Crusing on a J 44

[robert sailor]

Some real extremes from a J44 to a steel 50 footer, although it does look like a nice boat. The Hudson 50 is about as opposite from a J boat as a Porsche is to a truck.

[Training Wheels]

Saga 43


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[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Training Wheels

Saga 43


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Nice boat but they have had their share of rudder failures.

[Eleuthera 2014]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Some real extremes from a J44 to a steel 50 footer, although it does look like a nice boat. The Hudson 50 is about as opposite from a J boat as a Porsche is to a truck.

:-) ... I chose those vessels to illustrate what is more likely to be a good fit for SM..

BTW, I owned a very raw Porsche in past years... most fun you can have with your clothes on

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Eleuthera 2014

:-) ... I chose those vessels to illustrate what is more likely to be a good fit for SM..

BTW, I owned a very raw Porsche in past years... most fun you can have with your clothes on

Yup they are fun, wifey has one that I'm not allowed to play with.

The steel boat looked like a nice one, the Hudson 50 really requires a breeze to get moving. We sailed across the Pacific in a 36 foot boat and averaged 20 miles a day more than our friends in the H50 in light trade wind sailing.

[Eleuthera 2014]

Indeed the Kanter yachts are extremely well built and incorporate lots of uncommon safety features. A big plus is that the rudder is unlikely to fall off..

This boat has been for sale for 4 years... at a much higher price earlier... remove some of the knick knacks and she could become a HOME for someone.

[Don C L]

I was just chatting with a rigging buddy who had a client who had a big, beautiful S&S built for himself. He had it equipped for cruising, brand new, beautiful. He got 3 days out and was so sea-sick the whole time it became life threatening. He got back, and promptly sold the boat. I sailed with a friend once who planned and equipped his boat for the trip to Hawaii. We got 3 days out and, same thing, he hadn't left his bunk since the first 5 minutes out of port, sea sick. We came back and he gave up sailing. Perhaps we should advise all the people wanting to move from little to big boats to try it out on someone else's boat first for a while? Just a thought.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Don C L

I was just chatting with a rigging buddy who had a client who had a big, beautiful S&S built for himself. He had it equipped for cruising, brand new, beautiful. He got 3 days out and was so sea-sick the whole time it became life threatening. He got back, and promptly sold the boat. I sailed with a friend once who planned and equipped his boat for the trip to Hawaii. We got 3 days out and, same thing, he hadn't left his bunk since the first 5 minutes out of port, sea sick. We came back and he gave up sailing. Perhaps we should advise all the people wanting to move from little to big boats to try it out on someone else's boat first for a while? Just a thought.

What! And screw the used sailboat market! We need all the buyers we can get in this market, Lol.

[Don C L]

Oh yeah! Sorry! I take it all back!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by ScottMeilicke

Our family of four is planning on the big escape soon, and have been looking at a J44 near us. We have some sailing experience, not much, and no racing experience. We plan on a Pacific loop of two years, staring from the PNW. We have two dogs, a small one and a 60 pounder.

Things we like about it:
Fast, less motoring. We really are trying to focus on less fuel and motoring.
Good upwind boat.
Great layout for the four of us.
Nice and bright interior, comfortable.
Great galley.
Sloop rig, easy to sail.
Shallow companion way for the dogs (and us).

Things we don't like:
8 foot draft. This is the single thing that seems like a deal breaker.
Inline rig, requiring running back stays in heavy weather. No sure if this matters, but is seems like a pain.
Sloop rig, less sail options?
Bolt on keel, prefer the safety of encapsulated, but maybe that is just irrational fear.
Flat bottom, possible pounding vs a finer entry. Again, is this a 1% of the time thing that we shouldn't worry about?
Not configured for cruising, so we would have to add solar, bigger house batteries, H2O maker, bimini, davits (or similar).
Asking price plus the add one would get expensive for us.

H2O tanks are 100gal, and there seems to be sufficient storage, though not great. We want to sail as much as possible, including to windward.

What are your opinions on this boat for us?

I have read part way thru the responses though not all the way. Here are my observations/opinions anyway.

The low companion way may provide good access by your family and the dogs, but it also provides good access for any boarding water.

My opinion is that cutters are easier boats to handle. The headsail and the staysail together provide a wider range of foresail areas than even a roller furling sloop headsail. Also in very heavy winds you do not need to wrestle a large roller furled headsail down and into the boat in order to set a storm jib, the headsail of the cutter is either long since doused and bagged if hanked on or it remains furled and the the staysail operates as the heeavy weather foresail. Cutters as a group require less storage for sails than sloops and they provide redundant support for the mast which is the biggest plus for me.

What is your planned route? If it includes New Zealand and/or Australia then you will want to reconsider taking the dogs. If you go to either the dogs will spend 6 months in quarantine.

A lot of experienced cruisers go opposite ways on the bolt-on vs. encapsulated keel issue. I have a slight preference for encapsulated for maintenance reasons.

The 8' draft would be a problem in a few places but not enough to dissuade me if I already had the boat.

Given that the boat has checkstays which is indicative of a much lighter mast for racing, that it has know strength issues with the rudder and that you have indicated that you would be stretching your budget a bit to get this boat already (which precludes the funds to deal with the first two items) I will presume that you choose a different boat ultimately.

That brings me to the alternatives posters are proposing. As I said I haven't been thru all the posts and I haven't looked at very many of the boats proposed but it seems to me that most of them are very good cruising boats for a couple. A case in point would be the Valiant 40 which is a great crusing boat in general. Having looked thru the Yachtworld ads for a number of them I didn't see one laid out properly for a family.

The primary issue is berthing. What you need generally is one good berth for each offwatch person and a place to sit for the on-watch person. The V-berth has too much motion to tenable underway except in the calmest weather. This means berth in the main cabin or aft. Excellent berths would be pilot berths for minimum motion, very good would be quarter berths (somewhat more motion and exposure to drips coming in thru compaionway but better privacy). Good would be settee (fore and aft table seats) berths (slightly better motion than pilot berth since lower in the boat, but they have to converted every day between berth and table seating and sleepers may be disturbed by people going forward to use the head). Dinette berths (transverse or U-shaped bench) are marginal at best (more involved conversion process, plus the berth needs to be subdivided to a single to provide a safe berth size.) Aft cabins are OK as long as berths are fore and aft or nearly so and can be set up easily as a single.

Berths should be angled within 10 degrees of for and aft, 5 degrees is much better. With angled berths your head will be up on one tack which is fine, but down on the other which is not conducive to good sleep. I can see the argument that tacks and gybes don't happen often offshore so you could just swap ends of the berth and always sleep head up misses the fact that you always want to sleep feet forward. If the boat hits a wave and slows abruptly, or hits something or worse runs aground you will be slamming into the forward end of the berth head first instead of feet first.

Finally with kids aboard they each need to have a permanent berth. This means pilot berth, quarter berth or singles in an aft cabin. Kids really need a place that is their to sleep, or sulk or read or be 'alone' or.... Their own berth will give them a small semblance of control and perhaps a feeling of investment in the trip rather than it quickly becoming an imposition.

One may argue that being underway will only be 10-20% of your cruise, so why should cabin arrangements be dictated by the minority of the time spent on the boat. The contrary argument is that while this is true poor sleeping arrangements that contribute to already strained sleep patterns can lead to poor judgement and unhappy experiences. On the other hand a layout that is more conducive to underway needs but less conducive to life at anchor or in a berth is merely an annoyance rather than a safety problem.

For the last 3 years or so my family (wife, daughter and son) and I have been planning to do a Pacific loop so we have been considering these issues at length. If you want to further discuss boat choice, equipment or route planning I would be happy to do so.

[ScottMeilicke]

Don, aren't there good meds for that? We have spoken to perhaps a dozen people who have used the patch and have had no issues, including ocean crossers.

Adelie, we are in sync, and we have considered all of those items. Individual berths are a requirement. We are also not excited about sloops, contrary to my post which started this thread! Cutters are good, and we are not opposed to ketchs or staysail schooners. My lottery boat is a schooner - an Atlantic 47 cat.

I like the saga suggestion, I just don't know where each kid would go (boy and a girl).

That steal boat looks fab.

Thanks all,
Scott


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[Greg4cocokai]

Where are you people coming from? They're asking about J44's! I cruised hull #10 for 3 seasons from Ca. To Mexico. Great, fun sailing boats. They are lacking a bit in storage with they're shallow bilge. I met hull #11 in 2008 in French Polynesia. I know it sunk in about 2011 going from New Zealand to Fiji supposedly from a keel sump failure. When my friend bought Hull # 10, the surveyor said the keel and sump needed to be fixed. After reinforcing it, I felt confident in cruising on it. Hull # 10 was a 3 cabin, 1 head, hull #11 was a 2 cabin and 2 head. I had a blast cruising it up and down the Baha. I did 15 days, PV to Long Beach, sailed all the way! Another time did 100 nms a day up the rumb line between Mag Bay And Turtle Bay with 35 kts on the nose! Great boats as long as they stay together!


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[Jim Cate]

Great boats as long as they stay together!

What a great recommendation for a family cruising boat!

Jim

[ScottMeilicke]

In the spirit of the J 44, what about the shuttleworth tek 35? Being cats these avoid the keel issues, and with airex core, no balsa to get wet and fail. Still fast, and if you believe the manufacturer, strong. Dual helms, rudders, motors on some boats. They would suffer from overloading more than a mono I would think, and berthing may be a challenge at 24' beam.


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[DDabs]

Outbound 46?


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