True blue water boat extinction a fait accompli?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

True, but still a bwb I think. Sort of a modern version of the Nicholson 35.

To my (subjective) eye, it's not very pretty. An awkward, soulless mix of old and new, with none of the really good features of either old or new.

The underbody is also peculiar -- looks like an '80's fin keel -- longish and no bulb! Why bother?

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by Skipper434343

I agree with Robert, that fast boat is safe as you can get out of weather faster than slow one. 40 footer that is stiff and can make 170 per day and can survive 80 knots storm (with the right crew) is a good boat. When you look at the IMOCA 60 they are very light and they are deign to go fast, fast is safe in Southern Ocean because you can outrun the Low systems, one of the reason they don't allow smaller boat because are not fast enough.

I think the argument that a 40-foot cruising boat likely to be sailed by a Mom & Pop couple can be fast enough to 'out-maneuver' low pressure systems is HIGHLY overstated...

Beth Leonard & Evans Starzinger speak to this with far more authority than I can, and say it better, anyway:-)

We regularly read reviews in the sailing press of40- and 45-foot offshore cruising boats that are“capable of 200-mile days” and have seen quotes saying things like, “In the right conditions, any well designed modern 48 foot boat should achieve 8.33 knot [200 mile per day] averages.” Other articles and books advocate ‘larger’ boats in order to maneuver with respect to weather systems. Yet low pressure systems can move at 20 knots or more and bring storm- or gale-force winds to areas within a couple hundred miles of the low center. Even good weather routers can usually only give accurate forecasts on the speed and direction of these systems 12 to 24 hours in advance of the storm. Therefore, these authors are assuming that these ‘larger’ boats can sail 200 miles in a day to get on the right side or to get out of the way of the approaching weather. Yet if we move from theory to reality, we have met only a few crews on cruising boats less than 50 feet who have made good 200 miles toward their destination in twenty-four hours, and only two crews on much larger boats who have averaged 200-mile days for the length of a passage.

http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/200mile.pdf

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

I think the argument that a 40-foot cruising boat likely to be sailed by a Mom & Pop couple can be fast enough to 'out-maneuver' low pressure systems is HIGHLY overstated...

Beth Leonard & Evans Starzinger speak to this with far more authority than I can, and say it better, anyway:-)

I think he meant the IMOCA 60's outrunning low pressure systems, not 40-foot cruising boats . . .

[El Pinguino]

Down in the 40's ( well north of the Southern Ocean btw) the weather associated with low pressure systems typically pokes along at 30 knots. You don't want to outrun it...you want to stick with it.

Latest Colour Mean Sea-Level Pressure Analysis

The faster you go the better chance you have of riding a front with a good sailing breeze for longer. The other advantage of speed is that you can change your latitude promptly so you can, most of the time, stay above the lows in the optimum 'breeze'.... and keep south of the highs.

40 footers doing 200 mile days? Golly, I'm scratching to get voyage averages of 6 knots in my 39 footer.

[FamilyVan]

I'm guessing this is the hull shape that people are calling blue water and extinct?

I'm an absolute fan of my boat and think it's wonderful.
She is built like a tank- meaning she is very forgiving of running into things like other boats, ice, docks the bottom or whatever.

The hull volume allows for incredible tankage 1000 litres of water and 500 litres of deisel. The accommodations are spacious and the storage is vast. Not only that, but the large hull volume allows an incredible amount of weight (food, kids toys, whatever) to be loaded on board.

The double end design gives her a nice ride- very nice in fact. You need a big rudder to turn her- because she displaces 24000 lbs in normal conditions.

I didn't buy her for blue water though. I bought her for extended coastal cruising and live aboard.

The reason I personally don't think this hull form is popular with sailors- is I'm not really sure that it's a sailboat hull. To me this looks like a power driven fishing vessel hull (or as cruisers say a "trawler")- and that's what she sails like too! I am guessing this trawler hull design was adapted for sailboat use- not designed for sailboat use.

So getting to my point- fantastic boat, I've always been back and forth between sail and power. To me this is most certainly a blue water capable boat, but is she a blue water sailboat? Sort of. I think it's an older design where a seaworthy hull design was a sea worthy hull design regardless of the means of propulsion.

The design is still very seaworthy- but the boat won't sail worth a dime to windward, so isn't popular with the sailing crowd. Racing and week end sailing is far more popular then cruising, so there is a reasonable expectation from prospective buyers that their sailboats sail well.

Personally- this design works for me, but I understand why it isn't popular with sailors at large.

If you're bringing this designs safety into question, then I question your experience. Commercial fishing trawlers and pilot boats with very similar hull forms have excellent sea keeping abilities. If you question it's sailing abilities I tend to agree with you.

For reference- I am not anti production boat. I think Beneteau Sense is a really cool concept.

We'll see if my attachment works. They never seem to.

Sent from my SGH-I547C using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Down in the 40's ( well north of the Southern Ocean btw) the weather associated with low pressure systems typically pokes along at 30 knots. You don't want to outrun it...you want to stick with it.

Latest Colour Mean Sea-Level Pressure Analysis

The faster you go the better chance you have of riding a front with a good sailing breeze for longer. The other advantage of speed is that you can change your latitude promptly so you can, most of the time, stay above the lows in the optimum 'breeze'.... and keep south of the highs.

40 footers doing 200 mile days? Golly, I'm scratching to get voyage averages of 6 knots in my 39 footer.

Bit of a different conversation, but an interesting one. I think Evan Starzinger did an extensive study of passage times and found them strongly correlated to waterline length. Anything over one knot less than your theoretical hull speed becomes very hard and rare to achieve for a cruising boat.

And that corresponds to my experience. My boat has a waterline length of 47', so theoretical hull speed of about 9.3. My boat is pretty fast, faster than average, anyway, with a light hull, bulb keel, etc., and with a really good wind on a reach I can see repeated hours with an average over 10 knots.

But over multiple days or even long daysails, 8.3 knots or a pace for 200 mile days is really, really hard to exceed, even with an excellent sailing wind. 8 knots or 192 miles is a really good day, in my opinion. It's very, very different to maintain x speed over an intense sail for 20 or 30 miles, or even 50 or 60, than it is to keep up x speed over long days and nights.

I don't think 200 mile days, in a cruising 40 footer, is at all achievable on a consistent basis. Maybe a rare day, now and then, surfing downwind, say.

I don't think "outrunning weather" is at all an option even on fast, large cruising yachts. At most you might maneuver for a better position, if you have a few days warning, for example, to get on the right side of a tropical rotating storm.

Which is not to say speed is not important -- on the contrary, speed is life, just like in aircraft. I like fast boats and I like to sail fast.

[exMaggieDrum]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Down in the 40's ( well north of the Southern Ocean btw) the weather associated with low pressure systems typically pokes along at 30 knots. You don't want to outrun it...you want to stick with it.

Latest Colour Mean Sea-Level Pressure Analysis

The faster you go the better chance you have of riding a front with a good sailing breeze for longer. The other advantage of speed is that you can change your latitude promptly so you can, most of the time, stay above the lows in the optimum 'breeze'.... and keep south of the highs.

40 footers doing 200 mile days? Golly, I'm scratching to get voyage averages of 6 knots in my 39 footer.

I see what you are saying but I am not sure it would make much difference with a difference in speed of 2kts with a front going by at 30kts. And that's really only that much if you are going dead downwind from the direction of the front (not the actual wind direction). May be it would make a big difference. I may be misthinking it though. I often do that.

I don't think I would make many compromises for other things just to get an extra 2-3kts for that reason alone. Fewer days on long passages would get my attention though.

As far as changing latitude quickly I guess that depends if you can handle a big change in course to get from here to there with good breezes from the right direction. The big storms cover lots of latitude though. Although if everything lined up you could change course enough to get in the right quadrant of a big storm. I'll have to think about it.

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I think he meant the IMOCA 60's outrunning low pressure systems, not 40-foot cruising boats . . .

OK, perhaps I misunderstood what he meant by "getting out of weather quicker", and his subsequent referral to 40-footers capable of 170 mile days...

Certainly, when coastal cruising, the speed differential between say, 5 and 7 knots could possibly make the difference in a given situation between sneaking into port before some weather arrives, or not... But, when talking about offshore/open ocean sailing, seems we're in agreement that such a modest speed differential is pretty negligible in terms of one's ability to avoid - or take advantage of - large, fast moving weather systems...

And, as we were reminded a few weeks ago, reliance upon the theoretical pure speed of a yacht in passage planning is still no guarantee a boat will be able to thread the needle between a pair of winter storms brewing off Cape Hatteras... They didn't come remotely close to making the speed they had been counting on, and ultimately the speed of a CG Jayhawk helicopter was more vital in extracting the crew before the next low was upon them... :-)

[El Pinguino]

Sorry, I managed to get my line of thought a bit muddled there, methinks. In the first para I was talking about Volvo boats and the like.

Ordinary sailors doing 6 or 8 knots will be battling to get out of their own way. (I dream of 8 knot averages )

If you head off across the far south Pacific frinstance you just have to make an informed decision before you sail as to what latitude most of the lows are tracking through and then plan to stay above them.

[Jim Cate]

In general I agree that cruising yachts can't "outrun storms". However, in the infamous Queens Birthday storm of 1994, Jim and Sue Corenman in their Schumacker 50 Heart of Gold left Opua along with all the other yotties, heading for Tonga. They understood the upcoming weather early on, clapped on sail and did in fact outrun the storm, arriving in Nuka'Alofa before the storm fully developed and were safe in harbour whilst everyone else was getting badly stormset. They did back to back 250 mile days...

We have done just over 200 miles in 24 hours in Insatiable II (LWL 44'), sailing a close reach in ~18-20 knots true between Brisbane and Port Vila. It was hard work and uncomfortable, but we wanted to see if we could do it. As the clock clicked over the allotted time we put in a reef in the main and shifted to the Solent jib, breathed a sigh of relief and began to enjoy the sail. On one trip from Vanuatu to Bundy we averaged right at 180 mpd for the whole voyage. Down wind in the trades, comfortable and enjoyable. What a difference!

So, from our shorthanded experience, Evans formula works out well, but we know that we can do more if needed.

Jim

[Mike R]

Question... For a Blue Water capable boat, say 44-46' what would be the best displacement.


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[Julie Mor]

There's actually only one real Bluewater sailboat

[Polux]

Originally Posted by exMaggieDrum

I see what you are saying but I am not sure it would make much difference with a difference in speed of 2kts with a front going by at 30kts. And that's really only that much if you are going dead downwind from the direction of the front (not the actual wind direction). May be it would make a big difference. I may be misthinking it though. I often do that.

I don't think I would make many compromises for other things just to get an extra 2-3kts for that reason alone. Fewer days on long passages would get my attention though.

As far as changing latitude quickly I guess that depends if you can handle a big change in course to get from here to there with good breezes from the right direction. The big storms cover lots of latitude though. Although if everything lined up you could change course enough to get in the right quadrant of a big storm. I'll have to think about it.

The wind being of 30K does not mean that the front is moving on your direction at 30k or that you have to sail at 30k to avoid it. Nornally is much less than that.

2 or 3k more is huge and can make a big difference in what regards avoiding bad weather or not. Not saying that you can always avoid it but a difference of 2/3K on an Atlantic crossing means many more days exposed to unknown weather. If you cross the Atlantic on a boat that makes an average speed of 5.5K you will take about 20 days. On a boat 2K faster it will take about 14 days and on a boat 3k faster it will take about 12 days and a half.

Before departure the weather information can give you a good idea of what to expect (more or less) for a week or so, at least enough information for avoiding really bad weather on that period. If you cross in 20 days you will not have reliable weather forecast information for the last 13 days, if you cross in 12 days that period is of only 5 days, less then half.

Of course you will have weather information all the time providing you have a way to receive it, I mean regarding having information before departure, to be able to plan the better time to do it in a way to avoid bad weather.

[oregonian]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

In general I agree that cruising yachts can't "outrun storms". However, in the infamous Queens Birthday storm of 1994, Jim and Sue Corenman in their Schumacker 50 Heart of Gold left Opua along with all the other yotties, heading for Tonga. They understood the upcoming weather early on, clapped on sail and did in fact outrun the storm, arriving in Nuka'Alofa before the storm fully developed and were safe in harbour whilst everyone else was getting badly stormset. They did back to back 250 mile days...

We have done just over 200 miles in 24 hours in Insatiable II (LWL 44'), sailing a close reach in ~18-20 knots true between Brisbane and Port Vila. It was hard work and uncomfortable, but we wanted to see if we could do it. As the clock clicked over the allotted time we put in a reef in the main and shifted to the Solent jib, breathed a sigh of relief and began to enjoy the sail. On one trip from Vanuatu to Bundy we averaged right at 180 mpd for the whole voyage. Down wind in the trades, comfortable and enjoyable. What a difference!

So, from our shorthanded experience, Evans formula works out well, but we know that we can do more if needed.

Jim

JimCate used the same information a few years ago on the same forum (2012). The exact quote from Jim and Sue Corenman ".....we unreefed and changed to a reaching jib to keep the heat on, averaging from 200-210 miles per day"

I understand the desire for a fast boat but we have to be honest.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by oregonian

JimCate used the same information a few years ago on the same forum (2012). The exact quote from Jim and Sue Corenman ".....we unreefed and changed to a reaching jib to keep the heat on, averaging from 200-210 miles per day"

I understand the desire for a fast boat but we have to be honest.

Crikeys, mate... in one thread you say my thoughts are BS, and now I am dishonest! Seems you have a problem with my postings. Perhaps judicious use of the ignore button would make you happier.

I don't know from where you are quoting Jim and Sue, but my info was from personal conversations after the storm. Perhaps my memory is incorrect, that does happen with us old farts, but the fact remains that they did "outrun" that killer storm by virtue of having a very fast boat and the skills to make use of the potential. That fact seems relevant to this thread's concerns.

Jim