Cockpit sizes of Tashiba, Tayana, Baba, Cabo Rico, Hans Christian

[robert sailor]

Jim I've done that crossing 4 times and while the last one was years ago I recall that we got a mild boost from a following current, which, if I'm correct would drop the real daily milage even more. Having said that, even with a little help 140 mile days Is not bad for an old cruiser.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Jim I've done that crossing 4 times and while the last one was years ago I recall that we got a mild boost from a following current, which, if I'm correct would drop the real daily milage even more. Having said that, even with a little help 140 mile days Is not bad for an old cruiser.

Robert, that is certainly true! But still a long way from 180+ in cruise mode. And I can't say that those runs were not achieved, but they sure ain't common or easily approached by a cruising W-32, nor apparently by one in race trim.

Jim

PS I've only done SF to Kaneoe (sp?) once, and that was in a Yankee 30... 25 ft lwl and we did it in 16 days and a few hours (have to get out some old log books to be more exact). Our best day's run was 162 (as measured by celestial fixes, and so not too accurate), and that was with only a storm jib up in TS Gil. Never set a kite, only had Ann and I for crew, on our first blue water voyage.

[Elie]

One thing that need to be said, and its general, as Bernard Moitessier has proven with its Marie Therèse, a heavy double ender of is own rough desing, that he sailed from Ile Maurice to South Africa then to the Antilles: Any boat can sail relatively fast with wind in the back. That is even true for or a barge for that matter. Differences are more significant when sailing a more close to the wind course. And the closer to the wind, the more marked difference between modern and old designs.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Robert, that is certainly true! But still a long way from 180+ in cruise mode. And I can't say that those runs were not achieved, but they sure ain't common or easily approached by a cruising W-32, nor apparently by one in race trim.

Jim

PS I've only done SF to Kaneoe (sp?) once, and that was in a Yankee 30... 25 ft lwl and we did it in 16 days and a few hours (have to get out some old log books to be more exact). Our best day's run was 162 (as measured by celestial fixes, and so not too accurate), and that was with only a storm jib up in TS Gil. Never set a kite, only had Ann and I for crew, on our first blue water voyage.

Jim,
I'm a born skeptic, when I read figures like 180 mile days out of a WS32, if you had a substantial current in your favor then it's believable but other wise my BS meter starts to move to the upper settings.
Cracking off 160 mile days in your Yankee 30 was really moving along. My average back in those days covering several Pacific crossings in 36 foot boats was around 135 miles days using spinaker in winds under 15 knots. I was happy with those results and best days were in the low 170's. Even moving up with my Tartan 44 I was only able to average in the 140's and I was sailing it on the hard side. Winds of course and current make all the difference in the world but I've found if your getting 130 to 160 miles per day on a 40 footer on average your doing quite well.

[GWB]

Jim, it would do much for your credibility if you knew a bit more about weather conditions, distance made good vs miles sailed and race strategy.
You are assuming the W32 sailed the rhumbline or great circle course, not deviating from it and covered exactly 2050 miles. As anyone who has raced to Hawaii will know, the rhumbline is not sailed much as the Pacific high dominates the race course. Google is your friend here. Most racers sailing to Hawaii including Saraband play the vmg game. You do understand what this means - right?
It is also assumed you know the difference between great circle and rhumbline

You also missed the 1990 race in which Saraband was first to finish boat for boat in her class.

Similarly you quote Single Handed Transpac races (which are single handed as the name implies)

One of my personal single handed races to Hawaii in 2014 was 16d 09h, but I can tell you that miles sailed was more like 2400, not the 2100 you quote (the actual official distance is 2120) I can look up the actual distance sailed if you wish. My best days run was 172 miles.


You are also wrong about the crew of Saraband. They were all W32 sailors, not hardcore racers.

More later

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

All this rhetoric stimulated me to do some research. I went back into the records of the various transpacs, and particularly the data for Saraband.

In the 1988 Pacific Cup race (that she so famously won on corrected time) she finished in 14d 07h. The approximate distance is 2050 miles, so this works out to about 143 miles/day. This race reported winds from 15 to 22 knots, fairly light for that bit of ocean. The boat had a full racing crew and used kites whenever possible, ie, driving the boat harder than any cruiser is likely to.

I didn't find any other verifiable results for W-32s in that race, but there have been several entries in the singlehand transpac (distance approximately 2100 miles):

1978 My Star 16d 03h or 130 m/d
2006 Sunquest 19d 06h or 109 m/d
2010 Saraband 17d 03h or 122 m/d
2012 Tortuga 17d 02h or 122 m/d

I couldn't tell from my data source if these were single or doublehanded crews, but all were racing to the best of their abilities, as one does whilst racing.


Note that these are races with primarily moderate to strong trade winds once away from the coast, and the sailing angles are all off the wind.

I leave it to others to decide what the data mean, and to estimate the frequency with which one could expect the 180+ m/d figures reported in this thread... especially cruising!

Jim

[GWB]

Further to this, ask anyone about the return trip to the mainland and they will tell you that it is a much longer trip, primarily to weather. My singlehanded numbers for the return last year were 2614 miles sailed in 19 days 23 hours for an average speed of about 5.5 k
This is by no means a great speed or time, but it was a return delivery singlehanded and I had the boat set up so that I didn't have to reef for every squall.

So the 150 year old design does just fine thanks

Originally Posted by GWB

Jim, it would do much for your credibility if you knew a bit more about weather conditions, distance made good vs miles sailed and race strategy.
You are assuming the W32 sailed the rhumbline or great circle course, not deviating from it and covered exactly 2050 miles. As anyone who has raced to Hawaii will know, the rhumbline is not sailed much as the Pacific high dominates the race course. Google is your friend here. Most racers sailing to Hawaii including Saraband play the vmg game. You do understand what this means - right?
It is also assumed you know the difference between great circle and rhumbline

You also missed the 1990 race in which Saraband was first to finish boat for boat in her class.

Similarly you quote Single Handed Transpac races (which are single handed as the name implies)

One of my personal single handed races to Hawaii in 2014 was 16d 09h, but I can tell you that miles sailed was more like 2400, not the 2100 you quote (the actual official distance is 2120) I can look up the actual distance sailed if you wish. My best days run was 172 miles.


You are also wrong about the crew of Saraband. They were all W32 sailors, not hardcore racers.

More later

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by GWB

Jim, it would do much for your credibility if you knew a bit more about weather conditions, distance made good vs miles sailed and race strategy.
You are assuming the W32 sailed the rhumbline or great circle course, not deviating from it and covered exactly 2050 miles. As anyone who has raced to Hawaii will know, the rhumbline is not sailed much as the Pacific high dominates the race course. Google is your friend here. Most racers sailing to Hawaii including Saraband play the vmg game. You do understand what this means - right?
It is also assumed you know the difference between great circle and rhumbline

You also missed the 1990 race in which Saraband was first to finish boat for boat in her class.

Similarly you quote Single Handed Transpac races (which are single handed as the name implies)

One of my personal single handed races to Hawaii in 2014 was 16d 09h, but I can tell you that miles sailed was more like 2400, not the 2100 you quote (the actual official distance is 2120) I can look up the actual distance sailed if you wish. My best days run was 172 miles.


You are also wrong about the crew of Saraband. They were all W32 sailors, not hardcore racers.

More later

GWB, I'm sorry if you find me lacking in credibility. I've only made the SF to Hawaii passage once, and that was in cruise mode in a 30 foot boat, celestial navigation, no outside wx info whatsoever and with two novice bluewater sailors. I've casually followed the various transpac races for years, and am aware of the courses followed, and that the racers do sail more than the official course length. I did say "approximately" in estimating distance sailed...

I quoted singlehand transpac numbers because they were available to me, and because one might think they were closer to what a cruising couple, not racing, might achieve.

And I don't see how I was wrong about the crew of Saraband. There were several of them and they were indeed racing, were they not? Hence, they were a racing crew, not just folks cruising. I did finally find the results of the 1990 Pac Cup, and yes, SAraband did finish first in her division... a great performance indeed. Unfortunately, those results didn't specify what sort of boats the other class entrants were, so it's hard to know who she beat.

But enough! The source of the argument here was some statements that the W-32 was as fast as a modern race boat of the same sort of size IIRC.

Several of us didn't agree with that, and the argument developed, and the very ambitious mpd figures started being thrown about. I quoted some race results for W-32s. Now lets look at some more modern (but Definitely not anywhere near state of the art) boats of smaller size and on those same courses. These are again from the Singlehand race. While not quite the same, it seems that this race is in a way like couples cruising... limited crew resources. Anyhow,I picked these kinda randomly... but one can get the picture if one looks:

Solitare SAnta Cruz 27 13d 02h 1978
Slipstream Farr 33 12d 21h 1994
Intense Olsen 30 11d 15m 1988
Cheers Olsen 30 12d 22h 1988

It would be easy to add more, but the point is demonstrated, I believe, that while W-32s are capable of decent performance at sea when in race trim, they are not as fast as more modern designs. If the races were to include significant upwind distance, I believe the differences would be greater, but I do not have any firm data to support that belief.

There have been statements regarding the speeds of various designs when loaded for cruising. No one has offered anything beyond opinion to verify or enumerate the differences, and I doubt if such data exists. It seems obvious that speed reduction results from increased loading; whether the differences between W-32s and other, more modern vessels are as great as suggested has yet to be proven.

I admit to admiring the passage times quoted for the racing W32s. They represent excellent accomplishments, ones to be proud of. They do not to me demonstrate that such designs are as fast as modern ones.

Jim

[zboss]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

I have heard that we, the posters on this forum, as a group, do become distracted and stay from the issue raised by the OP. Here, we seem to be divided between and among the racers and the cruisers, and the hybrids of the two. Anyway, I am suggesting that each of us return to the original post, and see if we have any actual information to add that might be useful to the OP. At this point we seem to be more intent on blasting away at each other's opposing personal opinions and attempting to invoke snippets from known, but divergent, experts in support.

You tried.

[clockwork orange]

Some of these double enders have dangerous size cockpits imho. I have been working on a customers Hans Christian 38 T which has an absurdly small cockpit well that is only about 12"deep which is very uncomfortable to sit with your feet in and your knees around your chin. I'm sure this is considered a safe offshore cockpit by many completely ignoring the fact that it has very high cockpit combings that remain the same height all the way around with no scuppers so in the event of a big wave filling the cockpit it would contain hundreds of gallons of water with nowhere to go and the drains in the well were completely inadequate, maybe okay for the tiny well but not if filled to the top of the combings. In contrast most more modern designs from the 60s on have the combings finish at deck level at the stern allowing a large amount of the water to escape quickly. Of course as uncivilized mentioned open transoms drain immediately allowing for much larger more comfortable cockpits without any safety penalty.
That said, I don't think you would have any trouble sleeping on the seats of the 38T.


Steve.

[oregonian]

Hello again OCTAVIOUS. I am starting this post with an honest, sincere apology to the readers. Particularly to KENOMAC and JIM CATE: In my 2nd post I used the term “Race Boat” when I meant to say “Racer Cruiser”. I could have said “Modern Cruiser” or “Boats that race”. I read the post 3 times before posting and did not catch this. Locally, the boats that race are typically “Racer Cruisers” and I refer to them as “The racers” around here. Boats like Catalinas, and Hunters and Beneteaus, and etc etc. Again I apologize and am quite sorry for inflaming anyone. I also apologize for continuing the thread drift, but as Robert Perry has said numerous times, “Life is Thread Drift”.


But I must still clarify a few things: ROBERT SAILOR is inferring my stated daily runs on a W-32 might be BS. I assure you they are not. Do I need to supply Affidavits on this forum? The stated daily runs of 188, 187, and 185 were during races. The 184 was while cruising - singlehanded in fact. I have never sailed in a hurricane nor sailed with a Magician aboard. Also, he says: “ My average, back in those days cruising several Pacific crossings in 36’ boats was about 135 miles…, and best days were low 170’s” This comment exactly corresponds with what I have been saying, as my recent round trip to New Zealand on a W-32 averaged 132 a day with a high of 170. Typically, my highs are between 165 and 175nm per day on a crossing. (I have made 32 long, non-stop, crossings). From my experience, the newer generation of “racer cruisers’ in the sub 36’ range have not improved much in performance WHEN THEY ARE CRUISING.
JIM CATE says he can appreciate the Westsail for what it has accomplished but is certainly showing skepticism and didn’t really know what boats were beaten “Boat for Boat” during a particular event. I don’t like doing this sort of thing because it just tends to inflame more people, but some of the boats beaten were: A Cal 35, Erickson 35, Yamaha 29, Pacific 40, Hans Christian 33 (2), C&C 37, and Coronado 34. The closest boat behind the Westsail was the Erickson by 13 hrs. This is almost exactly a speed of 1/4k less. (have we heard that number before?). I can list many more very well known boats beaten “Boat for Boat” but prefer not to. I am simply stating that Westsails and Cabo Ricos, and pretty much all the others can actually sail a bit faster than most people think. If the owner wishes to do so. From SAILSHABBY: “any boat can be made to sail faster, given enough thought”. That is very true. Thankyou.
One last comment about the boats listed by JIM CATE. I will never claim that a Westsail will outsail an Olson 30. They are extremely different boats. But it is interesting that one of the Olson 30’s you mentioned was sailed in the SHTP and did win. The sailor still races locally and is known to be very good. He and his wife are now cruising around on their Westsail 32. Kind of funny!
Also: To KENOMAC; “Complete and total nonsense”. “the unrealistic claims that defy the laws of physics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.” No. You are wrong, but it is understandable. The only thing that is being defied is your understanding of the nature of “Wind Waves and Water”.
And finally one last admission: All claims made by me are 100% true BUT, the Westsail that I usually sail is Slipperier than most. The thru-hulls have been flush mounted. The prop is a feathering. The space between hull and rudder has been reduced. I also have the right sails for what I want to do. The boat is still a full keel, heavy displacement, double ender, that has been a live-aboard, go anywhere boat for a long time.
Repeating SAILSHABBY: “any boat can be made to sail faster, given enough thought”. Thanks for that and
thank you.

[Kenomac]

Oregonian,



We have a difference of opinion.

Ken

[andyv94]

What is this obsession of trying to compare a sailboat like the westsail, Hans Christian, baba, etc.......to a racing boat??

I happen to own a Hans Christian 33, I'm in my late 40's when I was growing up we owned J boats big and small....because we loved to race.
My wife and I are getting ready to go cruising for at least three years, we thought about selling our HC for a modern newer boat. After looking around and looking at what is out there.....we've been very unimpressed with what is out there, unless you spend well above $300,000. Forget about sailing, the quality of some of the boats that we saw were fairly poor IMHO!! They were great looking boats no doubt with very innovative interior designs (think condo more then a sailboat) sure they look great in the harbor when new....but after a few years of taking the poundeing of a typical cruise they start to not look so good. Of course as I have stated above, this is purely my opinion and taste!
At this point I don't know if I would trade my HC33 for any of the new boats that we saw. I'm sure they are absolutely awesome weekend sailboats or short cruisers, that would do excelent in the carribean.....but I'm not sure they would be a smart choice for somebody that plans to cruise the Atlantic and pacific oceans to name a few.

I realize that my HC is not by any means the perfect boat but when it's blowing 40 and your boat makes it feel like its blowing 20 and you feel 100% safe.......I'm not sure you can ask for more

[GWB]

Originally Posted by andyv94

What is this obsession of trying to compare a sailboat like the westsail, Hans Christian, baba, etc.......to a racing boat??



I happen to own a Hans Christian 33, I'm in my late 40's when I was growing up we owned J boats big and small....because we loved to race.

My wife and I are getting ready to go cruising for at least three years, we thought about selling our HC for a modern newer boat. After looking around and looking at what is out there.....we've been very unimpressed with what is out there, unless you spend well above $300,000. Forget about sailing, the quality of some of the boats that we saw were fairly poor IMHO!! They were great looking boats no doubt with very innovative interior designs (think condo more then a sailboat) sure they look great in the harbor when new....but after a few years of taking the poundeing of a typical cruise they start to not look so good. Of course as I have stated above, this is purely my opinion and taste!

At this point I don't know if I would trade my HC33 for any of the new boats that we saw. I'm sure they are absolutely awesome weekend sailboats or short cruisers, that would do excelent in the carribean.....but I'm not sure they would be a smart choice for somebody that plans to cruise the Atlantic and pacific oceans to name a few.



I realize that my HC is not by any means the perfect boat but when it's blowing 40 and your boat makes it feel like its blowing 20 and you feel 100% safe.......I'm not sure you can ask for more

Well said! I think the "comparison" only comes when owners of older traditional designs have to try and educate "newbies" about what said cruisers are capable of. I certainly wouldn't try and to compare my boat with something like what Paulo raves about....It might be a little faster, but the trade off in safety and comfort is unacceptable

[Elie]

Originally Posted by GWB

Well said! I think the "comparison" only comes when owners of older traditional designs have to try and educate "newbies" about what said cruisers are capable of. I certainly wouldn't try and to compare my boat with something like what Paulo raves about....It might be a little faster, but the trade off in safety and comfort is unacceptable

That is huge statment!...
I would agree that some modern mass produced boats, are builts often cheaply, altough the design, and style are outstanding. I Believe 2 or 3 recent sailing boat have sunk in North Atlantic during a nasty blow. The reason was a delamination/ shearing of the keel bolts and the lost of balast. 2 crew were lost. But one crew was able to save itself. And the breaking of the keel was the cause of the capsize and sinking. But modern boats like Xboats, C&C, Gibsea, Grand Soleil, etc., are sériously built and are very safe at sea. My own experience with a large modern Gibsea, with a big torpedo ballast is very safe. The only problem is that in real big sideway seas, sometimes the ballast effect is almost brutal. But these are rare conditions, and in general a real pleasure even in significant blows, even beating.
I don't consider having shared speed for security... For from it.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by GWB

Well said! I think the "comparison" only comes when owners of older traditional designs have to try and educate "newbies" about what said cruisers are capable of. I certainly wouldn't try and to compare my boat with something like what Paulo raves about....It might be a little faster, but the trade off in safety and comfort is unacceptable

After you have finished educating all those sailors that don't appreciate what your boat and similar ones have to their benifit you might start educating yourself on what modern well built cruising designs are capable of and their benifits. Personally I have sailed many full keeled cruising boats and admired some of the performance at sea, particularly some of the Cape George cutters and similar boats in the trades. I have also sailed many of the more modern cruising boats and my personal preferences are bent towards newer designs, built with traditional stick built methods but offering better sailing abilities as well as better performance in a wide range of wind and sea conditions.