Bayfield 25, how seaworthy?

[mitiempo]

I agree with Jeff and others about luck playing possibly too much a part of such a trip. As far as careening, see this link for another solution: http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...some-legs.html
Legs like this have been used on several boats that I know of in that size range, a Vega 27 as well as Atom which is a Triton.
Brian

[Ericb]

I do not have any experience with the Bayfield 25 or any of their line of boats and so I do not know first hand....

But I do know that Jeff_H has a major prejudice against full keel/heavier displacement boats as several of his posts can testify to - as well as to the fact that he does not understand yacht design as well he thinks.

Sorry, but a lot of people read forums and don't realize that the content should be looked at first and foremost as peoples opinions - not necessarily facts or even reality for that matter.

[Gary M]

umm actualy Jeff talked about actual draft, ballast ratio, beam and hull shape, sounds a lot like facts to me not opinons. He suggested that a folkboat had better numbers and they of course are a full keel displacment boat so not sure your second comment holds water.

Another poster said, which scares the heck out of me, that a Bayfield 25 did one or two complete rolls in 55 MPH wind !

They can be a fun little boat but they do have their limitations as all boats do.

[Ericb]

Originally Posted by Gary M

umm actualy Jeff talked about actual draft, ballast ratio, beam and hull shape, sounds a lot like facts to me not opinons. He suggested that a folkboat had better numbers and they of course are a full keel displacment boat so not sure your second comment holds water.

Another poster said, which scares the heck out of me, that a Bayfield 25 did one or two complete rolls in 55 MPH wind !

They can be a fun little boat but they do have their limitations as all boats do.

More or less correct. The less is that my second comment is still true because as I said "as several of his posts can testify to". The fact that he compared two full keel boats and preferred one over the other does not make my second comment wrong.

And in any case the "facts" as you called them - which in this case are just the basic numbers relating to draft, beam and ballast are the facts. What people (not just Jeff_H) do with these numbers are what constitutes the "opinions".

In general arm-chair sailors tend to focus more on the numbers - as that is all they have. Been there - done that. All of these numbers and ratios are mainly a help to the yacht designers. I don't know if mere mortals buying a boat should worry that much about it.

The really interesting thing is that the Bayfield 25 would seem to have more in common with Jeff_H's preferred type of boat than the Folkboat which is in fact closer to what I would prefer.

But that's just MY opinion....

[Jeff_H]

Eric,

The one truth here is that you don't know much about my preferences at all. I have only have one strong bias, that is towards boats that sail well and by the term 'sail well' I do not simply mean that they are fast. I use that term to mean, are easy to handle, have reasonably comfortable motions, sail reliably in a wide range of conditions and so on.

I am very much a fan of traditional sailing craft, by which I mean both cruising boats and working boats that derive from the lessons learned from working water craft. That includes boats that truly have full keels and not some aberation that derives from some racing rule or some marketing gimmick.

You are very mistaken when you say that I have a prejudice against full keels. I do not have a blanket prejudice against full keels, but I also have enough experience sailing on a wide variety of boats that have had full keels to understand that they are not the panacea that they are often portrayed to be.

I also have spent enough time sailing on boats that have a deeply cut away forefoot and rudder posts located far from the transom to understand that these are not full-keeled boats at all, and that they do not behave like full keeled boats, and frankly, in my experience and opinion, result in compromises that make them far less desirable in most ways than either a more traditional full keel or a well designed fin keel. If I have a prejudice against a keel type, it is what used to be (when I was a kid) referred to as a fin keel with attached rudder, and which by any name is a keel whose bottom approached 50% of the length of the boat and which has an attached rudder. To me, these are the worst of all worlds and in most cases lack the virtues of either a full keel or a fin keel with a detached rudder.

And yes, it is also true that I personally like well designed fin keel/ spade rudder boats (whether that rudder post or skeg hung). I use the term 'well-designed' because there are a lot of really poor fin keel/spade rudder designs out there. I frankly prefer fin keel/spade rudders for my own personal boat and consider them better suited for my current needs than a full-keeled boat.

I also think that most of the sailors who come on Sailnet are sailing in venues and manners where they would be better served by a boat with either a fin keel/spade rudder or else with a keel/centerboard configuration. (I say 'most' because there are folks on these forums sailing in venues, with specific sailing goals, or with aesthetic preferences that would lean them towards other keel/hull configurations.)

Unlike you, who says he is still looking for his first boat, I have owned 17 boats in my life. These include a 1939 Stadel cutter, a design that derived from a 19th century working pilot boat and was as full a keel design as you could imagine, a 1949 Swedish Folkboat, CCA era boats, IOR era boats, MORC boats from a range of periods, and early IMS (MHS) era boats. I have had near unbridled use of dozens of boats in my life, and raced and cruised on perhaps a hundred different classes of boats in my life. You and I are in agreement that what I write is only my opinion and is limited by my own limits of knowledge, but that said my opinion is based on 47 years of comparing the behavior of these many boats that I have sailed on, a whole lot of reading and attending yacht design symposiums over a 48 year period of time, my training as a yacht designer, and my experience working in naval architect and yacht design offices.

Throughout all of those experiences, I have carefully studied the behavior of one design feature relative to the other and from that I have formed my opinions, and yes, i know these are soley my opinion and yes I know they reflect the biases that reflect the types of sailing that I personally have done, and perhaps more importantly, often reflect and is limited by the types of sailing that I have not done and have no intention of doing.

And despite all of that experience, I know that there are holes in my knowledge, and areas where I am mistaken. I understand that I am very much an amatuer, a dilettante, that there is a lot that I don't know, that I make mistakes, remember things incorrectly, and that there are a whole lot of folks out there who know a whole lot more about these things than I ever will.

Like most folks, I come here to share my experiences as a way to return the favor to those people who generously shared knowledge with me along the way, but equally importantly to continue to learn, and one way to learn is to engage in informed and intellectually honest discussion, where dubious opinions can be corrected or clarified, and missing knowledge added to.

As to your comment, "that he does not understand yacht design as well he thinks", I suggest that blanket statements like that add little to a discussion. If you think that I have made a mistake in my comments address that mistake. We both might learn from that process. But no one learns anything from baseless ad-hominem comments and I say 'baseless' since you clearly really know very little about how I view my knowledge of yacht design.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand, in a general sense you are very right that simply relying on the numbers can be a little or even very misleading. But in this case, getting down to specifics of the boat in question, the numbers are so skewed relative to the norm or even to a well-known benchmark for a small full-keeled offshore cruiser, (the Folkboat) that I think the numbers are very relevant to someone weighing a decision to go offshore on the boat in question.

And lastly, when you say, "The really interesting thing is that the Bayfield 25 would seem to have more in common with Jeff_H's preferred type of boat than the Folkboat which is in fact closer to what I would prefer." it shows that you do not understand my viewpoint at all. The types of boats that I prefer includes boats like the Folkboat. They were simple, seaworthy, well mannered little boats that could sail well across a very wide range of conditions. That description and my preferences do not include boats like the smaller Bayfields, which (in my opinion) I generally consider to be charactures of traditional sailing craft, rather than being the kind of well balanced design concept that traditional water craft tend to be. To my eye, and in my opinion, Bayfields, and other character boats of that era and thier ilk, eschew the lessons learned from geniune traditional watercraft which have designs evolved based on hundred of years of experience in harsh environments.

Respectfully,
Jeff

[camaraderie]

Well... I was gonna stick up for you Jeff...but you seem to have done a pretty good job yourself!

I think anyone here for a while knows your boat yard experience, thoughtful insights and ACTUAL time at sea and in racing venues makes you a treasured resource here as your REP indicates.
A johnny come lately with no-rep no-boat and no design experience starts complaining about YOUR biases without explaining from his OWN experience why they are wrong.... and I just have to shake my head a laugh.

[Gary M]

"I generally consider to be charactures of traditional sailing craft,"

That is perfect, I was trying to come up with a way of expressing that very thing but could not.

I mean no offence to any one who owns and likes one, after all it is "what ever floats your boat" we all have different tastes.

[Cruisingdad]

Originally Posted by Ericb

More or less correct. The less is that my second comment is still true because as I said "as several of his posts can testify to". The fact that he compared two full keel boats and preferred one over the other does not make my second comment wrong.

And in any case the "facts" as you called them - which in this case are just the basic numbers relating to draft, beam and ballast are the facts. What people (not just Jeff_H) do with these numbers are what constitutes the "opinions".

In general arm-chair sailors tend to focus more on the numbers - as that is all they have. Been there - done that. All of these numbers and ratios are mainly a help to the yacht designers. I don't know if mere mortals buying a boat should worry that much about it.

The really interesting thing is that the Bayfield 25 would seem to have more in common with Jeff_H's preferred type of boat than the Folkboat which is in fact closer to what I would prefer.

But that's just MY opinion....

Where did that come from?

Incidentally, Jeff and I are always dissagreeing on boats but our perspectives are different. That certainly does not make him wrong. But he is NOOOO arm chair sailor. He is a very experienced, very well known racer and quite liked around these woods and elsewhere. And I sure am not an armchair sailor. I have posted the pics to prove it... so has he.

Go over to the Liveabord Family thread. Read about how I basically told the guy that he would be crazy to buy the boat he wa stalking about or doing the LA like he wanted. I have been there and done that. Not 5 posts later, someone else chimed in and HAS done it just the way I said he would be crazy for doing it. The point is that you must take all of this information and make your own decisions. But that certainly did not make either myself or the other sailor uninformed, not knowledgeable, or arm chair sailors. Crap, ask 4 sailors the same question you will get 5 answers.

Now I have nothing to add to this thread about Bayfields. I know little about them. But if I was the poster on this thread, I would not take any exception to any of the comments here - especially from those that have been there and have done that. One only must be cautious here about peoples opinions who are not based in experience. And the later certainly is not Jeff.

- CD

[johnshasteen]

Jeff and all you fin keel, spade rudder fans might find this of interest and this not my opinion, this is objective observation: The last time I sailed Paloma up to Southern Yachts (a mega-shipyard off of Galveston Bay), for a bottom job and new zincs, a full 60% of the sailboats blocked up on the hard were fin keel/spade rudder boats, with bent rudder posts or separated keels. The biggest batch of bent rudder posts were on big, expensive Beneteaus while most of the separated keels were a variety of fin keelers. One of the separated keels was an Irwin that had hit a submerged object low on the keel and it pulled the keel away from the hull enough that you could put your hand between the hull and the forward edge of the keel.
And, as well you might guess, none of the keel-hung or skeg-hung rudder boats were among the disabled.
If you like the Bayfield - buy it. The cockpit is kind of small and deep, making it a bit hard to see over the cabin trunk, but it's a sturdy little boat that will take you most places you'll likely go - not quickly, but it will make it there. And, don't worry about the story of the Bayfield 25 that barrel rolled twice in 55 knot winds - there's a whole world of boats in that size range that would not have survived the first roll.

[camaraderie]

John...thats why you want an encapsulated fin keel and a skeg hung rudder!