Ariel 26 as a camping liveaboard?

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by thomm225

The Hobie 33 (PHRF 90) has a beam of 8' and has competed in the Singlehanded Trans Pac several times.

Wow I think that Hobie at 33' is the LOA record so far for my beam limit, and 6" under!

Lift keel, great for ramp launching.

But it looks pretty wet, and I'm a big guy, don't think I'd manage with only 48" headroom during weeks-long foul weather stints, I've lived in a stock mini-van but much preferred my ex-wife's Westphalia.

My general sense so far has been to avoid boats focused so much on designing for rating rules and racing speed.

MORC being a possible exception?

[OldManMirage]

I also owned an Ariel for a time, years ago. I thought she was a lovely boat, very nice lines and traditional look. I thought she sailed very well, and mine even had a diesel with a prop slowing her down a bit. I believe is a Petter 7hp. Definitely was under-powered when motoring. But sea-kindly, and at 5'8" I had headroom in the main cabin area. As I recall she and I were the same age !

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Express 27

Inspiring write-up here

https://www.practical-sailor.com/iss...27_4835-1.html

Hope I get the chance to get on one one day, have'nt seen them on the east coast

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by KeelMe

Last year I found a clapped out Ariel on eBay for $200. It was in New York and I was in Texas. I seriously considered buying that boat and sailing it to Bermuda. A kid from New Orleans bought it and ended up sailing it to the Bahamas. I met him on Christmas Eve last year. He claims all he did was clean the boat and replace one wire of standing rigging but the boat looked good. I sailed with him one day and had a blast.

Wow, inspirational!

[Cpt Pat]

I've owned an Ariel for 6 years. You can see some videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/SVAdAstra/videos?sort=dd


She runs straight and stable in ocean swells, achieves half the wind speed in light airs on a close reach, can be pushed at 4 knots straight upwind under bare poles with a 6 HP outboard, has the ballast to ride in a ruff seaway with confidence, and a hull form that rides up and over swells taken abeam. The outboard in the well can be swiveled to provide steerage astern (a challenge with all of Carl Alberg's designs). Once the sails are balanced, she will run straight and true with your hand off the tiller for hours, and she heaves to and sits quiet like a swan on a lake indefinitely with only the tiller lashed over. She maintains trim even heeled to 40 degrees.


Living aboard would be a tiny hardship - in the tiny cabin, but other roomier designs sacrifice stability and increase windage to get more room down below.


Once you get to know her, you can play her like a violin single-handed. And she has forgiven all my early mistakes with grace.

[alansmith]

CPT, ah a man who loves his humble boat. I like that. There grows a bond in a man's heart for his mistress. Well written, Sir !

[john61ct]

Yes poetry, gives my heart wings. . .

[keelbolts]

Get the Ariel. You can find bigger, wider, faster boats, but you can’t beat an Albert design. I’ve only sailed an Ariel once, but it was a proper little yacht. I owned and sailed a Fastnet winner at that time and felt at home on the Ariel. The owner was a live aboard.

[hoangmaitran]

This news gives me hope. I bought an Ariel hull #367 in Newport, OR and plan to go to Hawaii with it once of these day.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

. . . I'm asking mainly because that trailer could push me to start now, rather than my so-far planned years away.

Don't overthink it. What is there to lose?


If you want to sail, then just sail. NOT sailing for years while waiting for just the right boat is ridiculous. Who says you'll even live so long?


The first boat is an almost pure learning experience anyway. You will not figure out what you want by chattering about it in the Internet. You'll figure that out only from doing and experiencing. The first boat is guaranteed to be a mistake, a necessary one, because you don't yet know at all what you need or want. After living with that one for a couple of years, then you'll be in an entirely different position for choosing something which suits your needs.

And another important truth -- the difference in actual sailing pleasure between a $2000 boat and a $1 000 000 boat is not 500x. It's not even 50x. Or even 5x. Better and better boats are chasing incremental improvements with geometrically increasing amounts of money. I've owned a lot of boats, including one costing the better part of a million dollars, but I don't think I ever got so much sheer unadulterated joy from any boat as I did from the very first sailboat of my own, a 16' Chrysler Man O' War on a trailer I bought for $300 when I was a teenager.

Don't overthink it. Sailing, on literally whatever boat, is a lot more fun than jawboning about it on Internet forums.




Trailer sailers are GREAT. Absolutely the best way to start sailing. This totally eliminates the expensive challenge of berthing, and opens up thousands of miles of coastline to exploration without having to make thousands of miles of ocean passages.


No, you won't be comfortable living aboard a 26' boat. So what? You'll have your car nearby; you can stay in motels when you get sick of camping, or just go home. Trust me, this is no big deal. After experiencing this and gaining skill and knowledge, then if you feel like moving up to something bigger and more comfortable, then there will be time for that. Time during which you are SAILING, and not just dreaming about it.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

. . .
So within the list of candidates, a knot of extra downwind speed, additional headroom, storage volume or gallons carrying capacity, each would make a huge difference.

But sea-kindly motion and safety/stability in heavy weather must trump all the other factors combined afaic.

You are grossly overthinking this.


You are not going to be in "heavy weather" in your first boat.



The whole beauty of a small boat you can haul around on a trailer is that you don't make long passages -- you haul the boat at 60 mph behind your truck, which is a damned fine way to get upwind. Before the onset of "heavy weather" you just haul the boat out of the water.



After you get some experience and start longing for longer passages and longer periods of time on board, THEN is the time to start looking for those qualities. Not now. And you will want to go then to a bigger boat altogether.


At this stage you just want to get out onto the water. The qualities I would be looking for would be far simpler -- the boat is in really good condition, and costs bupkins. Period. Whatever boat. I'm serious. The uglier and slower the better.


Or, if you like, something a bit lighter and livelier, so you can really enjoy day sailing and learn about sail trim. If there's any particular quality at all, you will be happy to have in a first boat, it's that.



Choosing a 26' boat for its "sea kindly motion" is nuts.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You are grossly overthinking this.


You are not going to be in "heavy weather" in your first boat.
.



Choosing a 26' boat for its "sea kindly motion" is nuts.

well I lived on my first owner boat for 5 years and regularly sailed in heavy weather .
Lots more fun than not sailing.
But an islander bahama 24 is a lead sled and needs at least 10 knots to start sailing .

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by newhaul

well I lived on my first owner boat for 5 years and regularly sailed in heavy weather .
Lots more fun than not sailing.
But an islander bahama 24 is a lead sled and needs at least 10 knots to start sailing .

So what are you saying here? What is the coherent message?


Who cares whether it needs 10 knots to start sailing, or flies on the wings of angels. If you're not on the water at all. The main thing is to get out there. Without further delay.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

So what are you saying here? What is the coherent message?


Who cares whether it needs 10 knots to start sailing, or flies on the wings of angels. If you're not on the water at all. The main thing is to get out there. Without further delay.

my point is it doesn't matter heavy weather or light weather a heck of a lot better than surfing a couch in a basement on a computer talking about sailing .

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You are grossly overthinking this.


You are not going to be in "heavy weather" in your first boat.

One can only hope! But the marine weather forecasts between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, CA are notoriously unreliable.

Just in case, I suggest carrying gear so you have a Plan B. I feel the most important gear addition was my fiorentino para anchor (sea anchor). Besides practice deployments, I've used it once for real: in a sudden and unforecast gale (40 kts sustained, 45 kts gusts) while in cross seas, 20 miles from the nearest port (near Pigeon Point), and with a lee shore 6 miles off. It allowed me to retreat to my cabin to curse the wind gods while enjoying 60 degree heels and occasional weightlessness. (I discovered that, when lofted by a swell and then dropped 20 feet, my Ariel had only enough reserve buoyancy to resist being dunked below the water line at the cabin top.) But she came through it all without a scratch.

That sea anchor saved me and my vessel. My vessel made only 0.4 kts SOG (measured later with my satellite tracker track) during the 6 hours I waited for the gale to abate. With the high cross seas and pyramidal-shaped swells reaching 20 feet, heaving to wasn't an option, and running would have taken me aground. The only survivable option was to keep the bow pointed up into the prevailing seas.

The Ariel is a wonderful boat if you enjoy surfing in ocean swells at speeds over ground up to 10 kts (any faster starts to get a little scary). She's small enough that she doesn't get into parametric rolling in short period swells, she's ballasted so heavily that big swells approaching abeam are mere curiosities, her hull form is such that she stands up to swells very well instead of rolling severely, and she'll do half the wind speed on a close reach up to 5 kts, where hull speed begins to assert itself. Expect to achieve hull speed in 12 knots of wind. Her sweet behavior when hove-to will bring tears of joy to your eyes. Just lash the tiller over and enjoy the rest of your day without touching it once.

She has only two bad habits: she's unsteerable when motoring astern at reasonable speed unless you yaw an outboard in the engine port. And, since her keel is foreshortened at the bow, she can have her bow blown down at low speed while docking. All in accordance with the axiom that a well-behaved boat at sea is an monster to dock. Which is more important to you: docking or sailing?

I'm a delivery captain, so I've sailed a wide variety of sailing vessels. The bigger ones only evoke yawns. Why sail a "bus" when you can have a sports car? And on a budget! Treat her well, and you'll fall in love. Treat her poorly, and she'll forgive you.