Truly Offshore-Capable Production Boat - Not Island-Hopping

[Pete7]

Matt, why don't you narrow it down a bit for us. We need to know:

a. Your budget.

b. Were you want to sail.

c. How many crew, you plus wifey / gf or more?

d. Any likes or dislikes and your preferred hull material.

Pete

[Ocean Girl]

Matt, another 2 cents (hopefully you are still with us)

Here is a great website of two cruisers who do quite a bit high lat sailing, Beth & Evans yet another resource to research your next vessel.

I know you wanted just sharp straight answers, but this is a complicated subject and as you found out a hot button for some .

Cheers and happy adventure!!
Erika

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by cfarrar

Please excuse my ignorance, but how do we define "production boat?" Is it really a distinct, black/white category?

Not one-off.

(I guess)

b.

[sailstoo]

"which production boat would you want you and your loved ones to be on?"


The Forrestal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59)

[daddle]

I'd want a fast one. Multi-day downwind surf-fest. Bring it on. We'd steer around the suffering wave-swept heavy cruisers.

[NotQuiteLost]

Originally Posted by sailstoo

"which production boat would you want you and your loved ones to be on?"


The Forrestal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59)

I hate to initiate too much thread drift, but I cant even imagine the paint bill on a ship like that. I was thumbing through some of the listings at yachtworld today and came across this:

View Boat Photos - YachtWorld.com

I almost had a coronary just thinking about how many cubic meters (not gallons!) of paint it would take to do a job like that.

I'll keep my needs 'small,' on the 65' steel sailboat level. I can deal with problems arising on that scale.

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by NotQuiteLost

I almost had a coronary just thinking about how many cubic meters (not gallons!) of paint it would take to do a job like that.

If you remember the early space shuttle launches, they used to paint the centre tank white. Then some genius worked out the weight of all that paint on a use-once component and they stopped painting it. The paint weighed nearly half a ton.

So I think that gives us a sort of ball-park figure for painting a cruise liner of 1 ton and up of paint.

[goboatingnow]

Must admit to being very surprised at how much agro there is on this forum. Will post elsewhere in future.

The reason posts about this get so hot , is that (a) everyone has an opinion, all are different (b) Few people actually have sailed regularily through this type of weather and (c) the question can sound very naive. Its a bit like asking what car can get me to the top of a mountain.

The first thing is most boats driven well, can handle most storms, mind you the experience can be life defining!. Secondly few boats handled badly can make it. Newbies constantly underestimate the importance of sailing teh boat correctly ( and that doesnt mean using one technique in all types of boats).

I find it "amusing" to listen to these questions, people allways seem to looking for the boat that "will save them", no matter what they do. Doesnt exist, that boat. In otherwords, "I dont know much about sailing so I want the boat to save me". or the " im a sailing newbie, want to sail the world what the right boat for me , questions", Answer "get some experience crewing with a good crew, never mind the boat, and then youll answer the question yourself.


Dave

[JeanneP]

Dave, you said it well. The boat doesn't save the skipper, the skipper saves himself. Or, he sails himself into trouble.

The second year we were in the Caribbean, having sailed from New England, we were met a fellow who had bought as his first boat an old wooden sailboat because it was all he could afford, and he and his wife crossed the Atlantic without an autopilot or windvane because they couldn't afford that, either. He told me what a piece garbage our Jeanneau Sun Fizz was and how much better his old boat was.

18 years later our piece of garbage had brought us halfway around the world, survived several hurricanes, several cyclones, some pretty nasty weather, and some stupid mistakes made by us. Peter's excellent seamanship brought us through those stupid mistakes, the boat carried us the rest of the way.

We didn't make major navigation errors, we didn't make lazy errors (i.e., sleeping rather than maintaining watch on passage), but we still found things to do wrong.

The strongest boat around can't save you from going up on a reef in a storm because you made major mistakes in navigation, and it can't get you off the reef if there's nobody around to come get you when it's all over.

It can't save you from a dreadful storm if you don't understand storm tactics; there are few places where you can avoid storms completely.

As one of our friends said when discussing their trip to New Zealand and back up to the S. Pac. islands, "we were hit by a gale going down there, and hti by a gale coming back up. We expect the same thing if we go back to NZ this year."

I second your advice. Learn to sail. Crew on a voyaging boat to learn how to do water sailing">blue water sailing and what will make you comfortable. Reading about it isn't enough.

Fair winds,
J

[Bash]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

More nonsense on so called blue water boats

+1 on the nonsense part. We've just been invited to another party where we get to bash each other's boats, this time explaining why we would never allow our "loved ones" to sail into deep, dangerous blue water on the type of boat that XYZ just purchased.

The my-boat-is-better-than-your-boat thing is antithetical to the cruising ethos. I'm glad to see that more and more of us are unwilling to play this game.

[NotQuiteLost]

Originally Posted by Bash

+1 on the nonsense part. We've just been invited to another party where we get to bash each other's boats, this time explaining why we would never allow our "loved ones" to sail into deep, dangerous blue water on the type of boat that XYZ just purchased.

The my-boat-is-better-than-your-boat thing is antithetical to the cruising ethos. I'm glad to see that more and more of us are unwilling to play this game.

There are most certainly occasions where people are trolling or looking to frame an issue in a negative light. It's possible this is one of them, or it's possible that newer people aren't really aware of the value that seamanship and experience can have on safety.

It's kind of like the car analogy. Someone asks "What's the best cross-country car I can get for $10k?" Well, obviously a well-maintained and well-owned rally derby car can make it cross-country just fine. Just like a well-owned scooter could do the same thing with a reasonable amount of preparation and planning for fuel stops. Would they be as comfortable as riding in a Cadillac Escalade? Of course not. So someone who's considering their first cross-country drive might not understand the difference between a ten mile commute and a three thousand mile ocean-to-ocean.

But yes, sometimes people are trying to be divisive. And other times? We overreact because of our bruised egos from the countless times that people told us our boats are craptastic and unsuited for whatever we wanted to do with them. We've all gotten it, and often from people we didn't expect. My boat's a freaking floating castle, and people still find something to complain about when they come aboard. It just rolls off my back any more, and I smile as I sail away to waters unknown and they're sitting on the docks glaring in my direction

[T26Rich]

I know this is an old thread, but I have been sailing on ocean going cruisers and looking for my next bot in the 32-40 range. Any fool can take a boat and attempt a crossing of the big pond, but things can go wrong even with the most seaworthy vessels. It still requires preparation, practice, and the right gear. The Perdies preferred smaller boats for their ocean voyages; smaller forces at play on smaller boats. I have a Tanzer 26 and there have been 3 Atlantic crossing in this boat (not by me mind you). But I would not want to try it in mine. The boat may be capable, but the captain and crew would not have a lot of fun. That being said, for coastal cruising and gunkholing in the bays along the eastern seaboard, I compiled a list of boats that interest me from a comfort and stability perspective:
Columbia 40Pearson Invicta 38Endeavour 37Tartan 37 BlackwatchColumbia 39Seafarer 38Morgan 38Bristol 35.5Hunter 37cPearson 35Allied Seabreeze (35)Sabre 38Bristol 35Tartan 37
Bristol 32
Tartan 34

The Sabre 38 and Tartan 37 are on the low side of the stabilty index scales (both at .91) compared to the Columbia 40 at 1.38 (higher is better for stability). All of these boats have high comfort factors and Capsize screening values well below 2. I prefer older boats in good shape to newer ones that have been neglected, but that is just personal preference.
T26Rich
Skipper of the Alradee-Chi

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Cal 34, 36 or 40

what about the 35?

[DeepFrz]

The Perdies preferred smaller boats for their ocean voyages; smaller forces at play on smaller boats.

They are also quite small (short) people. I talked to a marine architect who had spent some time with them the previous day and he mentioned that, at 6' 1", I would need at least a 34' boat to have the equivalent headroom. That is with an approximately scaled up version of their boat, Seraffyn. By the way they were also quite young when they sailed on Seraffyn.

I say this with no intent to belittle (pun intended) their remarkable achievements. I very much admire what they have accomplished in their sailing lives and have read several of their books.

[otherthan]

Originally Posted by mattplowman

I am after some short sharp answers to the following question:

If you were on a production boat in the middle of the atlantic (or any other ocean) and you had a large multi-day storm approaching which production boat would you want you and your loved ones to be on? budget 300-400NZD

Pierre de Ruelle has 8 crossing under his belt...the vesels are your ordinary tanzer 7.5 and hinterhoeller hr28, with little to no modifications.

as for budget well I paid $2000 for my Hinterhoeller HR28 and saw a few tanzers 7.5 at $4000 cdn...also id have no problem with a grampian 26 or columbia, challenger 7.4, huges 25, northern 25.