Miami Boat Show ...

[cwjohm]

This raises the question.

Who is going to be the guineau pig that gets the first FF46 built at Ballota?

[downunder]

Having visited Lima and looking over some of their finished vessels I would not concern me. Don't have my $ together yet.

Simple flat panel construction for a builder experienced in infusion.

[Newcatcruisers]

,,,,if i was still in the market,had 2 kids only....be on keshi now lookin.Having looked at whats out there....that is a well thought out quality boat.well finished and ideal for shorthand sailing. Not sure about the carry on furniture.
Looked at the review of sail on Keshi by multihulls and they were obviously very impressed with the boat.

Buying from small yard has its risks obviously....reward is owning a boat that is unique. Not sure what the story would be with follow support/warantees etc. either

Swapping from power to sail has been fun....ive cut my teeth on a big,challenging boat that has been just great and handled everything thrown at her. Down the road if it was just me and the other half ...FFlow looks a breeze to handle compared.



Is Keshi for sale ?

[cwjohm]

Yes, keep in mind that Multihulls were trying to sell it at the time of review.

From what I understand once all costs were in, well north of $1mill was spent on this boat and he felt he would not recover a significant fraction of that and withdrew it.

It is underpowered and needs upgrades to rigging and sails. I would have thought you would get a pretty good boat for U$800K from Balotta including all reasonable options if the $600K base is a guide, which is pretty good value for money.

Of course there is always a risk in being first especially o/s.

[Newcatcruisers]

Thanx. for the reality check....Underpowered...sailplan or motors??

off thread...looked at Cat rates in Oz marinas inc, Mooloolaba. Lot more than US. Looks like a lovely part of the world. Right now I'm paying 900 US month in great marina on st.simons island GA.

Any recommendation for good place i can park my boat long term any where on the east coast south of Cairns down to sunshine coast??? At present been looking NZ,but recently been blown away by docos on the G barrier....makes the Carib look like a desert!!! Where do you guys hole up in blowy season?

getting feedback off Australian based boaties on CF has got the brain ticking....

[cwjohm]

Sailplan. SA per displacement ratio smaller than similar boats. Mast is a good 3m short IMO.

I pay A$4K per quarter for marina. Expensive. Manly (Brisbane) is less. Cheaper as you go North. You need to find a place that will accommodate a larger boat - both Brisbane and Mooloolaba OK.

Others may be able to comment.

[tuskie]

Newcatcruiser, you can park your Royal Cape 53 cat at Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club Marina at the Brisbane bayside suburb of Manly for A$1200/month. A bit less for longer stays.
It's a great spot close to all amenities, 5 mins walk to shops, chandlery, pubs and 10 min walk to commuter train into Brisbane CBD (20 min ride). Moreton Bay sheltered cruising starts at the all weather harbour entrance. Well south of the "cyclone belt" but only a couple of days sail north to the start of the Great Barrier Reef once the cyclone season finishes.
You'd be welcome!

[Factor]

Originally Posted by cwjohm

Sailplan. SA per displacement ratio smaller than similar boats. Mast is a good 3m short IMO..

Thats the problem with Metrics Chris. Two boats with identical SA/D ratios. One has a waterline beam of superfat and one superskinny. One has huge rocker and one doesn't etc etc. They won't perform the same. I have no skin in the Freeflow game, I dont own one or sell them, but I do know Nathan Stanton and have enormous respect for his design and building competency. I would recommend anyone who liked the FF to talk to Nathan and discuss these issues with him.

[cwjohm]

Andrew

It is not at all a problem with metrics. Physics is physics. The comparable boats I referred to have similar length to wetted area ratios.

The problem is that the trend is to increase the height of the mast step in order to increase living space in the saloon. Nathan has done it, Roger has done it at Lightwave, Tag are doing it and many others.

When you do this you increase the Centre of Force or the turning torque on the boat so that in the end you have in the worse case situation boats that can fly a hull at 18 knots such as the Tag 60. The understandable response has been to depower the boat.

This is deemed to be not a problem if you want a reasonable cruising boat with heaps of comfort, but it is a problem if you want exceptional performance. It all depends on your requirements.

In my view the gold standard is the 5X, an opinion with which I am sure you would not disagree, so I take my best metrics from there and compare others to that. On that basis the FF46 is underpowered. Now others may not want or need similar performance to the 5X and fair enough. This is simply my view.

I have spoken to Nathan and he believes the sail plan is adequate for a cruising lifestyle and I have no issue with that. However, I would want to beef it up. Just my opinion.

[Factor]

Couldn't agree more on the raising of the Centre of effort issue Chris. I see boats regularly now where the bottom of the main is 5 metres off the water. And of course on the O5X .

[Lucky Larry]

Originally Posted by Tellie

If there's to be a contingent of CF folks at the sail side, then ya'll have to stop by my Spectra watermaker booth and say "Hi". If you already have a watermaker I'll set you up with a new set of free pre-filters, your choice.

Tellie,

It was nice to put a face to the online character. I must say your avatar doesn't do you justice. Thanks for working with me to get a Spectra water maker installed in our Lagoon 450. We're really looking forward to it. I might even get to use the washing machine now! So much for my excuse of taking a European shower on the stern while rinsing my gear in order to save water...


Lucky Larry

[Blue Skye]

Is displacement relative to superfat hulls or super skinny hulls? I would assume a 45' superfat hull would weigh same/more than a 50' superskinny hull. So if both boats carried the same SA and similar displacement, are you saying they both sail at the same speed? Not being a smartass, just curious as to why metrics and/or physics do not correlate in this instance.

[cwjohm]

I will put it in simplistic terms by consideration of two metrics.

The first is length over wetted beam of a hull which measure the skinniness of the hull.

The second is the Sail Area vs Displacement.

You cannot consider one without the other, or in other words you can only compare one metric between boats if they have similar measures for the other metric.

In practical terms a boat could have a great SA/D metric but it could have big fat hulls and as such it is not a performance boat.

Similarly a boat could have a great L/B metric but have a limited sail plan and it would not be a performance boat.

There are obviously other complexities such as daggerboards vs minikeels, hull design, carrying weight displacement characteristics, centre of Force and so on but these two simple metrics are a good guide.

[Blue Skye]

So SA/D alone will not determine performance. The hull shape does play a part. Sorry for the newb question. I have sailed a few times, been to the boat shows etc, but still trying to figure out the "keep the admiral happy" but still have light wind ability. If it was up to me, Chris White, some Kurt Hughes and many Oz designs would be perfect for my "wants". Probably end up buying what she wants :/

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Newcatcruisers

,,,,if i was still in the market,had 2 kids only....be on keshi now lookin.Having looked at whats out there....that is a well thought out quality boat.well finished and ideal for shorthand sailing. Not sure about the carry on furniture.
Looked at the review of sail on Keshi by multihulls and they were obviously very impressed with the boat.

Buying from small yard has its risks obviously....reward is owning a boat that is unique. Not sure what the story would be with follow support/warantees etc. either

Swapping from power to sail has been fun....ive cut my teeth on a big,challenging boat that has been just great and handled everything thrown at her. Down the road if it was just me and the other half ...FFlow looks a breeze to handle compared.



Is Keshi for sale ?

I could not recommend Keshi's interal saloon layout (carry on furniture) to anybody. However it can certainly be added to or built essentially custom with any new build. There are some 7 concepts for layout on the FF website.

I think Keshi is now off the market. Not sure.

Cheers