2011 Caribbean 1500

[GeoPowers]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Looks like monohulls leading the pack, so far.

Just an observation.

The Multi's are probably just giving them a gentleman's head start.

Lot's of crapp...oppps I mean "built to price point/non-bluewater" production boats like Bene's/Jene's participating. I guess they're just "long distance" coastal cruising...

[sneuman]

eh, guess they're just noodling around. maybe hasn't even started yet.

[sneuman]

Big monos still leading today. Multis picking up the middle.

[Hud3]

Their wind is fairly light and from the south. Looking at the speeds and headings on the tracking page, it appears to me that some boats are sailing and some are motor-sailing. As they move SE out from under the center of the HI, the winds are ENE and stronger, so the sailing should improve.

[speciald@ocens.]

We went down the coast last week inside the stream and had a great trip with wind and seas behind us. Part of the Salty Dog Rally fleet left then and sailed west of the storm without major problems. There were over 35 boats in that fleet total. Boats that headed towards Bermuda from New England didn't fair as well with one boat abandoned, one dismasted and multiple boats towed in. The harbor was closed when they got there. We are in St Thomas now waiting for our power boat to arrive on DockWise. The transporter is delayed at least three days because of the storm. It is coming from New Port

[Hud3]

Two boats have finished the C1500, both well ahead of the rest of the fleet.

Line honors went to Fat Cat, an 80 foot Morelli catamaran, in spite of the fact that she had a delayed start due to equipment issues. Second in was Blackbird, a Bill Tripp 78 monohull.

[sneuman]

It's interesting, while the Morelli was WAY out front, all the other multis appear in the bottom half of the pack. Why is this?

[s/v Jedi]

I wonder if any records were broken? I think Steve Dashew with Beowulf (mono) still holds the record?

I'm told it's the weather that prevented new records...

ciao!
Nick.

[Southern Star]

I don't know sneuman, why is that? I can't imagine that boat design, sailing ability, weather, sail inventory, weight of equipments/stores etc., can have anything to do with it, can you?

Brad

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Southern Star

I don't know sneuman, why is that? I can't imagine that boat design, sailing ability, weather, sail inventory, weight of equipments/stores etc., can have anything to do with it, can you?

Brad

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

In other words, "real-world cruising conditions," no?

[Southern Star]

Well, on a quick look (and for some reason, I can't get results to download but I'll take your word for them) there were 6 out of 62 boats that were cats. Most were in the smaller range of production cruising/charter boats: e.g., FP Orana 42 and Venezia 44, Lagoon 400 and 380, a 'Fastwater 52' (with which I am not familiar, but from the photos which appears very heavy and narrow) and one Atlantic 42 which is described as overloaded and with cruising sails. Only the latter has any pretense towards performance and the LWL's of all of these are much shorter than most of the monohull fleet. Frankly, I wouldn't have expected them to place higher than the bottom third in that fleet - although with any luck, I could have seen the Atlantic 42, even overloaded and with cruising sails, to have outperformed most 42 foot monohulls.

Brad

[sneuman]

If you look at results from past years, you find much the same. For all the bling and bluster about fast passages, cruising cats with small crews on anything other than a consistently ideal point of sail don't perform much better than the typical performance-cruiser monohull. In fact, most of the multis this year are finishing behind a ... gasp ... full-keeled Cabo Rico 39.

[Southern Star]

Put another way, anyone who thinks that the Lagoon 400 and 38 are in any way performance-oriented knows nothing about catamarans. I suspect that they would, if comparably equipped, sailed and not too overloaded, perform about as well as a comparably sized, production monohull with an orientation towards a large interior volume. Of course, they would have substantially more interior and deck space than the mono - a distinct advantage one you have arrived at your destination.

Brad

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Southern Star

Put another way, anyone who thinks that the Lagoon 400 and 38 are in any way performance-oriented knows nothing about catamarans. I suspect that they would, if comparably equipped, sailed and not too overloaded, perform about as well as a comparably sized, production monohull with an orientation towards a large interior volume. Of course, they would have substantially more interior and deck space than the mono - a distinct advantage one you have arrived at your destination.

Brad

That may be true, but it's my understanding that FPs and Lagoons are two of the most popular cruising catamarans. So, we might call them "typical" just as we might call Valiants and Beneteaus (for example) "typical" monohull cruisers. So, when someone says "catamarans make for fast passages, allow you to outrun weather, etc.," we might take it with a grain or two of sea salt. It might be true on a pitch-perfect point of sail, with a well-trained crew and a vessel loaded for a weekend instead of a month, but once all those "real world" factors are thrown in, the differences diminish considerably.

And yes, they DO still have more room!

[Southern Star]

Sneuman, I have little doubt that you are correct. I for one do not claim superior performance for most production cruising cats in most conditions, as:

1. they are largely designed for the charter trade and consequently, sacrifice speed for interior space and amenities (and apart from the winner, all but one of this years fleet of cats fall squarely in the charter cat category) ;
2. The additional storage space over monohulls tends to be used to overload them; 3. Most cats are more sensitive to being overloaded than most monohulls;
4. Most production cats are not equipped with proper storm sails, further reducing their performance in bad conditions.

Again, I don't have the results but what you say does not surprise me in view of the fleet in this year's event.

Brad