Size is important ....or is it?

[FamilyVan]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

OK, now that everyone has expressed himself fully --

let's just all climb down off our high horses and start over again.

There is no need to be so rough. This is way out of line. New people need to be given a break to give them time to feel and figure out the rules of engagement in unfamiliar communities.

Noboatyet -- you've asked an interesting and intelligent question, and you're obviously an intelligent person with much to contribute. You've been treated with unnecessary roughness, for which I apologize on behalf of the community. But you've made your own mistakes -- I hope you see them now.

This community (like all others) is full of all different types and eccentric viewpoints. Inevitably someone appears with a chip on his shoulder about something or another -- human nature. Take it in stride and be polite, bite your tongue once in a while, seek out the knowledge which will be useful to you, engage those who have something useful to tell you, don't engage those who don't, and you'll be fine.

Once particularly important point -- when a member starts a thread, it doesn't mean that he "owns" it. Threads on here are conversations, not reports to the OP. The conversation will drift, and people will say irrelevant and (to the OP) useless things, then drift back to the topic. That is absolutely normal and not the basis for objections -- the key is, people participate in these conversations not just to help the OP, but also to have vaguely related conversations, and also -- human nature -- as an excuse to get back on a familiar soapbox about one or another pet issue. I don't actually think that you were displaying "arrogance" in this conversation. I think mostly you were just making the mistake of objecting to things people said, which were not directly useful to you.

DH, I'll back down, but only because I respect your opinion. If you read back through my posts you will see I was genuinely trying to help the guy out. By recommending a modular approach to boat selection and trying to guide whether he wanted a full time crew or occasional crew and how it might affect his decisions. I'd hardly call that preaching from a soap box.

OP, DH, is correct, I could have been nicer disagreeing with you, I apologise.

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

Damn, does this mean we'll never know which boat he's gonna buy this weekend?

Seems the least he could do, is toss a crumb to the Go Small/Go Now Crowd, no?

;-)

Jon,

That's what I was thinking.

Ken

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by carstenb

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Ah - done now....thank you

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

DH, I'll back down, but only because I respect your opinion. If you read back through my posts you will see I was genuinely trying to help the guy out. By recommending a modular approach to boat selection and trying to guide whether he wanted a full time crew or occasional crew and how it might affect his decisions. I'd hardly call that preaching from a soap box.

OP, DH, is correct, I could have been nicer disagreeing with you, I apologise.

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Apology not required, Iwas robust also...... ..... how can anyone disagree with my initial question? not that you were answering that anyway....

Thank you all the same.

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

Damn, does this mean we'll never know which boat he's gonna buy this weekend?

Seems the least he could do, is toss a crumb to the Go Small/Go Now Crowd, no?

;-)

Have fun shopping, no boat... One of these days I'm gonna make it to the Southhampton Show, that's got to be awesome... Good luck...

Can't imagine you would care what we select......Boatshow is just easy to use compared with flogging round the place visiting brokers/manufacturers and viewing old toot.....they are all in one place and I would like a new boat....make life easy for yourself!

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by carstenb

No boat

Someone once said "you can learn to sail in a weekend, but learning to sail well takes a lifetime" Very true words.

I have no doubt that you are a qquick learner and perhaps you'll have the time to learn to really sail before something really serious occurs (I'm not talking about a broken crapper here) think force 10 or 11 and 10 meter high waves.

Do you find a skipper by recommendations? Yes indeed you do. There are a number of qualifications that a person can take, Yachtmaster Ocean comes to mind, but even though a person may have this - it is no guarantee that he/she is a really capable skipper.

Especially if you are talking High Lat sailing. I'm a Yachtmaster Ocean, but don't have any experience with High Lat sailing and would turn down a job offering if I got one.

A number of the posters who have answered your original Post are truly experienced, including High Lat. These guys really do know what they are talking about. You should not take their answers lightly


But that select circle boasts few members, and not many of them are available as hires for a year.

Your original question "Is size important" which you noted meant are there regulations etc that come into play as boats get bigger, to a certain extent depends on what flag you are flying. certainly if you are under Danish flag, you need a Yachtskipper class 1 (Yachtmaster Ocean) or a commercial grade skippers license, if you are going to sail anything over 15 meters outside the Baltic (and some surrounding waters. There are also some regs regarding horsepower.

Those regs are not universal, differing from country to country.

I'm not sure about hired crew (jones act in US boats), but you'd do well to investigate this once you are sure of your flag.

Thank you for the advice...I know the flag I will be using - not US - and am aware of the employement requirements .....

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by weavis

Oh no!
And I was so looking forward to my own large en suite quarters taking up 25% of the boat!
Next to the boat garage of course.

Are you volunteering to be my professional engineer? I seriously doubt that I can afford to hire a medical doctor to maintain my watermaker

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

DH, I'll back down, but only because I respect your opinion. If you read back through my posts you will see I was genuinely trying to help the guy out. By recommending a modular approach to boat selection and trying to guide whether he wanted a full time crew or occasional crew and how it might affect his decisions. I'd hardly call that preaching from a soap box.

OP, DH, is correct, I could have been nicer disagreeing with you, I apologise.

My remarks were not addressed particularly to you or to anyone in particular, at least not in whole Not everyone on here keeps a soapbox under his arm, and that's not one of your faults.

You and most others did try to help the OP. With varying degrees of relevance, which is fine, but mostly with an insufficient degree of courtesy, which is not.

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by No boat yet

Can't imagine you would care what we select......

You're right, I don't really CARE at all, what you decide... and I doubt any others do, either...

But I doubt I'm the only one here, after all this, that wouldn't at least be INTERESTED in hearing what you'll be going with...

;-)

There is another long-running thread around here somewhere, entitled "What Happens to all the Wannabees?" It would be nice to get a bit of follow-up for once, is all...

;-)

[FamilyVan]

Originally Posted by No boat yet

Apology not required, Iwas robust also...... ..... how can anyone disagree with my initial question? not that you were answering that anyway....

Thank you all the same.

Hmm, I was trying to answer your original question, I believe you asked if there are barriers that apply to larger boats and not smaller boats, including restrictions to marinas.

What I was attempting to illustrate is that there are limitations to larger boats, especially with regards to marinas, so try and find the smallest vessel that meets all of your design criteria (example- separate accommodations for your pilot) and you will eliminate some of those size restrictions.

As far as regulatory concerns, I didn't respond because the regulatory concerns mostly apply to commercial vessels as was illustrated by a brief conversation between Brownoarsman and Abv3 (which might not have been easy to pick up on if you aren't familiar with US maritime law, but really has the same meaning to most commonwealth countries as well, which is probably why no one expanded).

You will observe that 65 ft is the maximum size typically encountered in production boats, this isn't just a cost issue, there are lots of people with lots of money. Its mostly because boats bigger than that become unmanageable for most people, they are hard to dock, hard to sail and hard to find slips for.

What that means, is if 65 is the limit, then 55-65 is approaching the limit.

Some posters have ways to mitigate the challenges that come with size, as Ken mentioned, and even you yourself mentioned- hire crew, or as DH mentioned, by having lots of friends, but barring those mitigations, boats that size are very difficult for a couple to handle. Especially an inexperienced couple, which is why I was recommending something closer to 45 than 65 feet, not because I have some philosophical issue with big sailboats (I volunteer my time as a skipper on Tall Ships for youth 70-160 ft, I like big sailboats just fine, if they have a crew of 18).

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[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Estarzinger, thanks for sharing your wealth of experience and knowledge. This is priceless.
You mention Polar Bound is one of the strongest built cruisers you have seen. What aluminium thicknesses have been used? What spacing of framing? Are the bulkheads and watertight doors more numerous than usually encountered in alu boats designed for northern waters? What other features make this boat "strong"?

Any details of the construction would be interesting information.

SWL

SWL, essentially take all the structure on your boat and double it - double all the plate thickness, double all the frame thickness and half the spacing and double the watertight bulkheads. That would get you quite close, but it would in areas be a bit stronger than that. It is excessive, UNLESS you think you might get trapped and overwinter in the NWP, which Dave had done in a prior boat.

On Hawk we doubled the 'normal' framing (by adding a bunch of longitudes) but did not do the (much) extra thickness (plate or frames).

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

SWL, even though I was way off on my assumption that she was a re-engineered 47, I still believe the owner was in some way inspired by the 47. Which would mean 4 watertight bulk heads, quite a few for a boat that size.

Zinger, if you find yourself talking to your buddy with Polar Bound, I'd be very curious to know if he was inspired in any way by the 47?

Here's a photo of the christening of a 47 I served on, I hope I'm not hallucinating because the resemblance to Polar Bound seems really striking to me.

He previously had had a wooden motor life boat - which he overwintered in the NWP (he did a lot of impressive sailing before the wooden MLB), and this was a 'development' of that. Also the scottish designers were commercial north sea 'work boat' designers, not yacht designers. So I think there is a lot of shared pedigree and thinking with the MLB. But that said, it was an original custom design, essentially built around the minimum size needed to accomplish two specs - the required fuel tankage to get thru the NWP non-stop and the structure required to survive being trapped in ice.

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

Hmm, I was trying to answer your original question, I believe you asked if there are barriers that apply to larger boats and not smaller boats, including restrictions to marinas.

What I was attempting to illustrate is that there are limitations to larger boats, especially with regards to marinas, so try and find the smallest vessel that meets all of your design criteria (example- separate accommodations for your pilot) and you will eliminate some of those size restrictions.

As far as regulatory concerns, I didn't respond because the regulatory concerns mostly apply to commercial vessels as was illustrated by a brief conversation between Brownoarsman and Abv3 (which might not have been easy to pick up on if you aren't familiar with US maritime law, but really has the same meaning to most commonwealth countries as well, which is probably why no one expanded).

You will observe that 65 ft is the maximum size typically encountered in production boats, this isn't just a cost issue, there are lots of people with lots of money. Its mostly because boats bigger than that become unmanageable for most people, they are hard to dock, hard to sail and hard to find slips for.

What that means, is if 65 is the limit, then 55-65 is approaching the limit.

Some posters have ways to mitigate the challenges that come with size, as Ken mentioned, and even you yourself mentioned- hire crew, or as DH mentioned, by having lots of friends, but barring those mitigations, boats that size are very difficult for a couple to handle. Especially an inexperienced couple, which is why I was recommending something closer to 45 than 65 feet, not because I have some philosophical issue with big sailboats (I volunteer my time as a skipper on Tall Ships for youth 70-160 ft, I like big sailboats just fine, if they have a crew of 18).

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

That is like being a "little bit pregnant" I wanted to know where the cutoff was from a bureaucratic standpoint..... but thanks for the input

[No boat yet]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

You're right, I don't really CARE at all, what you decide... and I doubt any others do, either...

But I doubt I'm the only one here, after all this, that wouldn't at least be INTERESTED in hearing what you'll be going with...

;-)

I may let you know as you asked so nicely....

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

There is another long-running thread around here somewhere, entitled "What Happens to all the Wannabees?" It would be nice to get a bit of follow-up for once, is all...

;-)

heheeheeheee

[weavis]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Are you volunteering to be my professional engineer? I seriously doubt that I can afford to hire a medical doctor to maintain my watermaker

Maintain? My dear boy, I was thinking more of being on board to admire, gaze at, take photos and generally coo at the niceness of the vessel.
Not to mention fall in love with the boat garage.

Maintain?........... I truly believe that a new vessels maintenance should be limited to calling the manufacturers if a fault emerges.

[noelex 77]

No boat yet, try looking at the FPB links:

SetSail » Intro to FPB Program

I know for one model they made the stern platform "bolt on" so the boat could be measured and be under the critical size where the regulations become more complex in terms of licences, the need for a marine pilot etc.

It is easy to find the regulations for a particular country, but very hard if you want to operate the boat worldwide. The Dashew's research every boat system in great detail and having lots of big boat experience are in an ideal position to already have the answer to this issue.

Unfortunately, I cannot find where on the website this was discussed, or even remember what model they were taking about (they range from 64 to 130 feet) but with some more searching you should be able to find a discussion about the very issue you are concerned about.

There is lots of other great general information on the site about every aspect of large boat systems and especially designing large vessels that are suitable for cruising in remote places with a minimum (or no) crew.

They are powerboats, but they came from a sailing background so have designed sailboats without the sails