Beneteau oceanis 55

[Polux]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

Marketing driven design is what gives us much of the current yacht designs. It is how volume builders in all sectors sell product....

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Those are pretty nice boats. I like the Beneteaus from that era. They still looked like boats.
Check this one out, not a new Beneteau, but it's state-of-the-art and highly efficient.
Attachment 139293

That's selective blindness. If you go back to past eras it was always the same that orientated and influenced cruising boat design: racing boat design in its search for sail efficiency and better performance hulls. And regarding beauty and machines, being them cars, boats , airplanes or locomotives, fast is beautiful.

We find those sleek classic boats beautiful because they were fast.

On 30's the racing boat's hulls were like this:


On the end of 70's and on the 80's with the IOR hulls of racers were like this:
Swan 39


Then through the 90's to the end of the century the evolution centered on the IMS/IRC racing sailboats, the new formula for handicap racing and the hulls changed again.

Nothing better to keep it impartial to follow the hull evolution design than following the designs of the same NA on racing boats and on the end of the last century Farr will provide plenty of racers IMS/IRC designs to compare the evolution :
1992 IMS 40ft racer:


2005 IRC racer:


2015 IRC racer:



And it seems we arrive to what you call Pizza boats The reason they are designed like that is because they sail better and are faster, nothing else.

Parallel to this line of development, that is still the dominant as influence on the Performance Cruisers, other line of influence, a more recent one, is more dominant in what regards main market cruisers, the one of the so called Open boats, boats that don't race on handicap but on real time and whose design is free inside a box rule.

The more dominant influence on this case come from three of the more popular classes: IMOCA (Vendee Globe boats), TP 52 and VOR boats (the VOR boats are not a box rule anymore but the development comes from the time where they were a BOX rule).

From these, the IMOCA are designed to be sailed solo predominantly downwind, the VOR boats designed to be sailed with a full crew predominantly downwind and the TP52 are now designed to be raced on races with equal lengths of downwind and upwind sailing.

Some recent designs of the three boats:
IMOCA

VOR 65

TP52



All Pizza boats"!!!

The Oceanis 55, also a Pizza boat:




Regarding the concept of yacht beauty, I agree with what one of the best NA of today said about it, in a Naval Architecture symposium, 5 years ago:

"Advances in the design of performance cruising sailing yachts : Evolution of the architectural proportions

Let's start with "beauty". What is "beauty" for a yacht, anyway ?

Martin Francis told us : "Never forget the length, is it so important", and he's so right !
Bill Tripp showed us the black and white picture of a one hundred year old Herreshof racing design, long, thin, elegant.
German Frers told us something I've always believed, too : "Beauty doesn't only come from the harmony of shapes and lines, but also from the pleasure the boat provides to her owner and crew".

We could also add this common expression : "Fast is beautiful !"

Of course, nothing is this simple, it is all a question of proportions. Proportions is architecture.

Like beauty, performance comes from a set of proportions. Like beauty, they evolve with time, and with time comes acceptance. As Francis Martin said, after all, the famous motoryacht Eco has now become a classic.

The main recent advances and the evolution of performance stem from a major shift in proportions. Our FC cube 100' is an example of this on a 100 feet superyacht.

This evolution is based on 4 pillars :

- Materials : Carbon, honeycomb, foam and epoxy, laid up and cured together, allow a huge saving on the structural platform weight. Carbon is quite simply the gold of our times. For the same weight, a part made of carbon can be up to 20 times stronger than one in stainless steel. This tremendous gain can then be shared : one part for the comfort, one part for the performance, and one part for the strength and higher safety factors throughout.

- Open : The open spirit comes from the open racing rules, it is an incentive to research in all directions. It allows to test new concepts, at a reduced scale in the Mini-Transat (that we have won 5 times in the last 25 years), and at full scale in the Vendée Globe that we have won 4 times. Futhermore, an essential point is that the open spirit is very close to cruising, because the boats are sailed short- or singlehanded.

- Studies : The new tools, like the CFD and FEA numerical codes, are now really affordable, precise and usable.

- Power : The open spirit provides almost free righting moment. Using solutions like increased width, water ballasts and canting keels, we completely transform the proportions, the ratios and the shapes. We dramatically reduce heeling as well. Power then comes more from the Gz term (horizontal distance from center of gravity to center of buoyancy) than from the D term (displacement) in the righting moment formula Rm=D*Gz.

Reducing displacement allows one to reduce it even further, that's the whole point ! The keel can be made lighter, the vertical position of the center of gravity is of less importance.

This changes proportions, hull shapes, width, and all the ratios like sail area/displacement, power/displacement,...
Sailing yachts once were narrow, they will be wide, mark my words ! It works!

And by an amazing stroke of luck, when increasing the width, one gains inside volume, just what we want in a cruising boat...
The circle is now complete...

Pascal Conq - 2005 Miami"

[WestCoastRix]

Hey AJ,

Did you make it to the boat show? If you did, anything interesting?

[Raven Odyssey]

Originally Posted by Polux

That's selective blindness. If you go back to past eras it was always the same that orientated and influenced cruising boat design: racing boat design in its search for sail efficiency and better performance hulls. And regarding beauty and machines, being them cars, boats , airplanes or locomotives, fast is beautiful.

We find those sleek classic boats beautiful because they were fast.

On 30's the racing boat's hulls were like this:


On the end of 70's and on the 80's with the IOR hulls of racers were like this:
Swan 39


Then through the 90's to the end of the century the evolution centered on the IMS/IRC racing sailboats, the new formula for handicap racing and the hulls changed again.

Nothing better to keep it impartial to follow the hull evolution design than following the designs of the same NA on racing boats and on the end of the last century Farr will provide plenty of racers IMS/IRC designs to compare the evolution :
1992 IMS 40ft racer:


2005 IRC racer:


2015 IRC racer:



And it seems we arrive to what you call Pizza boats The reason they are designed like that is because they sail better and are faster, nothing else.

Parallel to this line of development, that is still the dominant as influence on the Performance Cruisers, other line of influence, a more recent one, is more dominant in what regards main market cruisers, the one of the so called Open boats, boats that don't race on handicap but on real time and whose design is free inside a box rule.

The more dominant influence on this case come from three of the more popular classes: IMOCA (Vendee Globe boats), TP 52 and VOR boats (the VOR boats are not a box rule anymore but the development comes from the time where they were a BOX rule).

From these, the IMOCA are designed to be sailed solo predominantly downwind, the VOR boats designed to be sailed with a full crew predominantly downwind and the TP52 are now designed to be raced on races with equal lengths of downwind and upwind sailing.

Some recent designs of the three boats:
IMOCA

VOR 65

TP52



All Pizza boats"!!!

The Oceanis 55, also a Pizza boat:




Regarding the concept of yacht beauty, I agree with what one of the best NA of today said about it, in a Naval Architecture symposium, 5 years ago:

"Advances in the design of performance cruising sailing yachts : Evolution of the architectural proportions

Let's start with "beauty". What is "beauty" for a yacht, anyway ?

Martin Francis told us : "Never forget the length, is it so important", and he's so right !
Bill Tripp showed us the black and white picture of a one hundred year old Herreshof racing design, long, thin, elegant.
German Frers told us something I've always believed, too : "Beauty doesn't only come from the harmony of shapes and lines, but also from the pleasure the boat provides to her owner and crew".

We could also add this common expression : "Fast is beautiful !"

Of course, nothing is this simple, it is all a question of proportions. Proportions is architecture.

Like beauty, performance comes from a set of proportions. Like beauty, they evolve with time, and with time comes acceptance. As Francis Martin said, after all, the famous motoryacht Eco has now become a classic.

The main recent advances and the evolution of performance stem from a major shift in proportions. Our FC cube 100' is an example of this on a 100 feet superyacht.

This evolution is based on 4 pillars :

- Materials : Carbon, honeycomb, foam and epoxy, laid up and cured together, allow a huge saving on the structural platform weight. Carbon is quite simply the gold of our times. For the same weight, a part made of carbon can be up to 20 times stronger than one in stainless steel. This tremendous gain can then be shared : one part for the comfort, one part for the performance, and one part for the strength and higher safety factors throughout.

- Open : The open spirit comes from the open racing rules, it is an incentive to research in all directions. It allows to test new concepts, at a reduced scale in the Mini-Transat (that we have won 5 times in the last 25 years), and at full scale in the Vendée Globe that we have won 4 times. Futhermore, an essential point is that the open spirit is very close to cruising, because the boats are sailed short- or singlehanded.

- Studies : The new tools, like the CFD and FEA numerical codes, are now really affordable, precise and usable.

- Power : The open spirit provides almost free righting moment. Using solutions like increased width, water ballasts and canting keels, we completely transform the proportions, the ratios and the shapes. We dramatically reduce heeling as well. Power then comes more from the Gz term (horizontal distance from center of gravity to center of buoyancy) than from the D term (displacement) in the righting moment formula Rm=D*Gz.

Reducing displacement allows one to reduce it even further, that's the whole point ! The keel can be made lighter, the vertical position of the center of gravity is of less importance.

This changes proportions, hull shapes, width, and all the ratios like sail area/displacement, power/displacement,...
Sailing yachts once were narrow, they will be wide, mark my words ! It works!

And by an amazing stroke of luck, when increasing the width, one gains inside volume, just what we want in a cruising boat...
The circle is now complete...

Pascal Conq - 2005 Miami"

Yawn...I'm getting hungry...



I wonder if Dufour delivers in 30 minutes or it's free.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Yawn...I'm getting hungry...

Attachment 139351

I wonder if Dufour delivers in 30 minutes or it's free.

It is understandable, the Dufour 310 is really a cookie but obviously it is not for free even if it is not very expensive. it sails very well too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YbdvJy_OOU

A great little boat, meaning not only sailing very well as having a BIG cruising interior for a 31fter.

I agree Pizza boats are just so tasty that is really hard not to be able to appreciate one

[robert sailor]

Fast is beautiful and the new racers are quicker than I could have ever imagined. Some of the new mono hulls are getting close to 30 knots in ideal conditions, that's just amazing. And there is high tech this and high tech that, really some amazing stuff.
Then it trickles down to production cruisers, similar shape and similar look as a racer but that's all it is. Same old polyester fibreglass with liners, huge interiors but nothing much on the performance side, it's really almost all looks but that's all it takes and the boats are selling (which is very good) I guess to be fair performance costs money and it's not small money and buyers these days really want the space and feel so that's what the get. Back in the day a hi tech racing boat was faster and pointed higher than any racer cruiser but the speed difference was a couple of knots, now the difference between a race boat and it's high production look alike might be 3 times the speed. It's a bit like some of the newest condo cats, bigger everywhere except on the performance side. So when will we start to see a little of the high tech and speed get transfered over to high production cruisers?

[Raven Odyssey]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Fast is beautiful and the new racers are quicker than I could have ever imagined. Some of the new mono hulls are getting close to 30 knots in ideal conditions, that's just amazing. And there is high tech this and high tech that, really some amazing stuff.
Then it trickles down to production cruisers, similar shape and similar look as a racer but that's all it is. Same old polyester fibreglass with liners, huge interiors but nothing much on the performance side, it's really almost all looks but that's all it takes and the boats are selling (which is very good) I guess to be fair performance costs money and it's not small money and buyers these days really want the space and feel so that's what the get. Back in the day a hi tech racing boat was faster and pointed higher than any racer cruiser but the speed difference was a couple of knots, now the difference between a race boat and it's high production look alike might be 3 times the speed. It's a bit like some of the newest condo cats, bigger everywhere except on the performance side. So when will we start to see a little of the high tech and speed get transfered over to high production cruisers?

Not all contemporary designs need be penned to look like a slice of pizza. Nor do all contemporary designs need be mass-marketed or appeal to a performance-first buyer.

Polux will call the McCurdy & Rhodes designed Hinckley Sou'Wester dated, I'll call it a fresh new take on elegance and function...

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Not all contemporary designs need be penned to look like a slice of pizza. Nor do all contemporary designs need be mass-marketed or appeal to a performance-first buyer.

Polux will call the McCurdy & Rhodes designed Hinckley Sou'Wester dated, I'll call it a fresh new take on elegance and function...

Attachment 139362

That a very pretty boat and I expect even Polux would appreciate it's timeless design. Really pretty boats are always pretty and we all know that, example Block Island 40 or Bermuda 40 which are probably 50 years old are still knock outs in an anchorage while your typical high production cruisers are just last year's model and no one gives them a second look.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Not all contemporary designs need be penned to look like a slice of pizza. Nor do all contemporary designs need be mass-marketed or appeal to a performance-first buyer.

Polux will call the McCurdy & Rhodes designed Hinckley Sou'Wester dated, I'll call it a fresh new take on elegance and function...

Attachment 139362

Dated means just that and in this case it is dated from 30 years ago and has the performance of a top boat of that era. Does not mean you don't love it but it would be ridiculous to design today and build today a Hinckley Sou'Wester and that is why Hinckley built this one recently. It has an updated design and has a very good performance, not by past standards but by today's standards:

A Pizza boat

[Raven Odyssey]

Originally Posted by Polux

Dated means just that and in this case it is dated from 30 years ago and has the performance of a top boat of that era. Does not mean you don't love it but it would be ridiculous to design today and build today a Hinckley Sou'Wester and that is why Hinckley built this one recently. It has an updated design and has a very good performance, not by past standards but by today's standards:

A Pizza boat

Yes a pizza boat, not really much of a cruiser - at least in the passage making sense - with only 120 gallons water and 80 gallons fuel.

Pretty, though I wouldn't own it.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Fast is beautiful and the new racers are quicker than I could have ever imagined. Some of the new mono hulls are getting close to 30 knots in ideal conditions, that's just amazing. And there is high tech this and high tech that, really some amazing stuff.
Then it trickles down to production cruisers, similar shape and similar look as a racer but that's all it is. Same old polyester fibreglass with liners, huge interiors but nothing much on the performance side, it's really almost all looks but that's all it takes and the boats are selling (which is very good) I guess to be fair performance costs money and it's not small money and buyers these days really want the space and feel so that's what the get. Back in the day a hi tech racing boat was faster and pointed higher than any racer cruiser but the speed difference was a couple of knots, now the difference between a race boat and it's high production look alike might be 3 times the speed. It's a bit like some of the newest condo cats, bigger everywhere except on the performance side. So when will we start to see a little of the high tech and speed get transfered over to high production cruisers?

The Pizza hulls on mass production cruisers have not only to do with speed but also with more stability, more comfortable sail with much less heel, less roll downwind, easier control on autopilot and easier solo sailing.
Now, many cruisers don't care much about speed but they all care with the factors pointed above.

Regarding speed it all depends on each boat but we can say that even if all are not necessarily faster they certainly are not slower than 10 year old models and offer all the mentioned advantages.

Regarding 20 or 30 year sailboats from the same market sector, they are certainly faster.

Look at a very interesting video of that Dufour 310 sailing side by side with a performance cruiser (a good one) a design from 10 years ago, a Dehler 29 (not a Pizza design).

The Dufour has length of 9.35m the Dehler 8.76m but there is a huge difference in weight, 4900kg for 2994kg. The Dehler is more expensive and has a technologically more evolved built that is what is responsible for that difference in weight....and even so the difference of speed is very small and in some points of sail the Dufour 310 seems faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MkJnRaxTM

I would say that is a clear evidence that evolution in design matters to performance

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Yes a pizza boat, ...
Pretty..

Well it seems that there are some progresses there

[robert sailor]

Initial stability maybe but certainly not ultimate stability. Bigger for sure, less roll than many but everything rolls downwind in the trades unless your under spinaker on a bit of a reach. Many of the newer boats are slower in light air, especially downwind, lots of surface friction plus they are heavy. If your comparing the new boats to the narrow full keeled boats your right on all points, no debate there. The big question is why next to no trickle down effect on real world sailing performance? When I look at the Pogo it's easy to see the trickle down effect but a new Benni....not very much.

[Raven Odyssey]

Originally Posted by Polux

Well it seems that there are some progresses there

That's not entirely what I said...

Originally Posted by Raven Odyssey

Yes a pizza boat, not really much of a cruiser - at least in the passage making sense - with only 120 gallons water and 80 gallons fuel.

Pretty, though I wouldn't own it.

It's my least favorite of all of their offerings.

[Raven Odyssey]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Initial stability maybe but certainly not ultimate stability. Bigger for sure, less roll than many but everything rolls downwind in the trades unless your under spinaker on a bit of a reach. Many of the newer boats are slower in light air, especially downwind, lots of surface friction plus they are heavy. If your comparing the new boats to the narrow full keeled boats your right on all points, no debate there. The big question is why next to no trickle down effect on real world sailing performance? When I look at the Pogo it's easy to see the trickle down effect but a new Benni....not very much.

Modern, state-of-the-art, and no Parmesan required...



Attachment 1

"The magnificent Spirit DH60 was first launched from the Spirit yard in 2013, and in the same year she made her racing debut at the Antigua Classics. Proving Spirit Deckhouse designs are more than capable of competing successfully, the DH60 picked up three ‘First of Class’ awards, including a first in class, concours class win and first in the single-handed race."

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by Polux

I agree Pizza boats are just so tasty that is really hard not to be able to appreciate one

A month ago I had a Dominos peri-peri pizza delivered to my boat in the marina. Very delicious