One year on. Musing.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by nes

Bigger motors... GENERATORS... oh dear oh dear. You really had me for a while there... but that's more STUFF to break down...

Well, I am not on the west coast anymore, and the reality of the GIWW was that we were under power for 29 days straight. NOTE: I mean really UNDER power. Hull speed for our boat is about 7 and a bit more knots with a good breeze. Under power we were doing good to get 6 knots, and most of the time closer to 5. That might not sound like much of a difference, but when you are under power for 12 hours, that extra 12 to 24 nautical miles really begins to add up. I am not looking for a huge increase in power, I just want to be able to motor at least as fast as I can sail. Also, we are not on the west coast, and dealing with cold water, instead of a jacket and a heater in June (we did this in Oceanside Ca), we were sweating in 90 degrees and 90 % humidity at midnight and trying to sleep. A generator and AC would have come in handy to at least take the edge off before we tried to sleep. Water temps around our home were in the 80's pretty consistently for most of the summer.

OK, you are right. After all, who am I to criticise when we live in a Mediteranian climate and our boat has a 96HP truck engine. I read all the stuff about AC and generators and forget, it gets really hot in some parts of the world (and really cold too.) Mind you, forecast 42 degrees here tomorrow (108F for our American cousins). I will NOT be sailing, I don't have AC.

[nes]

If I had a 96 HP engine in my boat, I would not want something bigger, but I have a 2 cylinder 18 Hp Yanmar, perhaps it just needs a better prop, but so far it seems to not be up to the task.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

I have to say, I've had good and bad surveyors. In my "learning curve years", one decreased the price of a boat I bought from $115k to $65k! Without him I would have missed the issues involved entirely.
Hmmm... not sure the "learning curve years" ever end.... :>)

I wish I'd had your guy, I would have easily lowered the final price by $5K. Not on your scale, certainly, but still worth the money.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by nes

If I had a 96 HP engine in my boat, I would not want something bigger, but I have a 2 cylinder 18 Hp Yanmar, perhaps it just needs a better prop, but so far it seems to not be up to the task.

Yeah, but I bet you your 18 will push your boat as fast or faster than our 96 pushes ours, and your teeth probably don't get rattled out of your head when you start it.

The guys at our boatyard thought I was carrying on a bit (Ok, so I do from time to time) until one of them joined me on the journey from the pen to the slipway. When I started the engine and throttled it up his jaw nearly hit the deck. He remained speechless for the whole journey. The Nissan ED33 may be a great engine, but when it is hard mounted to the hull it is a bloody monster when it is running.

[tomfl]

Originally Posted by nes

SNIP

The things that I learned .... the weather forecast is just that someones best guess, not a fact,

SNIP

So true.

[GILow]

I'm going to be careful here and say that sometimes our weather guys get it right, but sometimes they get it really wrong. Not with temperatures, but wind predictions seem really unreliable. I found best results from interpreting their wind charts myself, and I am no meteorologist. It's like they produce these really brilliant computer models but then give the job of reading them and typing up a summary to the work experience kid.

[tomfl]

Originally Posted by nes

Bigger motors.SNIP

I am not looking for a huge increase in power, I just want to be able to motor at least as fast as I can sail.

SNIP

Just my two cents, but I have seen articles that echo similar ideas.

The choice of a boat depends a lot on how and where it is used. If you are cruising in the ICW you will be motoring lots more than sailing and you may well be better off with a trawler. On the other hand I just returned from a six week trip from Marathon to the Dry Tortugas and back and used more gas in my dinky than in the big boat.

True I have a catamaran, but while my top speed motoring is about 6.5-7knts in calm water with no/little wind I commonly sail at 10knts and my charter plotter shows my max speed at 13.9. Another thing to consider is the reason it took me six weeks to go just over 260 miles. I only sailed when the wind and seas were perfect. It is also true not everyone has the option to only sail when the weather is ideal.

I think it is very important to be realistic about how and where you will sail. Way too many folks have the idea they will be sailing around the world via Cape Horn with a side trip to Antarctica and then returning via the Northwest Passage and wind up doing limited coastal cruising with perhaps a side trip to somewhere like the Bahamas. There is nothing wrong with either type of cruising, but most folks would get a different boat for one than for the other.

YMMV

[GILow]

Originally Posted by tomfl

Way too many folks have the idea they will be sailing around the world via Cape Horn with a side trip to Antarctica and then returning via the Northwest Passage and wind up doing limited coastal cruising with perhaps a side trip to somewhere like the Bahamas.

Ahh... so you've been reading his posts on the other sites too..

[Tonyjay]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Good analysis. Sounds like your repairs are typical. Shafts, seacocks, etc happen alot and are hard to ascertain on inspection.
You are absolutely right about Surveyors.... they have a boilerplate list, they think in terms of the list and dislike getting sidetracked. A rare good one just follows his eyes instead. Like all things you learn when it's too late that what you should do is just be there and tell him what you want him to investigate.
It's like those home inspectors... they want to spend 1.5 hours and will spend a bunch of time plugging the damn circuit tester into every outlet to see if the wires are mixed up... they should be under the house with their overalls on!

+1 on the competency of surveyors. We bought a 21' center console - surveyor spent 3 hours on it and identified things that allowed us to lower the purchase price. Our dock neighbor just sold his 42' sailboat. The buyers surveyor never turned on the engine and didn't know how to turn on the bow thruster.
+1 on