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Old 10-01-2009, 16:53   #121
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Brent: Once again you are wrong. In fact just the opposite is true. I can't recall ever saying such a thing and I cannot imagine why I would have said that. Please try to be accurate if you are going to continue to try and prove your point by quoting me. You obviously have an agenda here.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any of your design work so I am at a dissadvantage.

If you are interested in knowing what I really think about the benefits of more symetrical waterlines you can find numerous references in my reviews or in my book YACHT DESIGN ACCORDING TO PERRY. In both I go on and on about preferring more symetrical waterlines.


Joli:
I think you were experiencing the fat ass effect. Highly asymetrical waterlines creating very different hull shapes as the boat heels. In the quest for more cockpit area and more interior volume aft sterns have become disorted to the point where handling suffers. I prefer more symetrical waterlines for better balance.
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Old 10-01-2009, 18:02   #122
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Just to answer Don's question: For me, faster/lighter (within reason). While there is the need to get from one place to the next, the bigger factor is that I love to sail. That's probably why I'm one of those guys with a J Boat.

My boat is short on tankage, short on storage, short on amenities and even short on headroom, but I will be sailing vs. motoring a higher percentage of the trip than most. As long as it's not both choppy and upwind

D/L 132, SA/D 27. See the "Your Boat" thread.
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Old 10-01-2009, 18:18   #123
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My boat is:

D/L 285 S/F 183 SA/D 21.8 MCR 29.8
Where does this fit on the comfort vs speed continuum??
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Old 11-01-2009, 09:58   #124
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I hear you Bob, lot's of furniture but little in the way of enjoyable sailing. They build em for hauling folks from island to island.

Cheers,

Joli

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Originally Posted by bob perry View Post
Joli:
I think you were experiencing the fat ass effect. Highly asymetrical waterlines creating very different hull shapes as the boat heels. In the quest for more cockpit area and more interior volume aft sterns have become disorted to the point where handling suffers. I prefer more symetrical waterlines for better balance.
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Old 11-01-2009, 11:20   #125
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Joli:
I hear you. I worry that this trend will continue too. More and more pressure is put on accomodations and I worry that this may reflect a slow loss of true sailing skills.
You won't complain IF you don't know the difference. Troublesome. Maybe an afternoon in an Etchells should be mandatory for beginning sailors. "This is what is should feel like." Dreaming.
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Old 11-01-2009, 19:05   #126
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The point that resonates with me is the boat directional stability in gusts when sail trim is unchaged.

I can imagine that for long passages it is nice to have a boat that maintains directional stability, maybe slightly heading up, when gusted.

No one should want to be constantly doing trim changes while making passage and this has been added to my list of criteria for boat choice.

Call that sail or rig balance if you want but the point Bob makes about hull shape while heeling makes important sense.

I have been working with a couple on boat handling lately. It is a failrly modern production "party" boat. I have never been on a boat that rounded up in gusts so badly. In this case it is a production boat and we are at the point of making sail changes. Particularly the headsail.

This conversation is really great. Thanks to all.
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Old 11-01-2009, 21:16   #127
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handling the gusts

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I have never been on a boat that rounded up in gusts so badly.
A few years ago I crewed a beer can race on a buddy's ancient Cheoy Lee ketch on a gusty evening. I was calling puffs, the skipper was ignoring me, and the sails were ignoring the puffs. I finally figured out what was going on: the boat had its original wooden booms, with no vangs because the weight of the booms made a vang unnecessary. When a gust would hit the sails, the booms would naturally lift and depower the sails. Once the gust passed, the booms would descend and the sails would power back up.
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Old 12-01-2009, 09:06   #128
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visualize two boats with identical hull shapes. One is a "Teak Palace" , built very thick everywhere rather than engineered to have thickness in the right places, over rigged to compensate for the heavy boat etc. Now visualize the exact same boat shape, with minimalist teak. not overglassed because it's "too hard to tell the fibreglass man where to put it" etc. Lighter rig with the same righting moment. Which one will carry more weight? Frankly... all of us need to carry less stuff anyway..... While sitting dreaming on my Hans Christian 38, I always wished I could have a lightweight one built from scratch. The binnacle and traveler support system were solid bronze. The bronze I-beam traveler support probably weighed about 150#, the teak hatches were very heavy, the railings were 1.25 heavy wall tubing, The teak inside and out probably accounted for a ton of weight.....the bulkheads were 3/4 " with 3/8 of teak stripping on both sides......everything on the boat was uselessly heavy and high maintenance. I wonder how she would have sailed with no teak outside, no bronze, alum hatches and portlights, aluminum binnacle etc...?
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Old 12-01-2009, 09:56   #129
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Cheech:
The problem with your hypothetical question is this part "identical hull shapes".
It would certainly be possible to build a light weight version of your boat but if you wanted both boats to float on the same waterline the light boat would have to have a lot more ballast. The light built boat would be a very different boat but it would not be lighter. It would have to displace the same as the heavy built boat.
I suspect due to the greater B/D and lower VCG the light built boat would be a far better sailing boat.
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Old 12-01-2009, 10:35   #130
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I suspect due to the greater B/D and lower VCG the light built boat would be a far better sailing boat.
Translated: better sailing = faster.

But the motion would be different and perhaps not as comfortable.

Many design attributes that add stability, and therefore aid speed, are antithetical to motion comfort. That's the rub.

Again, speaking from a two boat experience, one moderate displacement with a .44 B/D ratio compared to heavy displacement with a .31 - .35 B/D ratio.

First boat went to windward faster, no doubt about. (Wauquiez 33'). Lower VCG and more fin (albeit same 6' draft). But I like the second boat better. It's much more comfortable going to the windward. Not as much 'work.' More like slicing through butter instead of shake and bake.

Racers rule when it comes to defining sailing values. I think cruisers need to keep that in mind. Cruisers in my opinion have more complex requirements. Racers and racer/cruisers are pretty much all about one thing. Cruisers are multitaskers; their needs are not so easily distilled down to one objective.

Motion comfort is greatly underrated IMO because the racer mindset dominates the industry, and comfortable motion tends to be expensive. Further, comfortably moving boats are becoming less and less common. I am not convinced that the average sailor has a real baseline from which to judge motion comfort, thereby eroding market demand for it. If most people are sailing boats with a quick motion, how do they know what they are missing if that's all they ever sail?

I'm not advocating slugs for cruisers. I do think there is defensible compromise where only a moderate amount of 'sailing performance' need be given up for large gains in motion comfort. But I do not see much of the industry developing this train of thought--most liikely because it's both expense and there isn't much demand for it. Most of the market is driven by the racer/cruiser type. For the weekender and sometime cruiser, I can see how that type makes sense. But it doesn't work for me because it's still not a fast boat by today's racing standards; nor it is optimized for cruising.
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Old 12-01-2009, 11:14   #131
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I'm joining this thread rather late in the game, and I've enjoyed reading some interesting opinions, in perticular Bob Perry's dispassionate analysis.

One point that has not been well exposed: If one hypes the SA numbers on a relatively heavy design by (what else) adding sail area, the loads go up considerably, and these loads express themselves by making crew work physically harder. For those of us who are of "mature years", and who cruise as doublehanders, this is a big issue. Bigger winches help, but one still has to grind in a lot of sheet against stiff resistance on each tack, and so on. On the other hand, if the gains in SA are made by reducing D, the various loads do not need to increase.

And the comfort factor is an interesting one, too. Insatiable I was a Franz Maas design IOR one-tonner, designed in '73. 36' OAL 29'LWL, 12.5' beam with pinched ends, fairly symmetrical waterlines, and cruising disp around
11 tonnes. This gave a L well over 300... heavy by most standards. Her big rig gave her reasonable performance even loaded, and in some ways the motion was comfy. But, she had a lot of rocker, and too much weight in her ends and she hobby-horsed unmercifully and was easily stopped by chop. Insatiable II is way different! A Jon Sayer design built in strip plank composite, 46.4' LOA , 44.5' LWL 13.8' beam (carried well aft), 9.5 tonnes empty, perhaps 11.5 in cruise trim, and virtually no rocker. We were told by many that her motion would be awful, and we were sore afraid! But wow! She is far more comfy at sea than her predicessor. Very little pitching, a reasonable roll rate, and a generally benign motion. If driven hard to windward in a chop she pounds, but if one slows down a bit it ain't so bad, and we are mostly willing to do that!
Unless the weather is fairly bad, we sleep forward at sea, something we never once did in our "heavy, comfortable" boat. So, stereotypes can lead one astray, and if comfort is your criterion, try before you buy! You may be pleasantly (or not) surprised.

One last rant on the subject of the value of speed in a cruising boat. We had aimed at a boat capab;e of 200 mile days at sea, and it is nice to have that ability. And we routinely sail in light airs when most of the other cruising boats are increasing their carbon footprint, and that's nice too. But where we find extra speed the biggest benefit is in coastal cruising. There are lots of places we go where good sunlight is required for making entrances, or where tidal flows over barred entrances demand timely arrivals. The faster boat means that we can reach more distant destinations in a day-sail, and that opens new options for us on many coasts. We think it is an important factor in choosing a cruising boat, obviously other opinions vary!

Cheers,

Jim and Ann s/v Insatiable II lying Gladstone, Qld Oz
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Old 12-01-2009, 11:40   #132
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Jim,

My first boat, the medium displacement Wauquiez, hobby-horsed in some conditions because she had a IOR pinched stern. That was her only vise. My current heavier Brewer boat doesn't do that, at least I haven't yet found the conditions to induce it.

In general terms I think it's easier to get a comfortable motion in bigger boats, for obvious reasons. The worst is beamy light smallish boats with high B/D ratios.

What you say about sail loads and human work going up with displacment is very true.

The counter argument in my mind is that going heavy displacement in order to aid both motion comfort and the ability to carry cruising loads is more important with small boats than big ones. Ergo, north of somewhere around 40 feet, I tend to see the value of moderate displacement. Bigger boats handle cruising loads and are more comfortable so displacement to my way of thinking becomes less important in bigger boats. Once you get over 50' or so, it's an entirely different design game, a la the Dashews.

In other words, what D/L works on a big boat doesn't necessarily work, IMO, on a smaller boat.

And I still think motion comfort is a lot more than just displacement. Beam, B/D ratio, and VCG (draft) play huge roles. Even the mast(s) come into play. Using displacement alone as shorthand for motion comfort is not something I agree with. Displacement is just one aspect of motion comfort. Just because she is heavy doesn't make her comfortable. It's not that simple. All aspects of the design have to come together for motion comfort to work well. So it doesn't surprise me that a heavy boat can be uncomfortable.
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Old 12-01-2009, 12:07   #133
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Hi:
For the sake of argument I will disagree wih you, kind of.

Motion comfort at sea is an oxymoron. If you take a range of boats, say with D/L's betweem 160 and 300, and for this example throw out the freaks, extremes and exotic boats, I think the range of motion in the fleet will be pretty similar. Of course a really heavy boat with deep deadrise and high VCG will have the slowest roll but that too can drive some sailors crazy. I think among "normal" boats over our D/L range the motion will always be uncomfortable. The Queen Mary would have been comfortable, most of the time. Sailboats under 80' are not comfortable in a seaway.

So, for the sake of argument, "disspassionate argument" the faster boat is better. Sitting on the deck, at the bar, under an umbrella with a cold drink in your hand is comfortable. Another day of rolling gun'l to gun'l is not.

This argument will never be over, but it's a good base for discussing boat types.

Jim:
I love those old Franz Maas designs.
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Old 12-01-2009, 12:29   #134
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Motion comfort at sea is an oxymoron. If you take a range of boats, say with D/L's betweem 160 and 300, and for this example throw out the freaks, extremes and exotic boats, I think the range of motion in the fleet will be pretty similar.
Bob,

Reasonable men are entitled to disagree. But here's my problem: I've own two boats, neither extreme I'm sure you will agree, yet the motion comfort was radically different between them. Not just in my view. My wife has yet to get really sick on the second boat, so that's an objective measure by her system. So I 'know' that motion can make a big difference in the experience. It's a very real difference. I've got first hand experience.

Maybe it's just us. But I really don't think so. Brewer didn't think so. I know in the beginning he didn't take his calculation very seriously, but over time it began to prove itself.

Which is not to say the Wauquiez was uncomfortable. She was not. She was just about like all boats her size. But she is no match for what I have now. As I say, I'll never go back. I'm spoiled, and you can't convince me that I'm not.

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Of course a really heavy boat with deep deadrise and high VCG will have the slowest roll but that too can drive some sailors crazy.
I understand and agree. Different example but same effect: The second worst motion sickness I ever got was on a 100+' ferry out in the unprotected Alaskan Pacific. The roll was too slow and too long. Puking long roll. Beam seas were a mere six feet. But the timing against the hull was ever so perfect, like a swing.
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Old 12-01-2009, 12:35   #135
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Hi:
If you take a range of boats, say with D/L's betweem 160 and 300, and for this example throw out the freaks, extremes and exotic boats, I think the range of motion in the fleet will be pretty similar. .
I actually agree with this statement, for the most part. I suspect that the number of designs that have comfortable motion is probably very small. Most boats are pretty much roughly equally uncomfortable. I agree with that.

My Wauquiez rode pretty much the way most 33' boats do.

But reasons stated above, I vehemently disagree that all boats have similar motion. I know for a fact that isn't true.

To repeat, I think this attribute of motion comfort is more important for the smaller boat than the larger one. Bigger boats come by it much easier.
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