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Production Boats and the Limits

792K views 5K replies 235 participants last post by  Jeff_H 
#1 · (Edited)
We've seen the age-old debate regarding what's REALLY a blue-water boat. And that's cool and everything - but it seems to me that there is a tangible middle ground between coastal cruising and true blue water sailing. Furthermore, in my blissful ignorance, I'd say that quite a few sailors inhabit this aether plain.

Sure you can buy a Hinckley or a Brewer or a Tayana or Cheoy Lee and take them wherever the hell you wanna. But where exactly can you take a Catalina, a Hunter, an Irwin, a Beneteau, a Jenneau, even.....yes....even.....a MacGregor (dum-dum-duuuuum).

Do you make sure you never leave sight of land in these boats? Do you keep land 50 miles away? 100 miles? Do you run from a 40 knot squall? Do you live in morbid fear of encountering a freak 50 knot storm - where you're cool with it in an S&S design from 1927? Can you "outrun" such storms in these "new fangled keel" boats - where in a full-keel Formasa you just heave to and ride it out with a Dark-n-Stormy and a tiparillo in your hand?

Giu had a good write up comparing Beneteaus/Catalinas/Hunters from a "sailability" standpoint. And CD has had some great input regarding the capabilities of various production boats. And we've seen the exhaustive list of blue water boats with great input from Cam and Jeff_H.

Furthermore, Val and others have pointed out the critical elements in any heavy weather situation is actually the skipper and crew. And this makes a heap of sense too.

So, the question I'd like to pose to the sailing world is this: From the standpoint of dealing with the outer limits of "coastal" cruising - what are the best production boats and why?
 
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#3,020 ·
Niner:
I went to a "re-naming" ceremony yesterday. The new owner is a friend of mine and pretty new to sailing The boat is a Tayana 42. The previous owner and his wife were at the ceremony. The boat was immaculate and fitted out to the nines (Hah!). I talked to the previous owner for quite a while. He was clearly very proud of the boat he had sold and the fact that he had done everything possible to make it a great boat. I could not help but feel a little sadness in the air when the time came to throw the metal disc with the boat's previous name into the drink.
 
#3,025 ·
Because the majority of people want "new".

Not just brand new but "New & Improved" - even if it's not really new, just different. It has been programmed into the mass market brain by decades of advertising.

"Newer? Must be better" and "Costs more? Must be better" are extremely widely held ideas.
 
#3,026 ·
So basically in the boat buying market people believe new boats have become improved, ........................... except on forums. And there it is.
 
#3,030 · (Edited)
I think newer boat should be better. Now let's define "better". There's the rub. In terms of boat speed newer should be better. Designers know more. In terms of build quality I doubt it very much. In terms of comfort that is subjective. In terms of usable volume for a give 35' DWL ( Do not compare LOA's. They can be misleading.) I would doubt it because the newer boat would most probably be quite a bit lighter. For instance, look at tankage numbers. I think they are the best indicators for usable volume. Displacement can be considered a measurement of materials, i.e. 12,000 lbs of materials vs 16,000 lbs. of materials. Materials cost money. The trend today in mass produced production boats is towards the cheapest build possible. It's all about the money honey.

Don:
Keep in mind people buy LOA. The GOB from the mid '70's might have an LOA of 36' and a DWL of 28'. Can you say "Overhangs"?
The new 36' will have almost zero overhang so in terms of volume it is a far bigger boat than the 70's vintage 36'er. The interior will be far roomier. But it's a mistake to think of it as a bigger 36'er . Compare DWL's. Take a peak at the GOB Islander 36 with it's nice but useless overhangs and compare it to the latest "me too" Euro model with almost no overhangs at all. Using LOA as a defining criteria does not work with that range of designs. Now comparing a two year old design with a design launched today LOA would certainly be more valid a comparison tool.
 
#3,035 ·
In terms of boat speed newer should be better. Designers know more.
Even that is not always the case. A friend had a mid to late 90's Hunter 340 - a much bigger (and WAY more expensive) boat than my mid 80's Hunter 31.

Its PHRF was only a few seconds lower than mine.
 
#3,034 ·
"Don't be fooled, this 28' has the room of most 33' boats!"

"Honestly, this boat while being only 30' has more space than most 36' boats!"

"When you go below you are amazed that this much room comes with a 34' boat!"

"It feels like a much larger boat!"

I always want to know what boat they are using for comparison - poor beast....

Now, let's talk FREEBOARD! If you haven't parachuted off the deck of a Hunter, you haven't lived. At the same time, the voluminous cabin below is appreciated.
 
#3,036 ·
Jon:
OK, some designers know more.

My approach is, lay off the generalities.
Appraise each boat individually.
Do not fall for the dogmatic BS you hear from PCP.
Each boat has a personality that may or may not be reflected in cold numbers.
Take the holistic approach.
O mani padme hum.

I would not even want to try and define" better" used as a generality.

Now used if I'm getting a back rub, that an entirely different thing.
" Oh yeah,,,,that's better."
 
#3,040 · (Edited)
Sky: I once became snow blind in a bar.

My wife did not test drive the last car she bought. "I like the color. I'll take it."

I'm not sure an inexperienced sailor can tell much from a test sail. They don't have the frame of reference. But they know when they like the layout.

I made a list of all the boats I could remember sailing. I got through the one design classes then I stopped. It was a very long list. I can tell the difference as I suspect most of you can.
 
#3,042 ·
Sky: I once became snow blind in a bar.
:grin ..........Must have been a hard day at a beach bar on white sand! LOL

My wife did not test drive the last car she bought. "I like the color. I'll take it."

I'm not sure an inexperienced sailor can tell much from a test sail. They don't have the frame of reference. But they know when they like the layout.

I made a list of all the boats I could remember sailing. I got through the one design classes then I stopped. It was a very long list. I can tell the difference as I suspect most of you can.
Not likely a test sail will include a squall to see how she handles rough stuff.

All boats are a compromise, as we all know. Let each one pick the spot on the curve that they like best. I don't agree with some who imagine that what they choose is the best:

Whatever I like is the best.
Who cares about all of the rest.
I'll always do fine
at least in MY mind
as long as I flee the sea test.
 
#3,041 ·
That's part of what I don't get. Regardless of how he expresses himself I think Paulo is a skilled experienced sailor. Believe I understand his point of view and in fact I'm sympathetic to the idea of advances resulting in quicker boats. What I don't understand is why he doesn't appreciate the validity of others assessment including equally or more experienced such as Jon and those with much deeper understanding of naval architecture such as Bob.

Bob if someone was to give me a brand spanking new Friendship I'd take it. Even with the useless overhangs:laugh
 
#3,043 · (Edited)
...I'd take it. Even with the useless overhangs:laugh
They are not only useless as they also degrade sailing performance, meaning that a boat without them will sail better, it will have a better sailing performance.

You can say that the difference will not be much even if regarding the big overhangs used by Bob in some modern designs it will be quite noticeable, but what makes a boat sail much better (and a modern design)it is just not one funtional detail (like overhangs) but many that go from spade rudders instead of old designed rudders, fin keels or modern foil keels instead of modified fin keels or full keels, lighter boats instead of heavier ones (smaller wet surface), the maximization of hull form stability for a given beam, a transom design that does not only contribute to that but for a smaller roll downwind, a more powerful boat /through the increase of hull form stability or lowering the CG with deeper keels with most of the ballast on the bulb (that if necessary can swing nor lift for allowing a smaller draft) and related to the more power, a bigger SA/D.

All this (and other) small details put together will give a much better and faster sailboat, then an old designed one. When a NA design a modern sailboat he just doesn't let one, two or three of them outside the equation. Modern design is just about sailing efficiency and form following function.

Sure, there is a lot of design details (out of the immersed part of the boat) that have nothing to do with sail efficiency and that can even be useless and have to do only with a style or even be trendy but those details on a modern boat would not be functional ones and will not degrade the boat performance. Nothing wrong about that, quite the contrary.
 
#3,044 · (Edited)
I wonder how much rising costs have affected build quality of today's production boats vs the GOBs.

Adjusted for inflation, my 1974 Tartan 30 would have cost about $140k in 2015 dollars. I don't know that you could actually build one for that price today, just due to the cost of resin and teak.

Bob: Since you'd have the best data, can you compare the construction cost of one of your older designs to the cost of building a similar boat today? Perhaps the Saga 48 vs the Cheoy Lee 48?

I know those aren't too similar except for displacement, LOD, and beam. Compare any models you like. Your CF Cutters are amazing, but probably too much more expensive to construct than the norm to make a good comparison for this particular question. Thanks!
 
#3,046 ·
I wonder how much rising costs have affected build quality of today's production boats vs the GOBs.
...
You have today on the market boats with different types of quality and prices, from acceptable quality and very moderated prices to boats of very high quality and very high prices. Here you have one with very high quality and a very high price:

 
#3,048 ·
PCP:
Your are wrong again. overhangs don't "degrade" the performance and in some cases they can enhance performance. I did a whole chapter in my book analyzing with VPP's the effect of bow overhang. I sincerely doubt you have ever done such a thing. You are guessing. I am not.

Let's get this straight, for a given LOA, take the TP52 box rule or any box rule, overhangs do not work. You do need some overhang aft to clean up the run. ( Got that pcp?) Within a rule that limits LOA max DWL always wins out. I'll say it again for pcp. Within a rule that limits LOA max DWL always wins out.

However, if LOA is not limited there can be benefits to overhangs fore and aft. They may be minimal (see the study and the chapter on bow shapes in my book). If you want a boat with a 34 ' DWL and you are open to overhangs you can pick up sailing length by adding overhangs. Not so much in the bow but most certainly in the stern. The best examples I can think of this is the Universal, International and last America's Cup rules. In these rules LOA was not fixed and not taxed either. Theses are rules where length is determined by girth locations. It's a bit involved to explain here. But like the IOR, once those girths are placed on the hull you can carry the hull out as far as you like. Look at some of the the extreme stern overhangs used by Gary Mull in the IOR days. Does this extreme overhang aft work? Probably not.

Now jump ahead to the last AC races in monohulls. Think of the totally dominant boat designed by Laurie Davidson, BLACK MAGIC. If you watch BM going to weather and heeled well over you will notice aft that its almost like someone hung over the stern with a piece of chalk and marked on the hull exactly where the water broke from the hull and said "Cut here." The most clearly was an effort to use as much aft overhang as possible to extend sailing length. Once the water cleared the hull the hull was trimmed off. Beyond that it was of no value. BLACK MAGIC had considerable overhang aft. It won the Cup. Overhangs fore and aft appear not to have "degraded" much of BM's performance.

So there can be no doubt that overhang aft IF NOT PENALIZED OR DEDUCTED FROM DWL can be beneficial.

Bows are more of a problem.
There is very little volume in the bow. Look at the bow of BM. Look at those powerful U shaped sections Davidson used to try to push volume into the bow. But on a boat like BM with no restriction (almost no) on bow overhang once the girth requirements had been met Davidson chose to use bow overhang. Why?

In the first series of AC boats designed to that rule Bruce Farr had split from the pack and introduced what they called the "destroyer bow". This was a bow you would recognize today with a near plumb stem and almost no overhang at all. It reduced weight in the end. It reduced beam on deck and it looked fast. It wasn't. It trials against the conventional bow boats it was found that in a chop the destroyer bowed boats were not as fast as the boats with bow overhang. This is not opinion. This is just plain fact. I had a long, quiet dinner with Laurie Davidson one night in NZ where we went over these elements of design in detail. So if you look at the last three AC's you will see the winning boats all had bow overhang. In fact Laurie came up with what was called the "Davidson bow". I cover this in my book. The Davidson bow was a way to gain overhang while not sacrificing DWL. It's a bit complicated to explain here but there is a good illustration of it in my book. Obviously Laurie Davidson did not believe that bow overhang was useless or "degrading".

So to make the comment "They are not only useless as they also degrade sailing performance," shows a clear lack of understanding on exactly how overhangs work. It depends on the situation. It depends on the rule. In some situations overhangs can be very beneficial. History has well documented this with race results.
 
#3,051 · (Edited)
It seems you are right and all the state of the art NA are wrong.

Off course because you value aesthetics more than sailing efficiency, in what regards your later cruising designs, you have to come with some form of justifying the low LWL for LOA that your cruising boats feature.

In a non planing sailing-boat there is no substitute for LWL length in what regards sailing boat performance and maximizing LWL (in what regards racing and cruising sailboats) has been one of the main trends in what regards modern yacht design on the last 30 years and that has mostly to do with the shape of bows and transoms.

It is so obvious that it does not even deserve to be discussed.

Regarding why cruisers want a 50 ft boat with a LWL close to 50ft and not a 70ft boat with a 50 ft LWL is also so obvious that does not deserve discussion, however if you want to discuss that I will.
 
#3,049 · (Edited)
eko ditto:

Not sure exactly what you are asking.

You sell boats by LOA. You buy boats by the pound. Take the price of any boat and divide it by the displ and you'll get a price per pound. I don't have new boat prices on hand for my old designs. I was never really concerned with price. It would be interesting to know what the price per pound was for a Passport 40 and compare it to a 40'er of today. Iwill dig a bi and see if I have any information on Passport 40 original prices.

No pcp, would you please drop this ugly habit of putting words into other people's mouths! I never said people would but the Passport today if it were built. Why? It would be very, very expensive. A new Passport 40 today built as it was built 20 years ago would cost maybe $750,000. Take the price per pound of any new, high quality boat, and multiply is by 28,000 lbs.. That would give you an indicator of a new Passport in today's market.

For fun consider this, In 1974 the base price of a Valiant 40 was $63,500. You'd have a hard time finding a beater used V-40 for that today.
 
#3,052 · (Edited)
pcp:
You need to read slower.
"ff course because you value aesthetics more than sailing efficiency"

I used the example of the AC boats exactly because in these cases AESTHETCS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Personally I do not care for overhangs. I would put overhangs on a design if the client requested them. I like DWL. Please read that slowly pcp. I like DWL.

What I posted is fact. Study the AC monohulls. Study the International and Universal rule boats. It's not "opinion" it's just history. If it's beyond your comprehension that's your personal problem and I want nothing to do with that.

Please re read my post and read slowly this time. It's just facts. I am not at all interested in your opinion. I just feel the need to be a counterpoint to your myopic, dogmatic comments so others here are not confused.
 
#3,062 ·
The LWL is only one factor in what regards performance. The last AC monohulls, the fastest boats designed by the IACC class rules (that provided slow monohulls by the standards of that time) had or plumb bows or slightly inverted ones, like the one of the winning boat:



The boats that were to be expected to be the next AC monohull, where these ones (AC 90):



The new rule would allow for much faster and more modern boats boats that would not only have a maximized LWL (with transoms and bows designed to that effect) but would be beamier and with a large transom, with all the beam pulled back. This was 8 years ago and that is already a long time in what regards racing design. Unfortunately or not, the AC went for multihulls and the AC 90 were never built.

 
#3,053 ·
Paulo
You are a funny man. I will be as annoyingly pedantic as you in this reply.
Have you ever looked at paintings of older boats? Don't you know plumb bows have only been around for some centuries. As Bob previously mentioned a PIA in a cruising boat. Walk down a dock and see the various fugly things people hang over their bows to protect their plumb bows when not actively sailing. Or the scarred stainless protectors attached to the hulls.
Plumb sterns are also centuries old. In the past with heavy boats they were submerged. Now they may be at or slightly above or below the static waterline. When at anchor if there is any kind of chop running through the anchorage they produce an annoying slap. My current boat has this. My prior T37 did not.
The lwl of boats with overhangs vary depending on speed through the water and heel. NAs used this to cheat on racing rules. For at time this was a concern which fortunately no longer applies. Still if done right it seems to me some boats with this feature where waterline is brought aft squat less. Seems to me that an advantage of pizza pie boats with beam brought aft is they resist swatting as long as gyradius is perserved.
I'm no NA but even I have some awareness of this. Thought you would too.
In short, what you call new in your recent post is not. Any feature on a boat is a trade off. You improve something at the expense of something else.
What is new is the ability to create what in the past were called ultralights. The avant of CF/foam boats allows very strong hulls to be built with surprisingly little weight. This has caused a shift in paradigm. It's a delight to see how NAs exploit the opportunities this material allows. Downside is expense placing it out of the reach of the average cruiser.
 
#3,067 ·
I'm no NA but even I have some awareness of this. Thought you would too.
There was your first mistake - Paulo only knows "Newer is better".
 
#3,054 ·
My web site is chock full of boats with minimal overhangs. If anyone really is interested all they have to do it look. This is fact not pcp's bloviating opinion. Check out my web site. It's nice.

So rather than post a bunch of my own designs with plum, stems , you can see them on my web site, I thought I'd post these for fun. I like a nice plumb or near plumb stem.






Oh pcp, just in case it escapes you,,,,,,,,these are cartoons.
 
#3,055 ·
If this were a movie it would be about this time for some posters here to rip each others clothes off and have wild monkey sex on the coffee table!
 
#3,057 · (Edited)
Not bloody likely Don.

How about I go walk my dog. Big meeting today and tomorrow with Butch Ulmer of UK Sails and Steve King of Offshore Spars. They are here for the carbon cutter project. Long day at the yard tomorrow. They are staying at my shack so I will be very busy.

I can guarantee you there will be endless boat talk, some disagreements but not ONE SINGLE ARGUMENT! It will all be fun. Even the work part.
 
#3,063 · (Edited)
Yes pcp, plumb bow AND overhang. You really need to pay attention to the complete picture. We were talking about overhangs. Are you moving the goal posts again to cover your rear end?

Notice the very pronounced Davidson bow on ALINGHI? I'm sure you did not. I'm sure you never heard of the Davidson bow until today.
Also notice the generous stern overhang. You see pcp you only see what you want to see and you ignore the rest.
 
#3,065 ·
Very nice boats designed with bows to suit the requirements of the owners. If they want overhang I give it to them. Pity we don't get your approval first. In both cases it was an aesthetic choice. Their aesthetic choice, not yours.

You are totally oblivious to the custom design process.
 
#3,069 ·
Paulo, since you seem to think you know more than even the pro's about yacht design, let's have a test.

You remember tests from your days teaching don't you?

Explain to those of us less enlightened folks here the following arcane yacht design concepts - and no Internet cut & paste - in your own words please, just like a school test.

1. Prismatic coefficient

2. Block coefficient

3. How do they differ?

4. Dellenbaugh Angle
 
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