No love for trimarans - why?

[andreas.mehlin]

We are renovating our 44ft trimaran
Hope we will like it when we are done...but that is another six weeks later

[longjonsilver]

i read chris whites book and john marples book, are there any others that are worth my time?

[Randy]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i read chris whites book and john marples book, are there any others that are worth my time?

Jim Brown's "Case for the Cruising Trimaran".

[pbmaise]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i read chris whites book and john marples book, are there any others that are worth my time?

The one thing that bothered me about Chris Whites book is he wrote to the effect:

You can build a composite hulled trimaran, sail it for a few years, and then resell it for all the materials cost you put into it plus make a small amount for your labor.

I wonder how many people bought into that argument?

There is a really nice one for sale now with about $2mm in materials in excellent condition selling for about $500k.

Of trimarans for sale, there is an old Marples for sale now. It is about mid-size and priced around $350k. Now that one would fit Whites' description, however, I doubt anyone would pay that amount for such a small tri.

[captaingregger]

Originally Posted by Stumble

Gregg,

Hortsman trimarans are probably best thought of as a catamaran with a center hull and not really what a modern designer would think of as a trimaran. I know it's a strange way to look at it conceptually since it quite clearly has three hulls, but bare with me a moment.

Modern trimarans are designed around a positive dihedral angle, basically if you measure the angle between the main hull and the amas the amas are not on the same plane, if the boat is perfectly level the amas are lifted 8-10 degrees above level. This means that when sailing the windward ama is almost always out of the water, in fact on most modern trimarans it is next to impossible to even motor without one of the amas out of the water.

Flying the main hull btw is something reserved for only racers and the truly crazy. No cruising tri should ever fly the main hull, and many simply cannot. The leeward ama simply does not have enough buoyancy, instead the leeward hull just sinks deeper and deeper and the main hull starts to drag. This is by design, to keep the boat from flipping.

Your boat by comparison has either zero or almost zero dihedral. This means that your main hull and windward ama will start to fly at almost the same time (remember what I just said about flying the main hull?).

The Hortsman's really are much more like overwide catamarans than they are like trimarans. Good boats, but almost in a design class by themselves.

Below you can see a modern cruising trimaran the Rapido 60 beating in about 5kn of breeze. As you can see even in very moderate conditions the windward ama is still flying free of the water. But note, due to your extreme width for a boat your size the loads are going to be massive due to the very high static RM. Even compared to a normal tri your size the loads are going to be higer so sizing blocks and gear need to take that into account.

The shock loading the PBMaise discusses above is true, but only really for the Hortsman type trimarans. Those with a more pronounced dihedral simply don't experience this. The windward ama is always clear of the water, and so it's just the two hulls that are immersed. In fact this is a large part of why you would want a larger angle in the first place, the larger it is the higher the windward ama flys, the downside is lost RM and more onboard heel, since the boat will almost always be heeled over at exactly the dihedral angle. More than 10% gets uncomfortable, less than 5% leads to ama slamming, so there is a pretty narrow range that most (non-race) boats fall into.

As for big rigs... there is nothing like sail area in light wind, and knowing how to reef for bigger breeze. It's a lot harder to add mast height down the road. But a well designed trimaran doesn't need a small rig to be safe, it just needs a skipper who knows when to reef her.

That's an excellent explanation.

I will say unless you've sailed a Horstman extensively, there are nuances that definitely counter some of your points but overall I agree.

As I've said in other posts, for me I want accoutrements and comfort over speed and performance these days. 80% (perhaps more) of a boats life is spent at rest. And it's during those periods that I'm happy to trade a little performance for comfort. I raced boats for a couple of decades (monohulls mostly except for the odd Tornado or Hobie 18 race, and a few times on a Stilletto 23). So I have had my fair share of competition on the water, bashing your brains in beating to weather while acting as rail meat, or for that regatta trophy. I've also had my fair share of sleeping on pipe berths or similarly spartan race boats. Since that time I've replaced that adrenaline kick with strapless big wave kitesurfing (no straps on a surf board in big waves, using the kite as our "engine" to pull in for the drop. The bigger the waves we can find the better). So my race/ speed addition is met with another desire. Still sailing oriented but with surf mixed in. But I still love to be on the water in other ways and I still just love boats (all boats). And when I'm on MY boat. I like to just cruise and relax. I'm always going to sail as efficiently as I can, so I'm not that laxed at the helm of my boat, but I want a nice bed to sleep on. I want all the creature comforts of life in an apartment and I'm really keen on not rolling in an anchorage. I get all that in a Horstman. I'd get all that in a modern cat as well, but I'd be in debt on a boat mortgage, or putting it off till I can cash in my retirement. Plus I can outpoint a cat in any condition and I never have to worry about capsize... well, at least not the the degree that a cat owner would. Any boat can capsize given the right scenario.

However what a lot of tri purists don't realize is that I also actually get some speed out of such a heavy cruiser, certainly as much as any cruising cat, more than most monohulls, except racer thoroughbreds, and more than I ever thought a Horstman could do. Of course I'll never achieve consistent speeds will like a racing or light tri will accomplish so I don't put my boat in that category. On my passage to the Philippines, we hit 15 kts many times. Now that might not seem like a lot to most tri sailors but bear in mind we were loaded down, I mean REALLY loaded down with all sort of stuff that I was delivering to the Philippines. I didn't actually weight it all but I'd estimate our payload at close to 4,000 lbs. So I would have been happy with 9 kts and was expecting to see only 6 kts. But conditions allowed higher speeds at times. I ran a really small chute to keep her moving on a beam reach and a full main. I constantly checked the rig for bend, slop and the rigging for load. Everything felt reasonably under control. Of course we blew out lots of gear. But not the big stuff you'd think. All the big blocks held. It was the older shackles and d-rings or webbing in the clew/ head from the spinnakers we ran. At one point I put up the big spinn and we were doing 11.5 pretty steadily on a dead down run while the apparent wind was only 5-7 kts. I even took a video to prove it. Of course that had to do with the chute that I was flying at that moment (HUGE). Eventually the head blew apart on that spinnaker and we ran it over (what a mess!!!). But hey, I bought it for $250 on Ebay and it was 31 yrs old! So my expectations of longevity in that sail were pretty low in the first place. We covered nearly 1400 miles in our passage with an average speed of 8 kts. I was mostly single-handed. I brought my 10 yr old who has almost no experience on the water so he was there more for time with Dad than to help as crew. So every time we broke something, I was on my own and was just too tired to fix it quickly. Consequently, I'd spend a lot of time under main only plugging along a 6.5-8 kts. If I blew a shackle on a spinn sheet at 8pm in the eve, I'd bring the chute down and wait until the morning to relaunch another spinnaker. Besides, I prefer going slower when I sleep. If I had a full crew, newer/ better shackles and sails, then I could've gotten that average up towards 9.5 maybe even 10 kts. We went for long stretches on main alone. I think those sorts of times are respectable for a heavy cruising tri. Especially one what was so loaded down.
At one point in the Leyte Gulf we has a steady wind on the beam and nearly flat seas. We were doing 10.5-11 kts consistently under main and jib alone. That's moving for that boat, again considering how heavy we were.

I realize Horstmans don't have any dihedral and I like that. I wanted a flat-sailing boat and that's what I got. One of the things that appealed to me was when the owner told me he's never flown a hull, never healed more than 5 degrees and 2 was more the average. And while I've never flown a hull, I probably could if I wanted to. I mean if I were to take nearly everything off the boat to really lighten her up and crank her up to speed in the right conditions. But I see no need to. There is [I]some[I] heel. So the windward ama is at least rising and some resistance is bing removed as a result. But I get it, nothing like what you guys in light/ fast tris are after.

What I also really like about the Horstman is the incredible stability that Ed designed into her. At one point we took a massive wave to the windward side on the beam. I even have it on video. The AP must've corrected 30-40 degrees on that one. The wave went right through all the strataglass and canvas windows that wrap around and protect the pilot house. The pilot house cockpit, normally an ultra-dry place, was full of water (the floor has 4 drainage ports so the water doesn't last long.) The whole thing happened in a couple of seconds and I remember not being concerned for even one moment about rolling over. Each ama has 200% buoyancy. That translates to each ama will carry 2x the weight of the entire boat. So as that wave lifted the windward ama way high, the leeward ama's inherent buoyancy fought the momentary submersion and righted the boat. But that can be an annoying thing too. Such buoyancy also causes a "herky-jerky" ride as compared to monohulls. But as we all know there are tradeoffs in any design. In fact, I remember going to windward at one point across the Camotes Sea in 25 kts of wind and a short period swell and thinking to myself, "I sure wish I was in a 50' monohull right now." We were pitching so much into that sea that I just couldn't take it and had to eventually bear off 20 degrees to get a better ride.

But that's another thing about my trimaran. The builder hired Norman Cross to design in a looooong, but short keel on the main hull. That keel allows me to point quite a bit higher than most multihulls into the wind. The builder/ owner that I bought he boat from told me he has raced her in a few regattas as was able to point as high as the monohulls. I've never tried and compared point ability with a monohull yet but I know when I sail upwind, it's pretty close. Of course, who knows how much I'm side slipping during those times. But going to windward in my boat also means I experience slamming in certain conditions, so it's not exactly fun. BTW, that keel has saved the boat twice.

I realize Horstmans aren't for everyone. But I like 'em. Ed told me over 1,000 were built (I spoke to him in January '18. He's still alive and kicking!). He said he use to have nightmares that his designs would fail but not one of them did. He did, however, clarify about the capzising. He knows of two that were pitch-poled. One the occupants stayed with the boat and were rescued, survived. The other the occupants assumedly left the boat in a liferaft of some sorts. The boat was found in it's turtled state, fully in tact. The occupants were never found. Goes to show if you flip a multi, stay with the boat at all costs until rescue comes.

Most of my buddies who own modern cats appreciate my boat but would never be caught dead owning one. I think they prefer that modern saloon look. Who doesn't? But to me, the modern cats are purpose built for the caribbean charter market. That low bridge deck clearance is an issue once you're out there in the big open ocean. Not saying it's a safety issue at all. Those cats will hold together just fine. But it's just not for me, the wave slapping thing (mine already slaps enough as it is). I'm currently upgrading and refitting my boat to that saloon cabin look and feel but it will be a long time before I'm done. We're doing the project in two phases so that I can cruise in between and not be stuck in refit hell forever. I'll try to post pics here of all the work as we get it completed. In the end I hope to have a boat every bit as modern as the newest cats but still with the same 3 hulls that give me all the above mentioned.

[trifan]

captaingregger (and stumble) - Thanks for your posts, captaingregger especially. You have explained far better than I have seen elsewhere why I love Ed's boats. Your varied experience has given you the ability to compare that design with others in real world conditions and I really appreciate your taking the time to share that with us.

I am intrigued by your cabin redesign and would love to see either concept sketches or pics showing the now and the planned. Or a narrative, either would work.

Thanks

[captaingregger]

Originally Posted by trifan

captaingregger (and stumble) - Thanks for your posts, captaingregger especially. You have explained far better than I have seen elsewhere why I love Ed's boats. Your varied experience has given you the ability to compare that design with others in real world conditions and I really appreciate your taking the time to share that with us.

I am intrigued by your cabin redesign and would love to see either concept sketches or pics showing the now and the planned. Or a narrative, either would work.

Thanks

Hey thanks for the accolades, trifan.

I don't have any concept sketches. Just an almagamtion of various boats and designs in my head. I tried to hire a naval architect to draw it all out for me. I spoke with no less than 10 of them. Not one was interested in the job. I even chatted with Kurt Hughes and Chris White via email. Both told me pretty much what everyone else did, "just build a new boat." But you see, I'm still working. I'm raising two kids that are my prioity. I need to be there for my wife who went back to school last year to pursue a new career. So I don't have the time to build a new boat (nor the $500k+ that it would cost to do it). But I also don't want to wait until I'm 65 to enjoy the water and I feel it's my duty as a father to pass on my passion for sailing the way my dad did for me so I'm sticking wth my boat and getting 'er done NOW. If I started a build today it would consume 100% of my free time and by the time I'm done my kids would be in college and have zero interest. I've already sailed extensively throughout the world so I don't need to do it again, per se. I'm staying engaged with boating to expose my family to difference experience in life. We don't cruise all the time. Just a passage or two a year and maybe one a few more shorter trips. But I believe it is those experiences that will create the lasting memories.

So why refit/ remodel? There are too many place on my boat where I hit my head. There are too many places on my boat where I have to turn my shoulders to get through a passageway. That might have been acceptable in the 70s or 80s, which is what Ed's designs are. But today, people just won't tolerate that for any period of time. I certainly won't. Boating shoudl be a pleasurable experience. Not one where you slam your head or shoulders into things.

This isn't some whim of an idea that I came up with overnight. I knew my boat had these issues before I bought her. But the previous owner had no interest in addressing them. He was done with boating. And I just don't have the time to be messing with 2 dozen off carpentry projects on my boat. Accordingly, I began drawing up the plans on this idea over 2 years ago. I spent hundreds of hours online reading and watching Vlogs of owners who got stuck in some sort of refit hell. I then flew to a few boatyards around the world and interviewed the yard owners and boatowners who had work done. I eventually found the right yard and right owner to take on the job and we slowly developed a plan to get it all done. There's quite a bit of "winging-it" going on here but in the end nothing that's too outrageous. I recall speaking (via email) with one owner who cut his cat in half to add 5'. His repsonse when I congratulated him and told him I'd love to have the set of balls he did to do such a project: "At the end of the say it's just plastic. Just fiberglass, wood, resin foam. Do it!" It took him 110 days. Thats really respectable for a husband/ wife operation.

I'm not cutting my boat in half. But I am cutting the deck open at some point, raiseing the existing main floor 55" to start the new saloon cabin. We're building the coach roof before any of that so that we're not so expose and so that we can finalize that look then "build outwards". The pilot house roof is a head slammer so it needs to come off anyway. I'm raising the mast to the coach roof and will use a compression post to transfer the load to the existing compression bulkhead... or I may move the mast aft 30" since I am building a new bulkhead wall 30" back anyway for the stairs to the ama cabins and forward cabin. I could beef up that aft bulkhead wall and transfer that mast load to the keel. This will only make the boat stronger because I won't be removing the existing main bulkhead. Rigging is nearing replacement anyway, and I have all Colligo Marine fittings so all I need to do is order new dyneema and a new forestay. We're still working on the design of the new bulkhead needed in the coach roof that the new chainplates will attach to for the spreader rigging. We have an initial 3-way gusseted chainplate design at the moment so I'm not worried about load, just need to come up with an elegant looking bulkhead since it will be part of the main saloon area. Alternatively, my refit guy offered to build me a new carbon fiber mast. I like that idea. It would save probably 600 lbs in weight and he's build CF masts before. It won't be nearly as engineered as a Selden mast but it won't be nearly expensive either. I'm not about to drop $60,000 on a new CF mast. Heck the shipping alone to the Philippines would probably be $10,000.

Anyway, I could go on for hours. We're looking to accomplish a one-level saloon cabin that is the same level all the way to the aft deck. The empty space below the new deck level will get turned into various storage areas and aux tanks for water and fuel. But that's all Phase 2 stuff. Prior to any of that we're doing Phase 1. That includes building out the saillockers as single berth cabins first, all 4. We're building out the Bulletnose storage area a series of shelves, drawers and cabinets. We're building extra fuel and storage tanks into the "V" of all the ama lockers, fore and aft. The single berth cabins will be for hired crew for when I cruise the philippines (deckhands/ captains very inexpensive there). Said cabins will double as storage when not in use as a crew cabin. Phase 1 also includes a total redesign of the aft workshop/ office into a captains cabin/ or revenue cabin for charter work. It will include a buildout as a day-head and shower. And finally we're widening any all entryways in the amas and aft cabin to 26". We're be beefing up the entryway bulkheads in those arease with extra FG work and/ or Kevlar or SS reinforcements. The angle of the stairs to the ama cabins will change to make ingress and egress easier and safer. And all steps will have built in drawers. We're using Nomex honeycomb for most of the work to save weight, excecpt where structutal load is involved.

Phase 1 is far less ambitious and I set it up that way to both control costs, and to learn from my mistakes as I go... of which I'm sure there will be plenty. I am not doing nor supervising the work so I had to factor that in as well... that things won't go exactly as planned and I will have to evolve with the process. But the refit yard owner who is coordinating all of this has a stellar reputation and he and I have been talking about the project for over 2 years so I feel we have the right dialogue to proceed. I can idle the project at any moment if costs get ahead of my budget or beyond my tolerance level in terms of mistakes. And as far as phase 1 is concerned, I am only funding it with overtime dollars from work. So if I don't make extra money that month, I throttle back a little until the next. Phase 2 will be funded with income from charter work.

I tried to draw up the plans myself, tried learning autocad. But I just have too much going on with family and work to put in that time. So we're sort of building as we go and striving for a weight neutral result. If I'm waaaay off, in the end the plan is to add 3-5' to the stern, and put in reverse or axe bows to help with the pitching. One naval architect friend who works for a very famous race design firm, told me that we'd have to fair in a axe bow approximately 8' into the hull and that between that and a small stern steps extension it should address any bouyancy issues that we may have created as long as we're fairly strategic in the build. Bear in mind we are removed a lot of older HEAVY wood once we cut out the old/ existing cabin and deck. The new cabin furniture will all be nomex honeycomb so we should get fairly close to weight neutrality. Beyond the bow and stern extension ideas. the previous owner/ builder of my boat suggested adding foam from the engine room aft and just fairing it into the hull. He estimated it would give mean another 600 lbs bouyancy. But I really don't think I need to do that.

Once of the reasons I sailed my last passage so weighted down was to see how the boat performed overloaded. I was actually quite surprised. Most of that weight is off the boat now. In fact she rose up nearly 4" when we took everything off. I'm giving most of it away to the workers anyway. So most of those items won't make it back onto the boat. But I do want to add another marine AC unit as backup, another watermaker, and a replace and existing genset with two smaller newer ones that will result in 4-500 additional lbs... so there's that.

The axe bows are a good idea because they're suppose to help with pitching that multis are prone to. And the aft extension would be purposeful because we could add built in transome steps to the water vs our current boarding/ dive ladder setup.

I got lucky in that I spoke to Ed about all this and he said it can be done, no problem. I asked him to help me draw up the plans and he laughed. Said he's done with boats. I had been trying to reach him for 2+ years. He would never reply to an email, never return a call. The one day out of the blue he calls me back. He's into aviaton now. I'm also a pilot. So I think after shooting the breeze about planes he opened up a little and was willing to listen to my idea. He told me how to find the center of balance not something I fully comprehend yet but I'll get there), and he told me about a guy in the Philippines who cut a 54' Horstman in half and made it a 70 footer (something like that). When I got there I found that boat was was able to get a tour. What a menacing beast! She's sitting on a mooring now, retired from chartering as a motor sailor, it seems but man, oh man. If I could get my hands on that boat for the right price I'd love to refit her some day. She needs a lot of work though. Anyway, apparently they cut her in half on a beach. Beached her at high tide and did the work during the lows. Challenging project for sure. But proof it can be done. I lost count of how many cabins she has... 8 I think. She has a marinized Isuzu V8 diesel that pushes her at 13 kts under power. The size of her fuel tank is bigger than my master stateroom.

Anyway, hope that explanation helps. Wish me luck!

[tatomaceda]

Neel 45 has been updated for 2018.
NEEL 45 EVOLUTION - Neel trimarans

[captaingregger]

Wow, he finally put a keel on the main hull (aka). Smart move. Many benefits far outweigh not having one.

Even Ed Horstman told me, "yeah, I see the err of my thinking back then, all of my designs should have incorporated a keel."

[andres]

Originally Posted by captaingregger

Wow, he finally put a keel on the main hull (aka). Smart move. Many benefits far outweigh not having one.

Even Ed Horstman told me, "yeah, I see the err of my thinking back then, all of my designs should have incorporated a keel."

I like very much the Horstmann tris and found very interesting your comments. Your boat does have a LAR keel and the daggerboards or only the keel?

[Cavalier MK2]

A main hull is a Vaka, akas connect the hulls. Those ama daggers will be handy if the top hamper gets raised 55? inches.

[longjonsilver]

Thru the wikipedia page on Norm Cross i obtained links to the wayback machine and some of the things that he wrote. One of which was his spreadsheet for determining the length of trimaran that one needs for the uses that are envisioned. Updating his spreadsheet i combined several mathematical operations into one step on my spreadsheet. i also think that several things are now outdated on his spreadsheet.
For 2 people voyaging for 4 weeks, his spreadsheet states that 2800 lbs needed (this is in addition to ships tools and equipment). i guess it is just the weight of the water, clothes and food. i used the figure of 350lbs per person per week, which was intermediate between 300lbs and 425lbs. This figure seems really high to me. A 4 week trip is not likely to require four times the clothing, and with a watermaker a 4 week trip will not require more water in the tanks than a one week trip.
i believe that modern engines are lighter than the diesels of the early 80's and that watermakers are able to supplant huge stores of water for voyaging. This would be somewhat negated by the additional weight of solar panels, watermaker and refer. Anyway i question some of the conclusions that his spreadsheet gives, because water weight is the big one.
Given Cross' weight of stores for voyaging, the Cross spreadsheet gives a trimaran length of 37ft for cruising, 43 feet for racer/cruiser and 48 ft for a racer, with a total boat weight of 12,000lbs.
My revised spreadsheet gives me a weight of 10000 lbs for a boat length of 36ft for cruising, 40 ft racer/cruiser, and 44 ft racer.
What am i missing here?
jon

[captaingregger]

Originally Posted by Cavalier MK2

A main hull is a Vaka, akas connect the hulls. Those ama daggers will be handy if the top hamper gets raised 55? inches.

Thanks for the clarification. Didn't know that. I do like to use proper terminology on a boat. It sorta' drives me nuts when i see sailing vloggers on youtube REPEATEDLY call the stern the "back".

Not raising the roof 55", raising the main floor 55 inches. She will have a "catamaran-style" saloon/ coach roof, with all the typical saloon accoutrements, when done. No more windgage than any other typical multihull out there so that's the least of my concerns at the moment. I'm not putting in daggers. The keel works just find in helping me track and pont to windward. She's a cruiser, not a racer. But I appreciate any and all suggestions nonetheless. So thank you for that.

[captaingregger]

Originally Posted by andres

I like very much the Horstmann tris and found very interesting your comments. Your boat does have a LAR keel and the daggerboards or only the keel?

Only the keel.

The daggers just weren't part of the build and that's not a project that I'm willing to get into right now. Also, on a Horstman, the ama's are really narrow as compared to a modern cat. While there's plenty of room for a fairly decent sized cabin with one or two queen berths into the wings (akas). The space needed for a daggerboard trunk imdedes all of that. This was always an issue for me when I looked at Horstman tristars throughout my search. When I foind my boat I was pleasantly surprised. You can actually quite easily walk throughout the ama, whereas the daggerboard design means you have to manuever around it to reach the other berth or the forward lav. Fine for some, not for me. Like I said in previous posts, she actually tracks to windward pretty well. Thanks to the keel.

[captaingregger]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

Thru the wikipedia page on Norm Cross i obtained links to the wayback machine and some of the things that he wrote. One of which was his spreadsheet for determining the length of trimaran that one needs for the uses that are envisioned. Updating his spreadsheet i combined several mathematical operations into one step on my spreadsheet. i also think that several things are now outdated on his spreadsheet.
For 2 people voyaging for 4 weeks, his spreadsheet states that 2800 lbs needed (this is in addition to ships tools and equipment). i guess it is just the weight of the water, clothes and food. i used the figure of 350lbs per person per week, which was intermediate between 300lbs and 425lbs. This figure seems really high to me. A 4 week trip is not likely to require four times the clothing, and with a watermaker a 4 week trip will not require more water in the tanks than a one week trip.
i believe that modern engines are lighter than the diesels of the early 80's and that watermakers are able to supplant huge stores of water for voyaging. This would be somewhat negated by the additional weight of solar panels, watermaker and refer. Anyway i question some of the conclusions that his spreadsheet gives, because water weight is the big one.
Given Cross' weight of stores for voyaging, the Cross spreadsheet gives a trimaran length of 37ft for cruising, 43 feet for racer/cruiser and 48 ft for a racer, with a total boat weight of 12,000lbs.
My revised spreadsheet gives me a weight of 10000 lbs for a boat length of 36ft for cruising, 40 ft racer/cruiser, and 44 ft racer.
What am i missing here?
jon

I'm not sure what you're asking. Boat weight has a lot to do with design, build, and materials used. After design/ build limits. Useful load can be managed as a matter of preference in how you plan. I'm a bit overkill in that area, well, probably waaaay overkill.

Cross and Horstman, while actually failry fast boats, are curising tris as we all know. Is weight an issue, sure, as it is on all boats. Does that mean you should leave with less food than more? It's a strategic planning choice. I always start a passage with waaaaaayyyy too much food. Mostly because I'm planning for a worse case, "stranded at sea" scenario, where I have to maybe jury-rig my way to destination and I end up taking 2-3 times longer than planned to get there. There are no grocery stores in the big open ocean.

As luck would have it I always end up catching a lot of big fish so we never really need all that food. But you can't bank on that. Plus, I don't tend to eat all that much on a passage. So I always end up with too much food. Oh well. Some food will keep till the next passage. Most I just give away. Cost of the passage as it were. Nobody is going to hate you when you give away $200-$300 of quaity groceries at a marina. Heck you've got a friend for life in most cases. Certainly someone to keep an eye on your boat. But food is a lot of additional weight for sure. And that's the most pressing issue to me. Oh well, as a buddy said, better to have too much than not enough.

Regarding water. Hmmmm, Watermakers can be finicky. Spectra rebuilt mine just before I bought the boat, then it failed again. I paid through the nose to send it to them for a factory rebuild and they COMPLETELY screwed up that rebuild, which of course they denied. I ended up repairing it myself. Then a carbon pre-filter blew apart and spewed carbon all throughout the system before we could figure out what happened. That resulted in yet another rebuild, new membrane, etc. The guy that helped me rebuild it that time is a wizard because prior to the factory rebuild I was only able to acheive 400 PPM. Now I'm down to 140 PPM. I've never seen those kind of results in my WM system. Not saying it can't happen, just haven't seen it on my boat before. His rebuild was better than the factory overhaul, which btw, took spectra 6 months to accomplish. In short, I feel the same way about watermakers as I do about doctors. You need 'em, but I wouldn't completely trust everything they do or say. Get a second opinion. Get a second watermaker. They're like autopilots, they work great, till they don't. I have 3 APs on my boat. On one passage all 3 failed. Was able to get two fixed but you never know 'till it breaks is the takeaway there. With respect to the WM, I haven't completed my refit so I haven't added a second watermaker yet. So my strategy with long open-ocean passages at the moment is to upload a certain amount of "emergency" rationing drinking water, as store for emergency use. Usually another 30-40 gallons in various jusggs stored down low. We don't tap into that bank unless and until absolutely necessary. So the goal there is to end the passage WITH all that water. Once I get a second watemaker installed, I'll scale back my emergency planning. But WMs and the associated maintenance can cost a lot of money. It may just be more fiscally prudent to carry extra water and rely on one WM, then accept the 1 kt slower boat speed as a result of carrying that extra weight.

Rainwater catchment is always a good option but during my last passage, BOTH the rainwater scupper joints broke. We were able to capture maybe 4 gallons only. Then, despite pilot house the roof being completely cleaned off prior to the trip, even pressure washed. I was pretty disappointed to see all that debris in the catchment jugg. I have a filtration system I can use for that but, now I gotta' go dig that out in some locker and, low and behold, there was a crack in the filter housing. I didn't want all that debris in my water tanks. I eventually ended up filtering it as best I could using a screen in a funnel but not into my tanks. I instead used it for laundry. The carpenter building my new coach roof is known for incorporating and elegant catchment system into the dessign. So when that is done that may make even more of a case for getting by with just one WM.

In yet another upset, a quick-fit attachment on the aft deck shower came loose and we lost all our water in a matter of minutes. Of course you never realize you're losing water until after it's all gone. You tunr on the facucet and you're like, "hey, where did all the water go?" I try to always turn off the water pressure switch to prevent this sort of calamity. I obvioulsy forgot to during that period of time. I also have a valve cut off at the shower which is suppose to be "off" when not in use. At that time, I was cleaning fish, on the aft deck and I was swapping back and forth between the saltwater washdown and a freshwater rinse to clean up all the blood etc. It was rough, I was getting josteld around, so in my haste to get back to the safety of the cockpit, while carrying two platters of fillets as well as REALLY sharp knives, I forgot to shut that valve off. When I took the filets back into the cabin to marinade I must've forgotten to turn off the water valve. The quick fit attachment blew out at some point in the next 20 min and there goes our water. Had I shut off the water pressure, loss would've been minimal. Had I shut the valve at the deck shower, loss would've been zero. But you make a lot of small mistakes when you're tired. I was pretty well spent that week.

Another time, I was cleaning the ama lav countertop sink and I and must've ever so slightly, and unknowngly, tapped the faucet handle. A few hours later, "hey, where did all our water go?" This time someone else on the boat forgot to turn off the waterpump pressure. My mistake coupled with theirs emptied our tanks. Took me a while to sleuth that one out.

And in yet another example, when we got to the refit yard I learn they don't have water. I have to pay $15 to truck it in and fill my tanks. First day we did that, major pain. Filled up all my tanks and juggs. Same QR fitting on the aft deck blew out. And yet again I forgot to shut that valve off... or someone aboard did. There were a lot of workers on the boat. Make water overnight and call the tanker back out the next day. But a day later I have a cleaning lady on the boat. She makes the same mistake I did in the port ama lav... all the water gone. Arrrrgh. Call the water truck. Yes, I could've made water. But I had just decommissioned my watermaker for the reift so I didn't want to redo that process. Plus my watermaker takes an entire day to fill the tanks.

Then there is the time I tasked my 10 yr old with doing the dishes and he used half the water in our tanks... we were already half at that moment so we ended up nearly dry.

I guess the point of all that is you can minimally plan and rely on a watermaker, but if your WM fails or your gear comes apart at the worst possible moment (or someone opens some valve or faucet unknowlingly) you'd better have a plan for that. In our case, our watermaker worked throughout the whole trip and I never had to use rationed water but I did have to dig into the 7 cases of drinking water we carried on two occassions just to give the WM time to catch up.

So choose a boat that will give you a decent payload. Or don't. Everyone is different in their acceptance of the eventual "worse-case scneario". I met a guy in my marina who sailed from Hawaii to Guam using the "pacific map" from the back of the yellow pages and a bunch of lat/ long lines he drew in as a grid. He got lost, ran out of food 21 days out (the trip took him 2 months in a 24' sailboat), He caught two birds and survived on a few flying fish that landed on the boat (no fishing gear) but he never ran out of water. So his take away was plan for less water, more food next time. Hmmmmm. Ok. Next time he'll probably find that equation flipped.

I have plenty to worry about on a passage. The last thing I want to concern myself with is not enough food or water. That's an easy equation to solve. Bring more. If weight is still such an issue for you, just start to lighten the load 3-4 days out from destination.

During my last passage I was loaded right to the red tape above the waterline. I had more issues slowing the boat down than I did trying to make more speed.

Just my $.02.

(disclaimer: I don't always sail so loaded down. I was delivering a lot of gear and supplies to those in need in the Philippines, hence the extra weight I was carrying. I do NOT suggest sailing beyond the max payload of the boat's design).