"speed" vs "comfort"

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Hiracer

.....
My beef is with those who say that all heavy cruisers are unsuitably slow. ....

Sure, you hear this all the time without much thought put into the actual boat. My beef is when I here someone tell me I have this way-out-there light weight machine that is not appropriate for the high seas. This without even knowing what its dimensions are.

Paul L

[Hiracer]

Originally Posted by Paul L

My beef is when I here someone tell me I have this way-out-there light weight machine that is not appropriate for the high seas. This without even knowing what its dimensions are.

I concur.

Like I said last time, I've had delivery captains tell me to my face that J-boats are among the sweetest sailing boats they've handled. Loved them.

You have to judge each boat individually and avoid the trap of thinking in stereotypes.

E.g.,

Originally Posted by MidLandOne

If you go anything much under 40 foot you will end up with a "slug" as it is impossible to build a sailboat in steel at a reasonable weight at those lengths and weight kills speed.

Clipped from another thread.

I actually would agree with MidLandOne if he had said "difficult" instead of "impossible." I agree it's difficult. And "kill" was too strong a verb. It's more a negligent homicide kind of thing.

That's part of what is driving this thread, folks.

[bob perry]

I too concur.
Does that get me another drink?
I concur.
I concur.
I concur.

[Hiracer]

Originally Posted by bob perry

I too concur.
Does that get me another drink?
I concur.
I concur.
I concur.

Sure, but only if you drink them as fast as you type them.

[Brent Swain]

My steel 36 footers have outsailed C&C boats and Beneteaus of the same size, both upwind and down in 12 knots of wind . I have sailed cicles around an MORC fibreglass 30 footer in my heavy steel 31 footer in 15 knots of wind , both upwind and down, a boat that others had a lot of trouble catching. I made two trips from Hawaii to BC single handed , in 23 days, the first 1,000 miles being to windward. Thats not bad time for a singlehanded , heavily loaded 31 ft twin keeler.
Weight is nowhere near as important as sail area displacement ratio. Turn of the century boats were heavy, but had huge sail areas. Now they a take the same boats and put the rig of a modern boat half the weight on it, and expect it to sail . Very light boats for long term cruising are a delusion. Once you get all the ground tackle and other heavy needs aboard, they outweigh what they were designed to sail at by a far greater percentage than boats designed to be heavier do.
The important thing when using a heavy material like steel, is to keep the overhangs short and put your weight on the longest possible waterline , giving due attention to aesthetics.
Brent

[Sandero]

Isn't one aspect of "speed" acceleration and the ability to handly waves and not be slowed down or pushed sideways and so forth? All the small decelerations and yawing motions add up to less OAL speed as it were.

When analyzing speed performance one needs to consider the sea state,size, direction and period, because different hulls, the same hull can only be optimized for no sea and one that matches it's fluid dynamic profile. A 45LWL can be tripping over waves that a 35LWL won't be and visa versa.

So speed for cruising yachts needs to consider the typical / average conditions that the passages are made.

If I am not mistaken you can't have to same hull form (wetted surface) with different displacements. If you take identical hulls and load one up to make the displacement increase Or construct it from heavier materials) it will sit lower in the water and displace more!

[Hiracer]

Originally Posted by Brent Swain

. Very light boats for long term cruising are a delusion. Once you get all the ground tackle and other heavy needs aboard, they outweigh what they were designed to sail at by a far greater percentage than boats designed to be heavier do.

Brent,

Many times true, but not necessarily in all cases. Especially in the big boat size. Even for my size boat, you can build a strong and light hull that is designed to handle heavy loads. Expensive but it can be done.

Like Bob says, add a low and heavy keel and you got stability. Put on a healthy rig, and you got a boat that will move cruising stores. Faster than my boat or yours, in fact. Not because it's light, but because it will have more stabilty and therefore can handle more SA/D.

The motion I may not like, but it's certainly a cruisable boat.

I don't think you can extrapolate from a Catalina or Beneteau to all light boats. Especially custom boats. Designers are pretty clever.

[MidLandOne]

Originally Posted by bob perry

...I never, ever said a heavy boat can be as fast as a light boat if you pile enough sail on the heavy boat. It's not that simple. Nobody trying to design a fast boat today goes for heavy displacement. Just the opposite...

Thanks for responding Bob.

No I wasn't expecting that you had made such a claim (I knew better than that ).

The above snip out of your post is what I was getting at, especially the "Nobody trying to design a fast boat today goes for heavy displacement. Just the opposite" comment. While you can just say that and people will respect it because they know who you are, only a very few here know anything much about me so I can't get away with being so short and still expect to be taken seriously.

I take the criticism well about my "approaching this in little bites of this and that." but I was trying to keep my post as concise (sic ) as possible. I am well aware of the wider issues and compromises.

Originally Posted by bob perry

...Class dissmissed.

Agreed. I hope the discussion has resulted in some thinking more widely about the subject .

John

[MidLandOne]

Originally Posted by Kanani

...I think that most full time cruisers have little interest in "speed" when choosing a boat for cruising. I think that the main focus is on comfort and safety. It was not very often that I saw a spinnaker used back when I was cruising. I used one a lot...

I think the same too from what I see and am told - I think it applies to casual cruisers too.

I expect most look for as conservative a sail plan as possible too and it is not unusual to find boats that have cruised halfway round the world to get here that have carried a spinnaker or cruising 'chute all the way through the benign tropics but never used it.

But there are some (and a friend is full time cruising a very fast 50+ footer) who desire both speed and comfort and also some who seem quite happy in real snails (I've come across a 33 foot boat that was 18 tons, I hadn't thought it possible to want to build a boat of that length so heavy ).

Lucky we don't all want the same .

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by MidLandOne

...
Lucky we don't all want the same .

And that is why they make both chocolate and vanilla ice cream.


Paul L

[Hiracer]

Don (if you are still there),

Speed for a monohull is a function of stability. Taking weight off the hull and putting in the keel aids stabilty. So it's not light displacement per se that is translated into speed, it's stability which enables more sail to be carried. And a light weight hull definitely aids the distribution of displacement towards the keel.

But stability typically makes motion for many people feel more uncomfortable. The roll period quickens. Accelerations from sea states increase. Decreases in total displacement also increase accelerations from sea states. Double whammy.

So the question in my mind is how much stability is desired given that stability usually translates into something uncomfortable (for me). That's the crux of the issue in 'comfort versus speed' topic.

That in turns begs the question of exactly how much speed is given up by a reduction in stability in return for how much more comfort? Where is the perfect balance between stabilty and comfort?

I think the answer is very subjective and personal. But the central thrust of my reasoning in this thread is that only incremental losses in speed from stability concessions can result in huge (to me) gains in comfort. That's been my experience between two boats, one with high stability and moderate displacement and the other with lower stability (almost but not quite tender) and heavy displacement.

I think a large measure of the comfortable feeling I'm getting from my current boat is partly a function of the B/D ratio of .31 - .35 (depending on fuel in the keel) compared to the older boat's .44 B/D ratio. It's not just displacement. It's stability.

[Brent Swain]

Originally Posted by defjef

Isn't one aspect of "speed" acceleration and the ability to handly waves and not be slowed down or pushed sideways and so forth? All the small decelerations and yawing motions add up to less OAL speed as it were.

When analyzing speed performance one needs to consider the sea state,size, direction and period, because different hulls, the same hull can only be optimized for no sea and one that matches it's fluid dynamic profile. A 45LWL can be tripping over waves that a 35LWL won't be and visa versa.

So speed for cruising yachts needs to consider the typical / average conditions that the passages are made.

If I am not mistaken you can't have to same hull form (wetted surface) with different displacements. If you take identical hulls and load one up to make the displacement increase Or construct it from heavier materials) it will sit lower in the water and displace more!

A friend raced on the ultralights in Auckland . Downwind the ultralights left everyone far behind. When they rounded the lee mark and were faced with headwinds and a heavy chop, the ultralights parked and the heavier boats easily passed them. When dealing with gusty, variable conditions ,weight and momentum averages things out.
It takes a huge and thus far more expensive boat to get to the stage where heavy gear like ground tackle , mandatory for safe cruising in all conditions off the beaten path ,doesn't make a boat much heavier. Using ultra deep draft to gain stability is not a good idea on cruising boats , and severely restricts where you can or can't go. Such boats mainly cruise only from major port to major port , which all tend to look alike.
C& C's are not Catalinas. I never mentioned Catalinas ( pardon my language).
Got that Bob? Go home and study it. Class dismissed.
Brent

[sailorboy1]

I'm still here. But I never said I didn't understand the differences in all this. All I asked was what everyone perferred.

[bob perry]

"C& C's are not Catalinas. I never mentioned Catalinas ( pardon my language).
Got that Bob? Go home and study it. Class dismissed.
Brent"

Huh?
I don't recall saying anything about either Catalina's or C&C's
Could you please copy that quote for me?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by bob perry

I use anything under 160 as "light" and anything under 100 as ULDB.
But there is noithing sacred in this breakdown. It just works for me.

that seems almost ancient, even by standards out there on that other coast... even by cruising standards.

Realizing that indeed nothing is sacred in this breakdown, I'm thinking that D/L of 135 is "medium," at least out here on the left coast.