Quote:
Originally Posted by arbitrarysailor
If the speed of a hull is a factor of it's length, and assuming you didn't care about handicaps or LWL, would that mean that a sugar scoop was the way to go?
Is any one of the designs faster than the other?
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Arbitary, since you are a noob, you are excused from knowing this, but NEVER ask if one boat is "better" than another!! You will start a flame war that can annihilate the board!!!
Seriously, though, the question about whether a sugar scoop is better depends on where you want to go sailing and how you want to use the boat. For example, in coastal sailing and gunkholing, the scoop would be great since it would allow you access to a lot of fun places. If you were going to do a lot of ocean sailing, particularly downwind, it's not as good, since any sort of following sea - where the waves are coming from directly behind you - can result in the waves coming up the scoop and into the
cockpit. In extreme cases, they can push the stern underwater. Other shapes can have other problems with following seas, of course.
Transom shape makes very little difference to boat speed, although a finer exit from the
water (one where there is little turbulence) is preferable. That's why most
boats tend to have their widest spots forward of the stern, so that the
water flow can come back together aft of the boat. More important to speed is hull shape and amount of "wetted surface."