Small Boats & Atlantic Crossing

[JBsurfin]

Originally Posted by cooper1991

I'm following youtube episodes of a single handed crossing of Atlantic by a guy with a 26ft Contessa with a 5HP outboard.

Is this an exceptional sailor, exceptional boat of exceptional luck?

I know 26ft means no comfort and getting wet, but how small can you go to stay dry(ish) and have low/medium comfort?

Not sure what the big deal is, people have crossed the Atlantic in row boats..the first being Harbo and Samuelsen June 6, 1896, had an 18-foot ship-lap (clinker-built) oak rowboat built with water-resistant cedar sheathing. It included a couple of watertight flotation compartments, two rowing benches, and rails to help them right it if capsized. This was an open boat.

[peliflight]

I sailed my 1968, Challenger 32 across the pacific starting in 1983. It is a very broad beam and a lot of free board and room. Very comfortable cruising boat. I survived several force 10 storms off of New Zealand. I sailed it single hand and with crew. After 14,000 nm I ended up in Australia in 1987, where I sold her to an Englishman who then sailed it back to England. As an interesting aside several years ago I did a search for the boat and found it for sale in England so it is still going!

[chasfgr]

The Contessa 26 was the first (and some say the best) of David Sadler's designs.
Tiny, you couldn't stand up in unless you were a midget, tough and utterly seaworthy.
I'd rate it as the greatest pocket cruiser ever designed - the concept being an improved Folkboat.
I has one for three years - my sailing companion was 2 1/2 inches taller than me @ 6'.
Only one berth we could use....

[Carl-T705]

Originally Posted by Flagman101

I know a guy who sailed from Halifax NS across to Azores, then down to Capo Verde and all the way down to south Africa then back North to Canada. Called a big 8.
He did it on a 28 ft sailboat without a motor.
It takes a special type of person to put yourself into that much disconfort. But some do it.

. How does one judge another person's discomfort level??? Seems very prejudicial doesn't it?

[Carl-T705]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

Robin Graham did a circ on Dove, which was a 24-foot sailboat.

Dove by Robin Lee Graham
https://bookoutlet.ca/Store/Details/...SABEgL-6_D_BwE

Not a complete circumnavigation on Dove, he bought a larger boat along the way.

[Carl-T705]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Exceptional boat, yes.
Sailor, no idea.
Probably normal amount of luck.

In the 1980s an inexperienced 18yr old woman took a Contessa 26 around the world.

Who was this? Tana was not inexperienced, unless you mean as a singlehander . My understanding is she sailed with her family on offshore passages.

[HappyGuy]

There are many small boats that have done extensive ocean passages. Many much less than 26 feet too.
The smallest boat to do a circumnavigation was an aluminium hulled yacht just 12 feet long called Acroc Australis, sailed by Serge Testa.. He encounted a couple of cyclones in the Indian Ocean and a gale of 40 knots at Cape Town. He wrote a book called "500 Days" about his voyage.

Size from my experience doesn't have a lot to do with seaworthiness. It is all about good design and sound construction.
The Contessa is a good design and soundly built as I understand it.

I don't accept that small well designed yachts are any less comfortable in terms of boat motion than bigger boats having sailed in open waters on boats from 22 feet to 40 feet including three offshore passages.

My son and his wife took my NZ built 24 ft Sparkman and Stevens cruising on the Queensland coast from Brisbane to Bundaberg and back several years ago. On board were their 3 sons aged 8, 6 and 1 month old, Conditions were SE to NE on the coastal passages. (onshore winds)
They had a ball!!

I had planned on taking this boat to New Caledonia, up to Darwin - then Indonesia, then back to Aust and around Australia, but health issues prevented that.
A sister ship was sailed single handed from NZ to Caribbean via Vanuatu, Darwin, Cocos Keeling, Madagascar, Cape Town,. His brother joined him in Caribbean and they sailed the boat to France via the Azores without issues.

I met a chap in Vanuatu who was sailing a 20 feet aluminium boat. He had come from Port Headland in Western Australia - to Perth - to New Plymouth in NZ via Great Australian Bight and Bass Straight. Then to Auckland - to Fiji - then to Vanuatu, He was going to head across the top of New Caledonia to the Qld coast. He told me he had done three passages from Port Headland to Bali and back as well in it.

I met a chap who sailed a 26ft Reactor by Paul Whiting from NZ via Cape Horn to UK years ago. He had come from UK in a wooden boat which sank in the Sothern Ocean shortly after leaving NZ and was rescued. Paul Whiting had organised the Reactor for him to carry on his voyage.
His voyage was to raise funds for the UK Heart Foundation.

[Flagfish]

No big deal. The Contessa is a good boat. I sailed from BC to Hawaii with a buddy in 2014 on an Albin Vega 27. The engine conked leaving San Fran, so we continued on, then I singlehanded engineless back to BC.

You just have to stay aware and choose your arrival/departure carefully. I kept a bow and stern anchor ready for fast deployment if needed.

[barryglewis]

From memory-
Direct Crossing UK to the US against the Westerlies single handed:

Humphrey Barton Vertue 35 , about 1955
1960 single-handed transatlantic race -
Blonde Hazler, Val Howell in Folkboats and David Lewis in a Vertue.

Same Vertue later sailed by Bob Nance W to East around Cape Horn

BH's junk rig folkboat Jester went on to make many more direct E-W crossings in the OSTARs sailed by Mike Richie

1955 John Guzwell in 20ft 6 inch Trekka

[LLCoolDave]

Originally Posted by Carl-T705

Who was this? Tana was not inexperienced, unless you mean as a singlehander . My understanding is she sailed with her family on offshore passages.

Her father bought a boat in the med and they sailed it to the US. She admits in the book that she had little to no active participation in sailing that first boat. The father was a jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down type of guy which is why he offered Tania the choice between sailing the contessa 26 solo or he would pay for college. Obviously she chose the 26.

[double u]

Colin Mudie & Patrick Ellam on Sopranino (19'8'): transat 1954
Shane Acton on "Shrimpy" (18' Caprice) rtw in 70ies
& on our own travels we had the pleasure to meet:
Austrians Karin & Hans on 24' Reactor "Jaffa": NZ to Med (later with another boat min. 3 rtw)
Germans Helga & Harald (with MS) "Bunte Kuh" (~25'): transat in 82
Austrians Inge & Alfred on K27 (C&C27 produced in Austria): rtw in early 80ies
German Hans on "Riffgat" (Wibo 7-8m): Europe-Panama, probably rtw early 80ies
Danes Adrienne & Tage on "Manuia" (Vancouver 27): DK to AUS early 80ies
Swedes Yvonne & Rolf on "Sirius" (either Cutlass 27 or Contessa 26): rtw in 90ies
& many more that oncoming old age made me forget -accept my apologies. Anecdotes with & from you would fill a book

[HappyGuy]

Another Kiwi sailor, Rock Singer - Andrew Fagan has done extensive passages in his 18 ft plywood yacht "Swirly World in Perpetuity"
First was Auckland to Raoul in the Kermadec group and back - 1008 kms each way.
Later the Trans-Tasman yacht race New Plymouth to Mooloolaba on the Qld coast and return to NZ

Also a voyage from Auckland to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands which lie 360 kms south of Stewart Island at a bit over 50 degs south lattitude - and return,
See article about that voyage here:-
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/loca...windswept-seas.

I know of another 24 ft plywood twin keel yacht that also sailed from the Bay of Islands to the Auckland Islands and returned via the Chatham Islands east of Christchurch.

If boats like these can do these voyages singe handed - then sailing a Contessa 26 across the Atlantic should be no big deal

[boatman61]

These posts are not to belittle the guys achievement in taking on a solo Transat.. he joins a list of people who have done it over the years.
Most will not or cannot be prepared to face the alone time involved in such an effort which takes a certain type of mentality that the majority of today's cruisers rail against.

[Yellowtulip]

Originally Posted by bensolomon

Joshua Slocum had his 28 foot Osprey and Lin and Larry Pardey had their 28 foot Seraffyn. Certainly they are exceptional people and sailors, with well built boats, but we all have that same potential if we choose to realize it.

Slocum’s circumnavigating “Spray” was about 40 feet. He built and sailed the 35 foot “Liberdade” from Brazil to Canada.

[steamgoat]

Don’t forger John Guzzwell, Trekka, 20ft 6in, at the time the smallest boat to ever circumnavigate and the first Englishman to do so singlehanded.