Largest boat couple can handle

[Bill_Giles]

The longer liveaboards continue the smaller their boat tends to be.

[RONHARDIN]

GOOD ANSWER TRENTEPIEDS
YOU BEAT ME, WHY LOOK AT THE BIGGEST YOU CAN HANDLE RATHER THAN ENJOYING YOUR TRIP.

GOOD SAILING
RON

[nofacey]

Assuming you have the ability to manage a big boat in confined spaces, and the financial wherewithal to support the custom bits anything much over 55 ft requires (these bits aren’t stocked in your average store), I can see a couple barriers
- in Canada at least, anything over 75 ft requires a Captain’s license to enter major harbours
- aside from anchor handling when the windlass jams/breaks, sail handling gets to be a bear not only when things go wrong in a squall, but even bending on & dragging about those huge working sails - and bringing in a giant asymmetrical, even with a snuffer, gets interesting when the wind pipes up - you still need those lightweight sails.

It can be done by a couple - check out Steve Dashew

[Renegde_Sailor]

Originally Posted by Networker

Hi, knowing the community and what the default answer will be, may I ask what is the largest boat a couple can handle, and what prevents a couple from handling a larger boat then they can handle.

The answer is not how big of a boat can a couple handle, it is what is the biggest boat each of you can handle alone?

This is because if one of you becomes injured, the other is going to have to do it all to get you safely into port.

Thus is why it is better to start smaller and work your way up rather than making a giant jump.

There again it also boils down to what sail handling gear the boat has, as a 53' staysil schooner with a bowspit where everything hanks on is going to be way more work than a 53' ketch with all furling sails.

Right now I have a 42' boat that I single hand extensively, and I personally wouldn't have issue going to a 53' if it had roller furling, but I am also very seasoned on this boat and that is not a huge jump for me and I know I would be able to single hand that boat.

That being said, we are quite comfortable on the 42, a 53 would be nice and eventually I plan on getting there, but for now the 42 is taking us sailing and we are enjoying life and the adventure, that is the part that matters.

[Icarus]

Hard to say it really depends on the design/setup and how fit and competent the couple are.
It's a lot easier to put reef's in a mainsail on a 38ft yacht than a 72ft one.
On really large boats everything is big and heavy..
Granted electric or hydraulic winches would go a long way...if they keep working.

[girdasso]

As many of the posts above indicate it depends on your fitness level and the circumstances around where you plan to sail.
I have a 42 ft sloop which i can comfortably handle with my partner and we do go cruising locally.
bigger is not always better as electronics, anchor winches often fail and when the s.... hits the fan as it often does you need the skill and muscle to get out of trouble.
personally i would recommend 42 foot perhaps 45 ft as an upper limit provided it is set up correctly. plenty of room for 2 people, you do not need bigger.

[Franco_oz]

How long is a piece of string? Think of handling it alone or your partner to handle it alone. Personally, I am settling on a boat between 36 and 42 which for a couple is plenty enough. Set it up correctly and learn to handle the vessel with no aids. How skilled are you to keep the boat in order? Can you dive? Can you fix engine, electrical, plumbing and anything else while underway? How "close" are you as a couple to work together? We can sail comfortably on a 46 but getting old and the bodies no longer let us do as much as we used to do. Like many others have said, only you know your limits but 42 is probably the maximum.... if you set it correctly.

[Mickeyrouse]

For 30 years my wife and I have limited ourselves to the size of boat two people can handle safely in bad weather. For us that’s 41 feet. Our boat doesn’t have a bow thruster or electric winches, mainly because of reliabilty concerns, added weight, and (not least) expense. We’re in our mid-seventies. We have friends that have just recently swallowed the anchor after cruising for 25 years non-stop in a 52 ft boat. He’s 80, she’s 85 and the size of a wren. They’ve had their anxious moments. There is no hard rule. Let good sense, experience, and respect for safety determine.

[Wolfgang.Schau]

Regarding the busted windlass:
I have been in a similar situation and here is how I solved the problem single handed: I used my spinnaker halyard supported by a power winch, shackled it into the anchor chain and lifted it up in 30' segments. Once 30' up, secured the chain to avoid dropping while moving the shackle to the next segment.
BTW, in another instance, I used the same halyard to lift a MOB person back on deck. When you start cruising short-handed or single-handed make sure you have redundant systems for the essential things, this includes paper charts in case your electronics fails on you.

[Gianfranco]

sails get heavier as you get older. move slowly. ETC.
for me sailing single-handed anything over 36 ft is too big.
a couple? sails do not change weight.
Good Luck

[NormanMartin]

A sailing school with a couple different size boats can help you figure this out right away.

As noted earlier, the smallest comfortable boat is the best choice.

[vikingwoman]

Even a 20 foot boat is too large if the skipper takes chances.

The larger the boat the more cautious you must be.

We have a 54 ft ketch for two. Plan ahead and no time schedules control you.

Plan with safety in mind.

vikingwoman

[merrydolphin]

My wife and I full time cruised our heavy 46’ ketch for about 10 yrs well up into our late sixties and early seventies. We had electric primarys. And of course auto pilot and hydro vane gear. The ketch was a nice user friendly rig. We did almost all of our own maintenance. We had no problems handling her in both open ocean and costal cruising. She is now 52 yrs old ( the boat) and still crossing oceans. I can only speak for my own experience. What others can or can’t do is their issue.

[sailingharry]

I've often expressed my thoughts on this matter. We have a 43' sloop, and when we were shopping we had a firm upper limit of 45, and a hard upper limit of 47. Here's my thoughts:

* Mooring lines. I use what many consider under-sized, at 1/2". My wife at 5'3 can coil a 60 foot spring line. Any larger boat, that line would be 5/8 or 3/4, and she would have trouble even carrying it, let alone coiling it. BTW, we have nearly 10,000 miles behind us and I've never regretted 1/2" mooring lines.

* Sails. Forget anything the winch can do -- that's easy stuff. I'm talking about carrying the sail down to the dock and putting it on. I can carry my main and genoa myself (well, sort of...LOL). Anything larger, and something as simple as putting the sails on in the spring becomes a paid effort -- or taking it off and putting it in a dinghy to take it to someone on shore for repairs. As mentioned up-thread, an asym really gets out of control. Mine in a bag is almost a two person job just to move it on deck. Even when socked, with significant wind it can be a challenge to pull it down.

* Docking. I can still push the boat around by hand. Not easily, and certainly need to be aware of crushing, etc. But I can push her off the dock to drop in a fender, for instance. Sure, heavier still moves easily in water -- but it gets rapidly harder.

* Maintenance. EVERYTHING is bigger/harder/longer. Compounding and waxing our hull is a back breaking job -- and it goes up with square of boat length.

* Draft. Even a bigger issue than air draft. Our 7' draft is constraining, a 50+ boat will be even deeper.

[Networker]

Well, we looked at some big boats, and they're a bit intimidating, i.e., Catana 582. I'd never seen such a large boom, and the mast was gigantic. Definitely too big to handle, and while I'm sure we could learn it, it just didn't seem fun to operate something so big. It felt more like a stressful job, and something that big didn't bring more enjoyment.

Costs were also eye-opening. The mast was carbon fiber and hit by lightning, so the cost to replace that alone is $200k (vs. 8-12k for my 40-foot mono); I didn't even bother to price out the Kevlar rigging. Autopilot RAMs were $15,000 each and needed 2 (vs $3000 all in for my mono), and in general, everything on the boat was exponentially more expensive than my current boat.

Given the size didn't make me happy and actually stressed me out just looking at it, and the costs didn't give me joy, a massive boat is definitely not something I will do.

Looking at more typical boats in the 44-50 foot range.