Do you like your canoe stern sailboat?

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by GILow

I'm with the lovers.

Swanson 42, canoe stern. As Uncle Bob says, big round backside. Love it. I've glanced back over my shoulder when leaving a marina in VERY bad weather to see a giant, breaking wave coming in behind me. Easily 15 feet tall. No problem. She just lifted sweetly and steered true. Didn't break a sweat.

However, as noted by a few here, you lose space. I reckon my 42 footer is more like an equivalent 38 footer, square stern boat.

What's not to love here...

Too much clutter for a wind vane? I don't mean to be mean, but it depends on one's values. And the davits with dinghy would have to go, if wind steering was a priority. And then there would be a storage/visibility forward problem. It may not be so for the poster, and we all make choices and live with them as we cruise. However, I sort of wish we had wind steering, again. It was so very good --and silent in operation-- with our 36 footer, plus no power drain. Man, that was really nice!

No offense intended, GILow.

Our boat has a wide stern, and with following seas, she surfs, happily.

Ann

[GILow]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Too much clutter for a wind vane?

Gonna find out in a few days. Have built an auxiliary rudder with trim tab and remote wind vane. Vane swings out sideways at the stern to get clean air. Have not yet tested it, got to put the decks back on the boat first, but trials in the pen are very promising. Fingers crossed. Heading south REALLY soon.

[philiosophy]

I guess I will weigh in here tho my Southern Cross 39 is a double ender not a Canoe stern boat. To say 25% less interior space in the stern than say a Benateau or other production boat seems to be hitting it light. The convenience list of a sugar scoop stern design and its inherent features is long. That said I would not have any other design besides a round sterned boat. Its not for a minute about looks. I bought my boat to go cruising the world starting at age 56. I wanted a boat that would take care of me as an ageing full time cruiser. I cruise all the lattitudes tho not any where near the Poles. That is just what this design has done for me. Thomas Gilmer has left as fine a legacy in boat design as ever there was.
I do think for the people who sail part time in areas like Mexico and the Carrabean, generally coastal cruising would be far better off having that space for two aft cabins for storage and guests. But if you want to really roam the oceans and be the safest you can be the round stern boats will take far better care of you as that design has proven over time.

[transmitterdan]

Yes, I like our canoe stern. I don’t have a wind vane and don’t think I ever will. Our dinghy is on a massive davit and is effectively the swim platform. But i usually get in and out of the dinghy amidships. Less movement and much safer.

I have plenty of storage space for stuff. Some would say too much stuff actually.

I feel much safer single handing my boat that some sugar scoop stern designs but that’s probably a psychological disorder more than reality.

But there isn’t any seaworthy argument that will support canoe over a flat square stern. A well found boat is well ... well found, regardless of stern type.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Yes, I like our canoe stern ...
... But there isn’t any seaworthy argument that will support canoe over a flat square stern. A well found boat is well ... well found, regardless of stern type.

Indeed. Well said.

[Suijin]

A few more thoughts.

I agree that midships boarding of the dinghy has its virtues. In any kind of swell you can see what’s coming and time your activity accordingly, and riding up and down is better than getting bashed against your he stern. But like everything with a boat it’s a compromise. There are situations where stern boarding is really convenient.

I think a boat’s behavior in a following sea is a function of design aspects broader than the shape of the stern. My Valiant has a fairly long (longitudinal) keel that obviously aids in tracking and an enormous rudder and skeg that makes her very responsive downwind. She’s also very full in the stern, much more so than Pacific Seacraft for example, that gives her more buoyancy. It also gives her a longer WL length when pressed over.

Hobby horsing is usually more a function of the fullness of the bow. Perry feels that he made the Valiant bow too full but personally I’ll take the relative dryness of the boat in exchange for slightly increased pitching (which I have not in fact noticed).

I did a 2800 mile trip from Canaries to St. Lucia and 2790 miles of that was on the windvane, even going bare poles at one point in a 50 knot gale. Wind vanes and canoe sterns behave extremely well off the wind. Of course the wind cane largely destroys the aesthetics of a canoe stern but you can’t have everything.

Med mooring with a canoe stern is a nightmare. Anyone who argues otherwise has drunk too much koolaid.

[aviva2]

Have Fun!!

Aviva | Double Enders

[arisatx]

Love that stern! [IMG]
https://photos.app.goo.gl/koHUUpabdyj1Q428A[/IMG]

[danleach]

I've loved the double ender designs forever...and they are designed to handle following seas. But when my wife and I were finally looking for that boat to sail away on....we sat in the cockpit of the beautiful Baba 40...talked about how we would use the boat and move about the cockpit at sea, at anchor, and at the dock....and we went with a Passport 40. The Passport has a transom, and therefore a wider cockpit flowing back. It gives us more elbow room at sea and guest room on the hook.

It works for us. Others sailors will reach other conclusions

[ronbo1]

The canoe stern boat design was a fad that made Bob Perry legendary. His boats were well-designed and built which made them very popular. Then the fad was sugar scoop transoms. Now we’re back to traditional transoms with fold down swim platforms which are perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing.

Ronbo

[Jubilee39]

I've sailed my Corbin 39 Center cockpit 3/4 of the way around the world over a couple of decades. I have a wind vane mounted on the back but it is a wind pilot so it is autonomous from the main rudder. Sailed in all kind of conditions and always great to handle. Aesthetically, here in Greece she has had many kind remarks how strong of a boat she is. I have a stern swim ladder but most of the boarding from the dink is amidships.
I have plenty of volume for stores for around the world voyage so that is not an issue.
I like the thought of a sugar scoop transom but in many areas of the world I have been in pirates have been known to run up behind the vessel and lay their boat inside the transom and board over the stern of sugar scoop.

[Rumbline]

My wife & I sailed 30k miles over 5 years in the South Pacific on a Bob Perry designed canoe sterned Tashiba 40 & loved the boat. She was extremely sea kindly, did just about everything well, hove to easily, had plenty of room, hauled weight well & went off the wind like crazy. Easily driven by wind vane. There wasn't anything to not like really. Very attractive boat to, we always got lots of compliments on her looks. She had quite a bit of storage in the cockpit lockers too, decent access too to large areas deep in the stern areas, quadrent, etc. The cockpit was small but that was good for an offshore boat. It had a good bridgedeck and if we shipped water into the cockpit from big seas it was a very small volume due to the small size and the interior stayed dry even if the companionway was open. Great design IMHO.

[jbwheels1]

We have a Pacific Seacraft 37. It has been a champ for 8 years. Solid and comfortable. We have been down the Pacific coast from Seattle to The Panama Canal, across the Atlantic both ways, aseason in the English Channel, another in the Med, currently in the Caribbean. Our trip from the Cape Verde Islands to Barbados. For 13 of the 14 days we were wing on wing with 6-10’waves behind us, direct downwind with the windvane steering. It was mesmerizing watching the waves part around the canoe stern. We never surfed and the boat stayed level the whole time. I sure loved the canoe stern then.
We have lamented the loss of volume. The lack of a swim step maybe is an issue. I prefer to get on and off the dinghy at midship. We raise the dinghy every night with a halyard, using a 3-point bridle.
Do we miss a swim platform? Then we say, what do we miss? Sitting there dangling our feet in the water. That isn't us! We use the midship ladder for swimming. Even putting fins on is easy at the ladder.
We have never taken a drop of water over the stern. We also don't get pushed around by quartering waves.
Yes, we do have a comparison. The boat we sailed to Alaska, Mexico, across the Pacific to New Zealand and Australia had a reverse transom. It also never took any water over the transom. However, it would surf.. But the windvane kept it on track. We took a lot more waves over the side. It also didn't handle aft quartering seas as well. We didn't have the same confidence, that we have in the PSC. It was also a lighter boat.
Bottom line- I like the canoe stern.

[jamhass]

Suijin has said it all ...

... from another Valiant 40 owner

[jamhass]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Too much clutter for a wind vane? I don't mean to be mean, but it depends on one's values. And the davits with dinghy would have to go, if wind steering was a priority. And then there would be a storage/visibility forward problem. It may not be so for the poster, and we all make choices and live with them as we cruise. However, I sort of wish we had wind steering, again. It was so very good --and silent in operation-- with our 36 footer, plus no power drain. Man, that was really nice!

No offense intended, GILow.

Our boat has a wide stern, and with following seas, she surfs, happily.

Ann

I have seen several Valiants with both davits (I do NOT like the aesthetics) and wind vane (hydrovane, which can - with effort - be nearly all removed at sea), so such is possible. Arguably, near-shore you want the dink, but not the WV so much, so stow the dink. Off shore, you certainly don't want the dink on the davits (IMHO). Thus the can coexist with some effort.

Our canoe-like Valiant stern surfs very nicely, thank you.

Jim