FORMOSA 41 sailing speed ??

[clayjay]

Hello all you wonderful, helpful nautical types out there,
I'd be keen to hear from anyone with first hand experience of the sailing speeds for a FORMOSA 41 in a variety of wind speeds. I am aware these boats are displacement hulls and am under no illusions they are speed machines but are they really that bad in light airs?
What would be a minimum wind speed to achieve say 4 knots or 6 knots?

[zeehag]

ok here it is.... in 5 kt breeze i can get 1-2 kts out of boat. at 10 kts i have gotten 3-3.5 kts. in 20 kts i have sailed 4 kts to 5 k ts. in 60+ kt chubasco i pulled 8.4 kts sog. that was fun.
i have yet to sail at 6 kts sog.

[Jason Flare]

In my experience the numbers zeehag has posted are very conservative.

I haven’t kept track but I’d venture to say that on a beam reach we can do 6.0 to 6.5 at 20kts.

Downwind we need over 20 kts to be above 5.0 to 5.5.

Upwind we don’t do especially well and we avoid upwind jumps or motor sail if necessary.

I sailed our boat before purchase and, considering how poorly it was purported to sail, I was very happy to see how it performed in about 10 to 12 knots of breeze.

[zeehag]

on west coast we sail down wind mostly, but chubasco was a beam wind....upwind?? go elsewhere..is why there are so many places to sail.
and trade winds... these love trade winds

[Cheechako]

How hard are you willing to work? How much sail are you willing to put up? It'a all about that and 1.31 times the square root of the waterline length. :>) Westsail 32's used to win the Pacific Cup in their class.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

It'a all about that and 1.31 times the square root of the waterline length.

Minor correction on the theoretical hull speed calculation. it's actually 1.34 x the square root of the LWL.


Bill O.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Bill O

Minor correction on the theoretical hull speed calculation. it's actually 1.34 x the square root of the LWL.


Bill O.

it's the pits getting old!

[zeehag]

by the way--my speeds are under jib and mizzen only. my job is driving sail of 150 percent and mizzen is bent onto a 14 ft boom. they are actual sog, not guesstimations... for the record, whil ei showed 8.,4 kts sog, a watcher of my trip stated i was actually 12.8 kts........... that is a lil overstated i believe. 8.4 i can get with as i SAW that on my gps speed log.
ps our alleged hull speed if you can manage that is 7.5 kts. hahahahahahahahaha try sustaining that without trade winds....

[AlanR]

Originally Posted by zeehag

by the way--my speeds are under jib and mizzen only. my job is driving sail of 150 percent and mizzen is bent onto a 14 ft boom. they are actual sog, not guesstimations... for the record, whil ei showed 8.,4 kts sog, a watcher of my trip stated i was actually 12.8 kts........... that is a lil overstated i believe. 8.4 i can get with as i SAW that on my gps speed log.
ps our alleged hull speed if you can manage that is 7.5 kts. hahahahahahahahaha try sustaining that without trade winds....

What's all this sog stuff? My Fisher 31 has done over 10 knots sog, but there was a fairly strong current flowing at the time. It is speed through the water that you should be measuring, or bragging about. Speed over the ground is meaningless here.

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by AlanR

What's all this sog stuff? My Fisher 31 has done over 10 knots sog, but there was a fairly strong current flowing at the time. It is speed through the water that you should be measuring, or bragging about. Speed over the ground is meaningless here.

speed after calculating current, amigo was my speed. 1-4 kt southerly drift is what made the watchers viewing of 12.8 kts when i was seeing only 8.4.

[roverhi]

I tried to deliver one of the first CT41's from LA to SF. Only got as far as Santa Barbara as the engine died. It was a long one week attempt to make the boat move under sail for the hundred miles or so to Santa Barbara. Boat only had working sails but would not sail in winds other boats did fine in. Got in the middle of a race out of Ventura or thereabouts. The race boats sailed out around us, over the horizon to their mark and then back while we went nowhere. Actually did go somewhere as the boat surfed nicely BACKWARDS on the long Pacific swells that were rolling in. Performance might be improved with a Genoa but would expect to have a lot of engine time in winds under 10K.

The engine problem turned out to be seawater ingress into the tank(s). They'd installed the tank vent fairly low down and pointed forward without a loop in the line. Sailing with the slight heel we had in brief stint of wind after leaving MDR pumped sea water into the tank.

[Capt. Ray]

Speed over Ground is not relevant to this discussion, the original poster is obviously talking about sailing speed. SOG is influenced by currents, tide, wave direction etc.

Also the point of sail is needed. I know these boats pretty well, you can wear the full suit of sails easily on a beam reach up to 25 knots TRUE wind and you will probably get about 6.5 knots through the water. Possibly theoretical hull speed if your sails are new. They do not point well so as you bear up you will lose speed no matter how you trim.

Originally Posted by zeehag

by the way--my speeds are under jib and mizzen only. my job is driving sail of 150 percent and mizzen is bent onto a 14 ft boom. they are actual sog, not guesstimations... for the record, whil ei showed 8.,4 kts sog, a watcher of my trip stated i was actually 12.8 kts........... that is a lil overstated i believe. 8.4 i can get with as i SAW that on my gps speed log.
ps our alleged hull speed if you can manage that is 7.5 kts. hahahahahahahahaha try sustaining that without trade winds....

[zeehag]

ok capt ray. i think we have disagreed before.
my gps corrects my drift and current to give me sailing speed which some want to call sog.
speed overall is more due to current and drift. mebbe you didnot read these parts of the comments. is all good. i only sail mine on pacific, so far, and under genoa and mizzen. current /drift southerly is only 1-4 kts.
uphill is a lot different as they donot bash well. i got anywhere from 1.2 to 3 kts uphill, variable wind, 5 kt to 20, from nw. oops into wind. yup uphill. hahahahahahaha the 1.2-2 kts uphill was with a somewhat ailing perkins which ka lunked shortly thereafter. took us 80 hours to do a 40 hour bash. my engine is a perkins 4-108.
as i stated someone watching my progress downhill in chubasco called me at 12,8 kts. i laughed, as i knew i was 8.4 per my numbers seen as i sailed.
we can argue alllll day if you wish but the op only wanted to know what the realities are. i spoke reality. you spoke theory. BIG DIFFERENCE.

[Jim Cate]

my gps corrects my drift and current to give me sailing speed which some want to call sog.

Zee, all that your gps, or any gps can measure is indeed speed over the surface of the earth or SOG if you wish. It can not know what the speed and direction of any current might be, so it can not compensate for that to give you speed through the water which is how most folks measure sailing performance.

I do not doubt that under the right circumstances your boat might achieve 8.4 knots through the water, but it would need to be surfing a bit to get there. And no matter what your friends told you, 12.8 knots is fantasy. Besides, unless they had a radar gun like a traffic cop's, how could they possibly measure your instantaneous speed from some distant point of observation? But then, I think that you already know this!

Jim

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

How hard are you willing to work? How much sail are you willing to put up? It'a all about that and 1.31 times the square root of the waterline length. :>) Westsail 32's used to win the Pacific Cup in their class.

Actually its more about sail area to displacement. You are never getting close to the limit of waterline length in these hulls, in winds less than 25 knots, and then only well off the wind. My Morgan 46 included. Putting a bigger rig will help a lot in light winds, but then you have to reef sooner and you would also need more and deeper ballast.

Not to dismiss the great effort by captain and crew, but the Wetsnail had an insane handicap number at least in PHRF.