Reasons to stay "Monohull"

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We've talked about this before, I do not believe that this is right.
....

Go to the Arc results over many years and thousands of boats and you will see that you are wrong about that. Go to the ARC world circumnavigation with a huge number of boats along the years and you will see my point proved.

Obtaining other results means only that the one looking at that is looking is iconsidering only old monohulls (the bigger number ) from the time were semi planning hulls were not being used for fast passage making. Today there are many and only ultra light boats like the Pogo50. Much more common among European sailors, very rare among American sailors.

Regarding semi planing potential it is not only the weight of the boat but the shape of the hull and beam, with all beam pulled back.

I could give you many examples but you just have to look to the ones I mentioned and if you look at them in a non biased way you will be convinced.

As a single individual example I could tell you about that couple that circumnavigated on a Fox with 33ft that made a cruising transat with a loaded bot doing over 7k average speed (on the passage) and done a crossing of the South Atlantic doing an average boat speed of 8k (over the distance). This always on a boat loaded for a transat.

On one of the videos we can see them leaving behind quickly an aluminum voyage boat, that is not a slow boat.

Regarding big boats with the same length having very different performances look at the performances on the World ARC of the Shipman and Dashew compared with the performances of boats like the Tayana 58 and you would be enlightened too.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Goosebumps

I cannot imagine anyone being in a F11 actually living to talk about it afterwards

Many sailors have survived much worse conditions, for much longer periods of time, on boats less oriented to that challenge. And, as we are often unfortunately and sadly reminded, many boats and sailors are lost under far less intense circumstances.

In my experience, there are many interesting consequences to having sailed through heavy weather, including altering the relationship that one has with one's boat.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Goosebumps

I got a question I am extremely curious to see response to! Anyone here know of any catamaran owner who left cats for monohull? I hope many so cats become cheaper for me!

On this thread you will find one or two but if you go to this thread you will find plenty.
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ll-162932.html

[Goosebumps]

Originally Posted by accomplice

Many sailors have survived much worse conditions, for much longer periods of time, on boats less oriented to that challenge. And, as we are often unfortunately and sadly reminded, many boats and sailors are lost under far less intense circumstances.



In my experience, there are many interesting consequences to having sailed through heavy weather, including altering the relationship that one has with one's boat.

you are of course right on both counts. If you end up in exteeme heavy weather, my last time 10 December 2007 wuth my Tiki 30, and there are no records of how heavy the weather was like in my case in Mozambique when you get back alive in one piece, well almost, people are astonished and bombard you with the stories of what happened to others in same storm.

You are very right about the relationship with your boat, it alters, in my case, although Tiki did great, I wanted more protection from the spray and got a Catalac 34 foot!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Polux

Go to the Arc results over many years and thousands of boats and you will see that you are wrong about that. Go to the ARC world circumnavigation with a huge number of boats along the years and you will see my point proved.

Obtaining other results means only that the one looking at that is looking is iconsidering only old monohulls (the bigger number ) from the time were semi planning hulls were not being used for fast passage making. Today there are many and only ultra light boats like the Pogo50. Much more common among European sailors, very rare among American sailors.

Regarding semi planing potential it is not only the weight of the boat but the shape of the hull and beam, with all beam pulled back.

I could give you many examples but you just have to look to the ones I mentioned and if you look at them in a non biased way you will be convinced.

As a single individual example I could tell you about that couple that circumnavigated on a Fox with 33ft that made a cruising transat with a loaded bot doing over 7k average speed (on the passage) and done a crossing of the South Atlantic doing an average boat speed of 8k (over the distance). This always on a boat loaded for a transat.

On one of the videos we can see them leaving behind quickly an aluminum voyage boat, that is not a slow boat.

Regarding big boats with the same length having very different performances look at the performances on the World ARC of the Shipman and Dashew compared with the performances of boats like the Tayana 58 and you would be enlightened too.

The ARC results are interesting, but since this is something like a race, it is not really what I am talking about. In the ARC you have some crews just pottering along (most of the cruising fleet) and other crews racing hard. This deeply distorts the practical performance difference between performance boats and normal cruising boats. I'm talking about practical passage making. For that you need to look at Starzinger's data.

Concerning ARC data, I am not going to sift through and analyze it myself, but if you would analyze and post the results, I think everyone would be very interested, but for the reason stated above, I don't think it answers this question.

To show how the ARC results can be distorted by the varying degrees of effort the participants invest in going fast, in 2002 a Moody 64, a cruising boat (actually just a scaled up version of my boat), entered in the cruising division, finished ahead of the entire racing division except for (from memory) four boats, and far ahead of any of the other cruising boats.

What does that prove? Not much, because it was a stunt by the Moody works to show off the new boat, which was pushed hard by a crack racing crew using carbon sails, including some serious downwind sails, and all moveable equipment removed. The effort expended to keep the boat moving fast was incomparable to the other cruising boats.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The ARC results are interesting, but since this is something like a race, it is not really what I am talking about. In the ARC you have some crews just pottering along (most of the cruising fleet) and other crews racing hard. This deeply distorts the practical performance difference between performance boats and normal cruising boats. I'm talking about practical passage making. For that you need to look at Starzinger's data.

Concerning ARC data, I am not going to sift through and analyze it myself, but if you would analyze and post the results, I think everyone would be very interested, but for the reason stated above, I don't think it answers this question.

To show how the ARC results can be distorted by the varying degrees of effort the participants invest in going fast, in 2002 a Moody 64, a cruising boat (actually just a scaled up version of my boat), entered in the cruising division, finished ahead of the entire racing division except for (from memory) four boats, and far ahead of any of the other cruising boats.

What does that prove? Not much, because it was a stunt by the Moody works to show off the new boat, which was pushed hard by a crack racing crew using carbon sails, including some serious downwind sails, and all moveable equipment removed. The effort expended to keep the boat moving fast was incomparable to the other cruising boats.

Believe in what you want. This discussion makes not any sense for me or any that knows modern boats and something about boat design.

Do you really believe that this boat on passage with identical skilled sailors will go at the same speed of a Valiant 40 or a Tayana 42?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUxe3YmKgvs

Note they are not using any spinnaker and that this is a charter boat.
They don't need to go at over 20k or near it to be much faster. They can go at half that speed in all comfort and be much faster than a 40ft old displacement boat of the same size like a Tayana or a Vailant 40.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya36fiR9edI

And logically if both boats with the same length can have completely different sailing speeds, a smaller light semi planing boat cab be as fast as a much bigger heavier displacement boat.

And if the load is maintained reasonable that has nothing to do with the boat being loaded or not, I mean the max speed will be affected but the average speed will still be much bigger than the one of a displacement heavy boat. These guys are going to Azores, a lot of them on a small fast passagemaker (35ft) and look at the speed they go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjp7...&nohtml5=False

Do you really think that an heavy displacement 35ft boat could go at that speed? Or that they are not doing a passage as fast as considerably bigger heavy displacement boat?
Note that is on the trade winds on medium to strong winds, on lighter winds the difference would even be bigger.

Do you really believe a Tayana 58:

Will be at a passage as fast as a smaller Cigale 16:


As I said, if evidence does not convince you, I will not try anymore but I can only say that your opinion about this is clearly biased.

[Stumble]

What I see here is a discussion about how to compare boats. Do we talk about them in terms of what they can do (particularly fast cruisers like the Pogo, some cats, etc) or what a boat will actually do. And they are very different things.

If you don't want to push the boat very hard, and don't worry about sail trim, or swapping sails, if you aren't putting up spinnakers as required, then there is a very direct correlation between hull speed and passage time. In any reasonable wind a boat will get to about 90% of her polar target with pretty minimal effort, so long as that number is below hull speed.

However if you are willing to push hard, optimize sail trim, keep weight out of the boat, etc. Then SOME boats can substantially increase their average speeds. Performance cats, planning monohulls, and most trimarans.

When deciding on a design it is critical to know what type of sailor you are willing to be. Of all hull types trimarans offer the best top end performance, but the worst load carrying capacity, and least livable space, and so to gain anything you have to know you will be permanently fastidious about weight.

There have been a few heavy weight trimarans built in the past (the Neel likely falls here as well) that offered better living conditions, but typically they sailed worse than Cats of the same size and price, still had worse living accommodations, and didn't offer much to recommend them.

Catamarans are very design dependent. Some have already traded speed for comfort in the design, and while they may be able to reach passage speeds faster than a similar length monohull in some conditions really won't. On the other hand there are cats that were built light, kept light, and can blow the doors off of almost any monohull on the planet. But to experience this from a cat you have to be almost as crazy about weight as a trimaran owner.

Finally there are monohulls. which like cats have to be broken into two camps. First are the displacement hulls, easily the best load carriers, but never able to break hull speed reliably. On the upside they are not bothered much by weight, and are the baseline for everything else.

Planing monohulls however need to be treated like performance cats. They are very weight sensitive, but able to reel in high average speeds when pushed moderately. Worst case they slow down to displacement monohull speeds and just slog on slowely.

Personally I think of boats as a matrix across the top are the three hull designs, each with two sub parts. Then down the side all the categories like average speed, racing speed, load carrying, cost, marina costs, livable space, etc. Every boat falls somewhere on this grid, and the trick is to know what boat will meet you needs and wants. There is no 'right' or 'best' catagory, just the one that is right for you.

Living aboard with a family, and toys, and long showers, and lots of stuff... Either a displacement monohull or a cruising cat...

A mature couple that loves to sail fast and wants to cross oceans for the fun of it. Trimaran no question.

Personally I have a preference for speed. I love sailing fast, I love the wooosh of water separating from the hulls... I am simply not as happy on a displacement monohull as I am on a performance monohull. Not as happy on a performance monohull as on a performance cat, and not as happy on a performance cat as on a tri. But I love them all for different reasons.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Polux

Believe in what you want. This discussion makes not any sense for me or any that knows modern boats and something about boat design.

Do you really believe that this boat on passage with identical skilled sailors will go at the same speed of a Valiant 40 or a Tayana 42?

Well, it depends. If that boat doesn't have sufficient tankage, they'll be bobbing about like a cork if becalmed. Without much protection from the weather or as comfortable a motion, they will not be as rested. After a week or more of little sleep, the decisions the sailors make may not be optimal for reaching their destination at all. If they do reach it, they'll probably be looking at extra recovery time to catch up on missed sleep and meals before they're ready to pick up their spouses at the airport and embark on coastal couples cruising. For me, that time is important too.


Note they are not using any spinnacher and that this is a charter boat.
They don't need to go at over 20k or near it to be much faster. They can go at half that speed in all comfort and be much faster than a 40ft old displacement boat of the same size like a Tayana or a Vailant 40.

You and I obviously have different definitions of comfort.
Can the pogo go faster? Yes. Would I cruise with it? Not if I had a choice of it or a Valiant/Tayana.


And logically if both boats with the same length can have completely different sailing speeds, a smaller light semi planing boat cab be as fast as a much bigger heavier bigger boat.

I'm sure the pogo is a wonderful boat. Based on what I've seen, an older Valiant/Tayana would be my preference over it for distance cruising. It isn't even close. I know a few couples/families have cruised (not raced) on ultralights like Macgregor65s, with mixed results. Are there any people who have experience with real distance cruising on light semi-planing hulls? Speed is nice, but I haven't seen any boats of that style I would consider optimized for distance cruising.
[...]
Note that is on the trade winds on medium to strong winds, on lighter winds the difference would even be bigger.
I disagree. With winds 0-5 kts and variable, with perhaps an adverse current -- the 65L of diesel will be gone on the first day and the "race" is all but over. The cruising boats continue on to their destination

As I said, if evidence does not convince you, I will not try anymore but I can only say that your opinion about this is clearly biased.

All you have proven is that your priorities and tastes in a cruising boat are very different from mine.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

When you are sailing comfortably, in a manner which is sustainable by a short-handed crew on a long passage, and on a mono, the average speed gravitates to about 1 1/2 knots below hull speed, on all kinds of boats including both heavy and very light ones. This is in good wind conditions.

That's quite credible. It should be easy to check this theory by spending few nights with marinetraffic, checking the actual speeds of the cruisers. I would benefit of having access to satellite AIS data, but maybe few random samples close to the shore will do.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Polux

Do you really believe a Tayana 58:

Will be at a passage as fast as a smaller Cigale 16:

As I said, if evidence does not convince you, I will not try anymore but I can only say that your opinion about this is clearly biased.

Based on the real-world passages I have made, the Tayana would be much faster in most of them, slower on only the short ones. The Cigale 16 has only 400L of tankage. On a boat like that, this represents about 400nm of motoring range. In my experience, one needs to motor, on average 40-50% of the time offshore.

I anticipate the argument: but if you had a faster boat, you wouldn't have to motor as much! Maybe, but the difference is small. It might, at best, account for a change from 45% to 35% over many passages. And in some passages I can recall, it would have made absolutely zero difference. With no wind, no one can sail offshore, I don't care what boat you're in.

Okay, so take a typical roughly 2250nm passage -- such as Bermuda to Azores. I'll be hard on the Tayana in these assumptions: Assume that 40% the time you don't have sufficient wind to sail on either boat, that 60% of the time you need to motor on the Tayana (much higher than my experience), and that the Tayana averages 8 knots under sail, 7 knots under power, that the Cigale averages 10 knots under sail and 8 knots under power (generous estimates) -- that each consumes 1L/nm while under power.

Let's say it blows like stink for the first 2 days, blows enough for the faster boat only on the 3rd day, and then is calm for the next 2 days. In the first five days, the Tayana has covered only 808 miles (304 under sail, 504 under power, using 500 of its 1500L); the Cigale is far ahead at 1104 miles (720 under sail, 384 under power, using 384 of its 400L). Are you still sure the Cigale is going to arrive first? Do you want to guess what the weather might bring for the second half of the trip?

This calculation is using assumptions that I think are overly generous to the Cigale. I motor less than 50% of the time, not 60% -- and I doubt the Cigale's speed on the 20% advantage we offered in light wind be 10kn.

My point is that the Cigale, as I understand it, is not a viable distance cruiser, and certainly has no advantage in passage speed over a (handicapped) Tayana.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by Juho

That's quite credible. It should be easy to check this theory by spending few nights with marinetraffic, checking the actual speeds of the cruisers. I would benefit of having access to satellite AIS data, but maybe few random samples close to the shore will do.

The vast majority of time I'm on a passage, my AIS data is transmitted but never received. Only when another ship is within range (an hour a day, maybe?) would there even being a possibility of being seen on marinetraffic, and even then only if the other ship shared its data with marinetraffic.

[Sandero]

What is the length distribution of the members' boats on this forum... or the average cruiser... or the average live aboard?

What is the most common reasons a boat owner will get a new or new used boat?

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Goosebumps

no response to my question if anyone knows cat owner downgrafing to monohull I take as confirmation no such cat iwner exists

Maybe you should ask who has upgraded to a monohull, and you would get plenty af answers.

I think I have heard about some (on this list) who have done that move. But since cruising catamarans are typically large catamarans, it is quite certain that there are more people who have changed from a mono to a catamaran. One common path might be: small mono --> average size mono --> large catamaran or large mono.

Following that path, by the time it would be time to upgrade back to a mono, most boaters have probably already retired .

[Juho]

Originally Posted by accomplice

The vast majority of time I'm on a passage, my AIS data is transmitted but never received. Only when another ship is within range (an hour a day, maybe?) would there even being a possibility of being seen on marinetraffic, and even then only if the other ship shared its data with marinetraffic.

Yes, I think I have to satisfy with coastal information since I have no access to the AIS data captured by the satellites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automa...IS_.28S-AIS.29

I believe marinetraffic offers also satellite based data, but not for free.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Stumble

What I see here is a discussion about how to compare boats. Do we talk about them in terms of what they can do (particularly fast cruisers like the Pogo, some cats, etc) or what a boat will actually do. And they are very different things.

If you don't want to push the boat very hard, and don't worry about sail trim, or swapping sails, if you aren't putting up spinnakers as required, then there is a very direct correlation between hull speed and passage time. In any reasonable wind a boat will get to about 90% of her polar target with pretty minimal effort, so long as that number is below hull speed.

However if you are willing to push hard, optimize sail trim, keep weight out of the boat, etc. Then SOME boats can substantially increase their average speeds. Performance cats, planning monohulls, and most trimarans.

When deciding on a design it is critical to know what type of sailor you are willing to be. Of all hull types trimarans offer the best top end performance, but the worst load carrying capacity, and least livable space, and so to gain anything you have to know you will be permanently fastidious about weight.

There have been a few heavy weight trimarans built in the past (the Neel likely falls here as well) that offered better living conditions, but typically they sailed worse than Cats of the same size and price, still had worse living accommodations, and didn't offer much to recommend them.

Catamarans are very design dependent. Some have already traded speed for comfort in the design, and while they may be able to reach passage speeds faster than a similar length monohull in some conditions really won't. On the other hand there are cats that were built light, kept light, and can blow the doors off of almost any monohull on the planet. But to experience this from a cat you have to be almost as crazy about weight as a trimaran owner.

Finally there are monohulls. which like cats have to be broken into two camps. First are the displacement hulls, easily the best load carriers, but never able to break hull speed reliably. On the upside they are not bothered much by weight, and are the baseline for everything else.

Planing monohulls however need to be treated like performance cats. They are very weight sensitive, but able to reel in high average speeds when pushed moderately. Worst case they slow down to displacement monohull speeds and just slog on slowely.

Personally I think of boats as a matrix across the top are the three hull designs, each with two sub parts. Then down the side all the categories like average speed, racing speed, load carrying, cost, marina costs, livable space, etc. Every boat falls somewhere on this grid, and the trick is to know what boat will meet you needs and wants. There is no 'right' or 'best' catagory, just the one that is right for you.

Living aboard with a family, and toys, and long showers, and lots of stuff... Either a displacement monohull or a cruising cat...

A mature couple that loves to sail fast and wants to cross oceans for the fun of it. Trimaran no question.

Personally I have a preference for speed. I love sailing fast, I love the wooosh of water separating from the hulls... I am simply not as happy on a displacement monohull as I am on a performance monohull. Not as happy on a performance monohull as on a performance cat, and not as happy on a performance cat as on a tri. But I love them all for different reasons.

Nice post. I only disagree regarding two things in what concerns passages on trade winds: light passage makers like Pogo or RM don't need a Spinnaker to go over hull speed on the trade winds when the wind is over 20k and that is frequent on the trade winds. Also these type of boats use not a spi but a geenaker on a roller that are much easier to use with a small crew or even solo.

But the bigger difference regarding cruising on passage are not properly true planing speeds but those one, two or three more knots that this type of boats reach easily over hull speed.

If you look at the polar you will understand what I mean, the hull speed is about 9K but these boats reach easily 10,12k easily and with not much wind. I would not call that planning speed, but semi planning speed and certainly you have experienced that, going downwind on a performance cruiser.

With a heavy boat buried in the water it is the opposite, what is easy is not to reach hull speed but slightly less, for a 50fter about 0.5k less.

So in the end, considering a decent trade wind we will have a difference between the 10, 10.5K (light fast boat) to the 8.5K of the heavier boat.

This does not seem much, we are talking about 1.5/2k difference but regarding a passage it is huge. We are talking about (considering the smaller difference) 38nm on a day, in 14 days it will be 532nm, or about a 2.2 more days and that is in fact the "normal" difference between a fast passage maker and a heavy displacement cruiser on a transat.

Off course, upwind and with light winds these differences will be much bigger, but we are talking about passages that are normally made on the trade winds.

Most would say that they don't care about those two days and that sailboats are slow anyway and somebody in a hurry should get an airplane, but more than about speed the ones that like fast cruisers like the sailing pleasure of sailing them, not to mention the pleasure of sailing faster than other cruisers (and to catch them on the way).

It is really more about pleasure than anything less, and obviously the ones that sail these boats typically don't cruise the same way the ones that sail heavy boats, they tend to carry a lot less stuff around, not only because they can't (if they want to sail fast) but as a lifestyle.