Sailaway, I think that I pretty much agree with all that you have written in that last post and it does clarify some of the apparent differences in our earlier posts. Nice work.
Just for the record, I never have advocated dead plumb stems for offshore cruising. Instead I prefer raked or short spoon bows, a hollow or straight entry, and a reasonable amount of flare, a bow form which can be seen in both modern and historic cruising boats. In the end, much of this comes down to the specifics of the particular design.
But if we get back to the original topic, about whether CCA era boats make good offshore cruisers, I still think that they are a poor choice for offshore cruising, even considering their price. My basis is that I think that their long bow and stern overhangs are less than ideal offshore because long overhangs negatively impact carrying capacity, tracking and motion comfort. I think that CCA
rigs are poorly proportioned for offshore work in that they were designed around huge 170% genoas and wide headed
spinnakers, both of which are ill-suited for offshore sailing, but without them, the boats are underpowered even in moderate conditions, so you have a choice of some combination of slow passages, lots of
fuel consumption, or lots of sail changes. I think that their keels with their cut away forefoot and steeply raked stern posts and with thier attached rudders (what would have been called fin keels with attached rudders in their day) result in the worst of all worlds, poor tracking, heavy helms, and placing thethe rudder in the most vulnerable of all positions, near the point of maximum draft.
But then again, that's just my opinion.
Jeff