Are there any Affordable Bluewater Boats built in the 90's?

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

Mariner 36 (NH).

The Canning design or the Garden design?


Adelie

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Tessellate

I'm not set on a 90s boat, an 80s boat is probably more likely actually. I just wanted to compare availability of 80s vs 90s, and thought it curious that I could find very few 90s boats that aren't cruiser-racers (lots of Beaneteaus, Catalinas, Hunters).



So far the "old" boats (early 80s) I've looked at, some were not very well kept up to date. A Bristol 35.5 had an original breaker panel from '78 that looked like it came off the set of "2001 A Space Odessey." Now an old breaker panel is no problem, ... That's not to say there aren't well maintained old boats though.



But, I know friends who have done Mexico on a newish Hunter 44DS. That's too pricey for me, and it looks like a condo inside, but they did fine (true, no ocean crossings, but the Oregon coast isn't trivial). And they could sail fast.



I don't really know how slow a boat like a Westsail or Bristol is, but imagine it would be pretty slow in the light wind conditions we get in Puget Sound - usually < 10 kt in the summer, and many days have long stretches of 0-5kt.

Why limit it to the '80s? There are plenty of racer/cruisers from the '60s that would do the trick for less money giving you a faster boat that's just as seaworthy.

As far as updating the boat goes count on needing to redo al the wiring and plumbing unless the boat is less than 10yr old. Halfway to the Marquesas is not where you want your electrical system to fail or all of the water in one tank to run into the bilge. Do your own work over time then you know the systems yourself and aren't trying to figure them out in the middle of nowhere.

No the OR coast isn't trivial but by no means is it a big stretch. The whole way south to San Diego you are within 24-36hr of a harbor or marina. Most weather forecasts are decent for at least 48hr so getting surprised by the weather is not terribly likely.

Some cruisers feel the frustration of light air is worse than the fear from gales. From sailing in the PNW for 21yr I tend to agree with this. But that also made it the right place for me to figure out how to make the boat keep on keepin' on.


Adelie

[sandy stone]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

Sort of like a Rolls Royce with bad compression versus a brand new Chevy.
The Rolls will need an engine rebuild which is a pretty serious repair and will be expensive, but once that's done, you'll have quite a car. Even a brand new Chevy is just a run of the mill production car and always will be. Maybe you want a Chevy for its commonality and because you can afford a new(er) one, and that's perfectly valid, but I understand the point the salesman was making.

Are we trying to get from point A to point B comfortably, reliably, and efficiently, or are we going for snob appeal? If the Rolls was such a great car, why did it need an engine rebuild? (To paraphrase an earlier poster)

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by Adelie

The Canning design or the Garden design?


Adelie

NH boats are Canning design of course. Built like the proverbial brick ****house. But sails much better than it's stats indicate. Loves when it's windy and choppy, goes through waves like a knife through butter. I love the look on the other people's faces in our mooring launch when we come up to her in a chop and all the other boats are swinging their masts this way and that and she just sits there calmly waiting for us to board. Priceless.

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by sandy stone

Are we trying to get from point A to point B comfortably, reliably, and efficiently, or are we going for snob appeal? If the Rolls was such a great car, why did it need an engine rebuild? (To paraphrase an earlier poster)

May be because its driver is a fool or a shmuck? What does greatness of the car or a boat have to do with carelessness or the stupidity of the owner? I get the point that it is not stupid to do a $10,000-20,000-30,000 refit job on an item which will be worth $50,000-100,000 therafter (no matter if it's a boat a car or a piece of jewerly). I don't get it when one spends $10,000 on something which will be worth less than that afterwards. And often much less than that.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

May be because its driver is a fool or a shmuck? What does greatness of the car or a boat have to do with carelessness or the stupidity of the owner? I get the point that it is not stupid to do a $10,000-20,000-30,000 refit job on an item which will be worth $50,000-100,000 therafter (no matter if it's a boat a car or a piece of jewerly). I don't get it when one spends $10,000 on something which will be worth less than that afterwards. And often much less than that.

Because sometimes spending $10k on a $5k boat gives you a boat you can sail around the world and sell for $7k but spending $10k on a $100k boat sometimes gives you a boat you can resell for $110 but will sink half across the Atlantic on its first offshore passage.

If the goal is to sail RTW or even just across the pond then the investment losses have to be eaten as part of the expense of the voyage. If the goal is return on Investment then stay home and buy a rental property and become a landlord.


Adelie

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by sandy stone

Are we trying to get from point A to point B comfortably, reliably, and efficiently, or are we going for snob appeal? If the Rolls was such a great car, why did it need an engine rebuild? (To paraphrase an earlier poster)

Because it had 200,000 miles on its engine and the oil wasn't changed regularly? There isn't an engine made that will run forever without friction eventually taking its toll, and there isn't a boat made that you can drill holes halfway through without properly bedding the fasteners without water getting into it and causing expensive damage.

The point is that if you buy a quality boat, while it will still require maintenance, you will always have a quality boat around you. But if you buy a cheaply built boat, while it appears like you are getting more for your money, once things start to wear out, will you really want to pour money into a boat that's not worth much and never will be no matter how many upgrades you do to it? I'm not talking about buying a Hinckley with little tankage and an impractical layout for a cruiser just so you can have a Talaria on your bow, but I'd stay away from the real low end boats if you plan to keep it for awhile and expect it to take care of you at sea.

[Adelie]

As to questions about speed:

PHRF ratings expressed in nm/d: [PHRF mileage(nm/day) = 86,400(sec/day) / (PHRF rating + 360sec/nm)]
This gives you an estimate of how far you can expect to go daily with the boat in racing trim and expending a high level of effort with a racing crew. The ratings are slightly skewed in that they are based on the past history of racing where races are called for no wind or too much wind. The bigger skew in the data is how many boats from a particular class are in the data behind the rating and how well they are sailed. The faster boats tend to attract the better racers and the more casual racers tend to be race with the boat they have. Consequently there are probably fewer racers in Westsail 32s so there is less data to base the rating on and since they are likely a more casual group, the ratings that do exist probably under estimate the speed potential of the boat. Using this formula the Westsail 32 is about 5-7% slower than other 32' boats.

Alternatively EStarzinger and BLeonard came up with a formula that estimates daily daily cruising runs based on the SA/D ratio of a boat and the waterline length (LWL).
Daily Average Mileage = 24*(2.62 + 0.066*SA/D+ 0.051*LWL ). I call this the LSM (Leonard Starzinger Mileage) for short.
They checked this formula with the logs of 10-12 cruising boats and found it correlates pretty well over the long haul. I checked this formula against PHRF mileage and found a very good correlation though the LSM gives a lower daily mileage than PHRF. This is in keeping with a cruising boat being sailed with a lot more stores on board, with fewer people expending less effort than when racing.

If you look at a large group of boats and compare LSM vs LOD, you can see where your boat stacks up against similar sized boats. See attached graph.

Over the long term the Westsail 32 is about 1% slower than other boats 32' LOD. Part of where the Westsail erases some of its disadvantage in speed is that that being a very heavy boat, bringing aboard 2-3000lb of gear is a much smaller fraction of total displacement so it doesn't suffer nearly as big a speed hit as most other boats. Also being a seakindly boat it continues to sail nearer to optimum with less effort than many other boats.

Lets assume that the Westsail 32 is 5% slower than other 32 footers. On a 3000nm passage from San Diego to the Marquesas it will arrive about 28hr behind most similar boats. If the group of boats is unlucky and encounters a storm the Westsail is more likely to come thru the storm without any damage, and as a guess will maintain way longer during the storm than other boats and may pull even or ahead of its cohort.

I bring keep using the Westsail as an example because it so well illustrates the pitfalls of predicting offshore behavior based on inshore experience.

I expect that if you specifically outfitted the boat with light air sails it could keep up with its cohort.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Adelie

......
Over the long term the Westsail 32 is about 1% slower than other boats 32' LOD. .....

Making comparisons like this is interesting, but usually end up with some arbitrariness. The numbers would look a lot different if you used LOA instead of LOD. A Westsail 32 fits in a 40 ft slip.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Making comparisons like this is interesting, but usually end up with some arbitrariness. The numbers would look a lot different if you used LOA instead of LOD. A Westsail 32 fits in a 40 ft slip.

People don't live in a 40' slip, they live in the 32' hull. If the thread was about liveaboards slip size would be a much greater issue.

In the short term it probably is an issue for the OP while he outfits the boat. In the long run he has traded $5-10k moorage fees over several years for a vey comfortable, almost bullet-proof boat with minimal sacrifice in speed over the long haul.

I am not trying to push the Westsail, I'm trying to make the point that speed differences are a lot smaller than most people assume and that the trading speed for build may not get you nearly as much as you want and may cost you considerably in other qualities.

Adelie

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Because sometimes spending $10k on a $5k boat gives you a boat you can sail around the world and sell for $7k but spending $10k on a $100k boat sometimes gives you a boat you can resell for $110 but will sink half across the Atlantic on its first offshore passage.

If the goal is to sail RTW or even just across the pond then the investment losses have to be eaten as part of the expense of the voyage. If the goal is return on Investment then stay home and buy a rental property and become a landlord.


Adelie

Well stated. I doubt any hole in the water has a return on investment, unless I'm the buyer. The best one can hope for is to reach a plateau were depreciation is minimized.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Adelie

People don't live in a 40' slip, they live in the 32' hull. If the thread was about liveaboards slip size would be a much greater issue.
...

That's true, but if you want to compare by volume, then displacement and construction type makes a huge difference. Since the OP talked about being fond of a J/35c, I'd say the speed differences are pretty large. Especially while sailing in light winds or downwind tradewind sailing. Whether you care if a passage takes 24 hrs longer or not is up to the individual.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Paul L

That's true, but if you want to compare by volume, then displacement and construction type makes a huge difference. Since the OP talked about being fond of a J/35c, I'd say the speed differences are pretty large. Especially while sailing in light winds or downwind tradewind sailing. Whether you care if a passage takes 24 hrs longer or not is up to the individual.

Yes (s)he did express a fondness for the J35C, and also made mention of well built keels and skeg rudders.

Comparing the volumes of the WS32 and J35C, I would estimate the cabin volumes to be about the same. While the hull of the WS32 is shorter it remains comparatively full to much nearer then ends. Also the W32 has a much shorter cockpit. Since living area usually includes the deck, the J35C gains there.

Large speed differences depend on how you define large. Is 5% large? 10%?
Running the time estimate on both boats for 3000nm the J35C is just under 23d, vs 24.5d for the W32. Yes it will be up the individual to decide if that is where to make the compromises in their priorities. My point is not that the difference is minimal, it's not. My point is that it's not that whopping large the way some people make it out to be. Not just for these two boats but for most boats you would want to take offshore. To really have a significant difference in speed (12-18%) you need to look at boats with significantly different lengths which also implies significantly different prices.

Personally the WS32 is not my cup of tea. But I'm not going to knock it because of that.

[estarzinger]

^^

Regarding speed and performance . . . . . I like cruising in "performance oriented" boats, but for me it has almost nothing to do with faster passages, where I agree a day here or there really does not make any difference. I just really enjoy short tacking up a narrow channel, or sailing onto anchor in a small cove, or ghosting along in 3 kts of breeze. For me, done well, with dash and elegance, those are some of the joyful moments of cruising.

[Paul L]

Adelie,
I brought up the LOA of the W32 because it compares in volume to boats larger than its LOD. Not sure how you did your 3,000 mile comparison. I see about 125 secs/mile difference in the PHRF ratings between the boats. That's about 4.3 days over 3,000 miles. Of course the PHRF rating is a mixed wind conditions rating and if I got to choose the 3,000 would be all downwind. In those conditions the J should be even faster. And just to contradict the predictions a Westsail 32 won the 1988 Pacific Cup to Hawaii.