Star I had Brion Toss aboard for a rig inspection and he said to me, "Sail it like you stole it." It was good advice. So...

We don't baby the boat. If the wind is there Bella Star has a job to do. We put her shoulder down and tell her to get to work.

We don't baby the sails. This is a big one - over the last three years we have seen tons of sails getting torn up, blown out and shredded on other boats in moderate conditions. You simply cannot cheap out on your sails for serious offshore work. Cloth weight and construction details matter. We fitted Bella Star with Hasse sails and it was by far some of the best outfitting money spent.

My wife and I don't baby each other. If the wind lightens up in the middle of the night and a reef needs to come out, then the off watch needs to get up out of their nice warm comfy dry berth to go through the process. That always sucks, but passages are hard and we want to get where we're going ASAP so we can get on with the aspects of cruising we enjoy the most. Some cruisers prefer to stay reefed down for a squall that may or may not come in the night, and are okay with taking a knot off their boat speed just in case.

And of course staying within safe limits. But I think anybody making a passage on an HC33 for the first time is going to be impressed.

[youngson]

I would recommend a j boat, fast and comfortable, j/109 is my fav.

[Suijin]

You can pick up a late 80's decked out Valiant 40 for under $150k, easy. Check it out.

And as much as I love J Boats, as I race in them and have a few friends with various models, I would definitely not call them comfortable, lol. Everything is relative, however.

[youngson]

ya suijin some of them aren't comfortable at all, it depends on the model, their design line-up has some pretty nice cruisers, racer-cruisers, and straight racers. lots of options