Why do monohulls have sails?

[Formosa46AK]

sailorboy1 What's a sail? 😳

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Maybe a place you buy deformed "geo-tropic" bananas??

Did I get it right?

[VinnyVincent]

Originally Posted by RTB

Must be that other thread is bothering you - http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...-a-148849.html

Man, you guys are funny.

ha ha Iwas going to say, I have witnessed the opposite. When they do sail , it's motorsailing

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

After reading this thread I feel like I have backed up in time....I'm sitting in the elementary school playground listening to the other boys bragging about who's Dad is tougher.
Really fellows... do your insecurities run so deep that we can have this many posts over two threads?

Naw, the original thread was bragging about an imaginary fact.

This one is about making fun of the braggarts.

[dgz3]

TOO funny! Especially the people seriously pissed off in either camp! Well done!

But it could be a serious question from either direction....
I live half a mile from the ICW in central Florida. I'm on it, or driving along it every day. And every year i watch the seasonal pilgrimage of cruisers heading south in the fall and north in the spring. Many en route to the Bahamas. And 98% of the sail boats of either description are motoring. I notice no particular bias between types.

The channel here is wide, traffic minimal, and no draw bridges for many miles. Winds are often, if not mostly, favorable. So why are they motoring?
Here's my theory...

The vast majority of the cruisers I meet are older, retired couples. They are on the biggest boat they could afford to buy, because one or both of them enjoy the interior space and creature comforts that space brings. And bigger is better, right? Safer? More comfortable? You can take more stuff?

But big boats have big sails. Big sails are heavy and exert big forces on lines, blocks, winches, etc. In other words, it's a lot of work to get them up and can be kind of scary. Modern multihull sail plans with their huge roached mains perhaps even more so. Then there's all that trimming, tacking, gybing, flapping, banging, luffing, and lines flailing about with deadly force. And if you turn in a certain direction the boat stops dead and starts drifting backwards...?!

Modern diesels, on the other hand, are nearly silent, hardly stink at all, burn only liters or fractions of liters per hour, and work so well with interfaced chart plotters and auto pilots.
So the question, why have sails, isn't so silly after all...

So why DON'T "these people" (no, not you or me, obviously!) just buy motor boats? Romantic notions of what a proper boat should look like? The option of well, I COULD sail if I wanted to? Ego trip? "I'm a REAL sailor!" See my blazer and hat?
Or is it because there are just about no motor boats that will motor cruise as economically as a sail boat? Especially if they do want to occasionally make an actual passage someplace offshore? Or even just dream about it.

Now I'll start the real fight....

So, if you know you're going to be anchored or motoring 99+% of the time.... which is the better MOTOR boat? Mono or multi hull?

If you factor in the catamaran's shallow draft; open airy panoramic views from the salon; wide, spacious cockpits and swim platforms; sturdy, convenient bigger dinghy davit systems; lots of acreage for solar panels; no rolling from boat wakes or crosswind seas; greatly enhanced maneuverability, safety and reliability of twin widely spaced engines; even more economical single engine operation; and more speed with the sails up OR down......

Kind of reminds me of the 1988 America's Cup... ;-)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Naw, the original thread was bragging about an imaginary fact.

This one is about making fun of the braggarts.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by colemj

If you hadn't added that bit about high cost, I would have thought you were describing my underwear…

Mark

Puhlease! Not when I have a mouthful of morning coffee and my laptop on my lap!

[Djarraluda]

Bending bananas is what they do in Queensland!
OK, Lots of boats motor regularly, lots of weekend sailors motor to charge batteries and some because they are draught constrained or short of crew. It is the bigger boats that do this more often around Sydney, more because they are just a social base that sails, not a sailing boat. Racing boats have a time schedule to maintain, out to the start, or back to the bar.
Lots of us smaller tykes also get our kicks out of trying to sail in 3kn breeze with the wash of the bigger boats around us, even though we need 7kn plus to really get going.

[chiefcoxswain]

Happen to be on Lake Macquarie yesterday on a wonderful winters day and was impressed with the number of yachts sailing around, Saturday observed several different yacht clubs out racing on the lake, maybe you should visit this lovely place to see Yachts Sailing.

[Big Joe Bob]

Fishing season has opened I see…………………………….

[KJThomas]

Very good question.

I have to agree that, with the honourable exception of Townson 32's, I cannot remember a leadmine sailing, ever! unless they are racing.

Mind you, why would you bother when your motoring speed is faster than your sailing speed.

Just to stir the pot a little. Ha Ha.

[lesterbutch]

Being a long time cruiser from Florida I can tell you without a doubt why you see so many vessels heading toward the Bahamas motor sailing. Our prevailing winds are out of the Southeast and in order to compensate for the Gulf Stream we must take a South Easterly heading outward bound. With enough manipulation and a little luck we will hit the banks just North of Memory Rock and then we can take less radical course lines to our destination. Also if you apply common knowledge the reverse allows for full sail although close hauled going back home. We motor then mainly because we want to make the passage as quickly as possible and to reduce Northing by a the stream. I'm afraid in this time critical world most folks can't afford the time it takes to be a purest!

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by dgz3

.
1 I live half a mile from the ICW in central Florida. I'm on it, or driving along it every day.

2 So why DON'T "these people" (no, not you or me, obviously!) just buy motor boats?

I think 1 answers 2. It's more taking the sails down than putting them up, especially when the channel eventually turns into a bridge! Even with in mast furling for the main, it's hard to do with a following breeze. If that was me, I'd just use my jib.

And, for example, if I counted all the sailboats motoring out of our 6 nm long estuary with containership docks, I'd go with your #s. But it's a 45 minute motor out to get to some PRIME sailing on The Bay.

Then, 99% of sailboats ARE sailing.

At least around here.

YMMV.

[D&D]

Originally Posted by dgz3

TOO funny! Especially the people seriously pissed off in either camp! Well done!

V hard to tell which is the more entertaining. On the one hand there are clearly some very sharp wits here playing with the parody (of another thread where we dare not to tread) and/or a seemingly bottomless well of rhetorical questions. On the other hand there are the others taking it all seriously...

Either way, this is turning out to be much better than the joke thread!! Keep 'em coming!

[mawtty]

Moreton Bay is a good place to motor a yacht. By the time us oldies get the sails up we have run into the mud somewhere. I like my fin keel. When I hit the mud and the deep water is close enough, i start the motor and 'worm' my way through it. No antifouling left on the keel though. Maybe i should try that Coppercoat epoxy next time.
Tulku Tim

[westsailwill]

we owned a monohull, and I really wanted to go cruising on it because it was so cheap, but the thing sailed horribly.



So it was the boat that sailed so horribly.........