Bieker 53 - Exciting high performance cruiser

[Polux]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

...
I do know that "Morticia", a fairly small racing tri that frequently resides on a trailer at Airlie beach, did finish the race.

Yes and a hell of a race!!! The racing trimarans have done very well, if I am not mistaken there was 3 and they all finished with Paradox being the first over the finish line.

That makes even more strange the problems with the performance cruising catamarans. A abandon tax of 80% is not normal, not even on a circumnavigation race and most of them have very experienced crews that race other international races including the fastnet.

[CarstenWL]

not even on a circumnavigation race

Not that many 'half-wind courses' (abeam reaches?) and courses close to the wind to sail in most circumnavigation races.

Another question: Yellow Brick does not allow to see a time lapse in the tracker for this race?

Regards,

Carsten

[TJ D]

I just saw this on the news. I'm sure glad everyone's ok.
Sometimes you get a little too close to the edge... I hope the boat gets out sailing again soon. She's really something.

Of course, I'm partial to the designer....

[Polux]

Originally Posted by CarstenWL

..
Another question: Yellow Brick does not allow to see a time lapse in the tracker for this race?

Regards,

Carsten

Hi!, Time lapse? not sure what you mean, you can just play it back.

On the side you can block the images of all other boats except the multihulls.

You will see that they were sailing , tacking (not motoring) till they abandon and that, except the one that capsized and another that abandoned much sooner, the rest of them just didn't went to the southern part of the race.

when they passed near Antiqua, they just abandoned the race there.
http://caribbean600.rorc.org/Trackin...-tracking.html

Regards

Paulo

[contrail]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Agreed, this is a “cruising” catamaran in the same way Gunboats are cruising. With a full racing crew perhaps could cruise but not a couple on their own.

Low bridgedeck is very visible and that centre pod is almost at water level. What happens to access to the hulls when the wave piercing (it seems that’s what they are) bows go through a swell and a wall of green water washes along both sides of the centre cabin?

Where do you put your dinghy? How about a Bimini for some shade and a table with seating to place the dip for the chips you want to eat?

Other than fashion, is there a reason for reverse bows?

Please note, I like the look of her as a fully crewed performance cruiser/racer in the same market as Gunboat. The performance is race-boat like, awesome fun. But I don’t think you could cruise her short handed.

I have no dog in this fight, but would like to note that boats like Gunboats, etc, often have paid crew, since the owners are only sometimes onboard, and often don't have the required skills.

But, paid crew very often double hand these boats. I have been part of such a crew, myself. We simply aren't racing, and while everyone likes to sail fast, decisions are conservative and the boats are sailed safely.
And, with as few as two persons. So, I think that a capable couple could certainly do it, but they might take on extra crew for a long voyage.....much as crews on other boats do.

Mom and Pop on their first boat? Suicide!

[TJ D]

Originally Posted by contrail

I have no dog in this fight, but would like to note that boats like Gunboats, etc, often have paid crew, since the owners are only sometimes onboard, and often don't have the required skills.

But, paid crew very often double hand these boats. I have been part of such a crew, myself. We simply aren't racing, and while everyone likes to sail fast, decisions are conservative and the boats are sailed safely.
And, with as few as two persons. So, I think that a capable couple could certainly do it, but they might take on extra crew for a long voyage.....much as crews on other boats do.

Mom and Pop on their first boat? Suicide!

Exactly right. I think that the B53 is actually perfectly fine for a skilled cruising couple. Conservative choices are the key.
And, honestly, if you can have the boat depowered, idling along at 12 or 15 knots? That's just fine!
That's really the beauty of these fast cats-300 mile days are pretty easily achievable, even shorthanded, without much fuss.

But, if you're going to race one-a different matter, for sure.

[CarstenWL]

@Polux:

Hi!, Time lapse? not sure what you mean, you can just play it back.

Thanks Paulo! For some reason I did not see the slider on the bottom of the tracker to play it back.

Thanks again,

Carsten

[Polux]

Originally Posted by TJ D

Exactly right. I think that the B53 is actually perfectly fine for a skilled cruising couple. Conservative choices are the key.
And, honestly, if you can have the boat depowered, idling along at 12 or 15 knots? That's just fine!
That's really the beauty of these fast cats-300 mile days are pretty easily achievable, even shorthanded, without much fuss.

But, if you're going to race one-a different matter, for sure.

That is the point. With a couple you have to sail conservatively and You will not be making "300nm day pretty easily"

Best place to see that is the ARC now with many cats some of them fast performance cats. Almost all if not all have a crew of more than 2 but even so you will find a huge difference on a performance of a cat really raced with an experienced crew and one sailed conservatively with a more inexperienced crew or a crew that it is not 100% racing.

Regarding those the performance is similar to the ones of fast performance cruisers of about the same size for the simple reason that they can be sailed less conservatively without fear of a capsize and in none of the cases 300nm are pretty easy neither on performance cruising multihulls that are being raced by an experience crew unless they have 60ft or over and even so...

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Polux

That is the point. With a couple you have to sail conservatively and You will not be making "300nm day pretty easily"



Best place to see that is the ARC now with many cats some of them fast performance cats. Almost all if not all have a crew of more than 2 but even so you will find a huge difference on a performance of a cat really raced with an experienced crew and one sailed conservatively with a more inexperienced crew or a crew that it is not 100% racing.



Regarding those the performance is similar to the ones of fast performance cruisers of about the same size for the simple reason that they can be sailed less conservatively without fear of a capsize and in none of the cases 300nm are pretty easy neither on performance cruising multihulls that are being raced by an experience crew unless they have 60ft or over and even so...

Atlantic ARC is a light wind downwind slide that is not really indicative of all round sailing performance - especially when boats can motor whenever they like. But notice which types of boat completed the course with 0 motoring hours? They weren’t condo cats!

[contrail]

For what it is worth, the most comfortable boat I have ever sailed on, mono or multi, bar none, was a Gunboat. Obviously its size helped, but its speed (whilst being doublehanded) made a huge difference, in a positive way.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Atlantic ARC is a light wind downwind slide that is not really indicative of all round sailing performance - especially when boats can motor whenever they like. But notice which types of boat completed the course with 0 motoring hours? They weren’t condo cats!

Light wind? That's the trade winds the average wind to be expected is between 15 and 20Kt and many times the guys that are trying to go fast (that includes some performance cats) go North where it is not unusual 30kt winds ore more.

Do you call the trade winds light winds?

You are right regarding motoring and light performance cats and light performance monohulls to normally use much less the engine but what that has to do with the 300 nm easily achieved in 24 hours?

If cats were using the engine that would not make those 300nm more easier to accomplish since for that they would have to motor at 12.5k for 24h and most boats cannot do that.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Polux

Light wind? That's the trade winds the average wind to be expected is between 15 and 20Kt and many times the guys that are trying to go fast (that includes some performance cats) go North where it is not unusual 30kt winds ore more.

Do you call the trade winds light winds?

You are right regarding motoring and light performance cats and light performance monohulls to normally use much less the engine but what that has to do with the 300 nm easily achieved in 24 hours?

If cats were using the engine that would not make those 300nm more easier to accomplish since for that they would have to motor at 12.5k for 24h and most boats cannot do that.

I haven’t talked about 300nm days and for cruising that doesn’t have much relevance for most of us. Holding an average of 12.5 knots over 24 hours implies spending at least half of that time at 15 knots plus (unless the wind is extraordinarily steady over the entire period) and for most wind/wave angles 15 knots is not comfortable for cooking or sleeping, at least for our boat.

I call the Atlantic ARC route “light” as the typical route is DDW and in the just past edition the trades were lighter than usual. Most boats reported apparent wind speeds of single digits. I’m not counting any boats that went hunting for more breeze or higher wind angles, as that wasn’t standard practice. No offence was intended.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by fxykty

I haven’t talked about 300nm days and for cruising that doesn’t have much relevance for most of us. Holding an average of 12.5 knots over 24 hours implies spending at least half of that time at 15 knots plus (unless the wind is extraordinarily steady over the entire period) and for most wind/wave angles 15 knots is not comfortable for cooking or sleeping, at least for our boat.

I call the Atlantic ARC route “light” as the typical route is DDW and in the just past edition the trades were lighter than usual. Most boats reported apparent wind speeds of single digits. I’m not counting any boats that went hunting for more breeze or higher wind angles, as that wasn’t standard practice. No offence was intended.

None taken and not even understand what you are talking about

I am sorry, I confused you with someone that was saying that 300nm/day was easy with a short cruising crew on a light performance cat. It seems we agree that is not so.

Regarding the cats and monohulls, including diverse types of monohulls I have been collecting data regarding performance not only in races. I have been taken data from the ARC on many years, so many that I don't think I can learn more with it and the data is relatively constant.

The ARC meaning the Transat is a typical tarde wind passages. it is true that the two last years were atypical but not many others that were quite "normal".

[cwjohm]

Polux

From the large pool of data you have taken what can be concluded for a fast catamaran in terms of average daily ranges (KnM) and medium daily ranges (KNM) and how often (% 0f days) could one expect over a 300 KnM day.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by cwjohm

Polux

From the large pool of data you have taken what can be concluded for a fast catamaran in terms of average daily ranges (KnM) and medium daily ranges (KNM) and how often (% 0f days) could one expect over a 300 KnM day.

Obviously it depends on the conditions and most of all if the catamaran is raced by a crew or if it is sailed by a couple but to answer your question nothing better than hearing what performance cat sailors say about day mileage.

For instance this couple on a Catana 431 talks about an average of 180nm/day on the trade winds, of course, some days more some days less but 300?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWbvNzrh5Vw

Here, this guy on a Barramundi 470 talks about 200nm/day on good conditions sailing alone and talks about making 20k speed, averaging 15k, not for a day, but for some considerable time but it ends up saying that conditions are very, very rare. He says that normally he would average as much as the Amel but in my opinion that is not true, downwind the boat is surely faster.

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

The Amel is a slow boat and not very good upwind even if it seems that is was faster upwind than the Barramundi.

Answering your question regarding the ARC, Phaedo, a Gunboat 66 with a racing crew (the boat made that year many of the main races ) that made the ARC in 2011, a year with lots of wind, making an extraordinary fast passage, surely made on one or two days 300 nm.

The average speed on the rhumb line was 9.6kt. Certainly they would have made on the course over 10kt, maybe 10.5kt. Probably they averaged on one day or another 300nm (12.5k average).

I don't know if any performance cruiser, cat or not, with a cruising crew has ever made a 300nm/day on the ARC but I would say that if that happened it would be a rarity.

By the way that Gunboat 66 made the passage in 11 days, 16 hours and 30 minutes while the cat, that in all these years, have impressed me more made it in 13 days 10 hours, one day and a half less than the fastest of the two Outremer 49 that made the ARC on the same year, but almost more two days more than the Gunboat 66, on another edition, probably with more wind.

That means that cat, a Philocat 137, averaged speed of 8.3K over the rhumb line maybe 9k over the water and he sailed like that....from time to time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9IXuy6Bqvk

And this cat was being raced and very well raced by a crew of four.