Big crew, small boat?

[Jeffamc]

What are your opinions of having a big crew on a small sailboat and sailing from Maine to Spain on a 25ft-30ft (by a big crew i mean 4-5 people)- we could use boxed food and eat fish, get a water filter- pump so that i wont need alot of water weighing down the boat, use the water filter/ pump when ever we want water. So what are some opionions? am i crazy ?

[Stede]

JoshAdams,

No, I don''t think you''re crazy for thinking of sailing a 25-30ft.boat from Maine to Spain. I do think you''ll be crazy though by the time you get to Spain on that small of a boat with four to five people aboard.That is, if you live through it.

[Jeff_H]

Josh:

While with a great deal of luck you might be able to do what you are proposing with that many people crammed in such a small boat, the likelihood of making in a reasonably safe and even marginally comfortable manner is quite small. When I say comfortable, I mean having enough berths that people on the offwatch can rest properly so that you won''t wear out the crew. I also mean having sufficient food and water that you won''t have to ration food and water further harming your crew''s capabilities. With that many people on board that small a boat it will be a very slow passage and so you will need a lot more supplies and water than a larger faster boat. Counting on a water maker is also a dubious idea. Watermakers rather inefficiently convert engine fuel into water, meaning that most are electrically driven and are pretty large energy hogs. You end up needed fuel to operate the engine to charge the batteries to make the water which means larger fuel tanks in order to have the potential for smaller water tanks. BUT, since watermakers are notoriously unreliable it is not a great idea to reduce the water supply storage beyond what is needed to make this kind of passage.

This sounds like a really bad idea.
Jeff