[bljones]

Taking PHRF entirely out of the picture, the elapsed time tells the tale:

Yacht Scoring - A complete web based regatta administration and yacht scoring program

The Hobie 33 is obviously one hell of a downwind drag racer.

 

[jameswilson29]

Here is what it looks like when a $10K, low-tech, 35-year-old J/24 planes past your $300K Open 60-styled boat incorporating all the lastest technology and electronics (different race, same conditions and same effect):

The $20K 30-year-old Hobie 33 would also spray you with its bow wave as it passed you...

 

[night0wl]

May be faster, but I'm sure the folks on the newer bigger cruiser-racers arrived in better form to the after-party

 

[zz4gta]

James, I've done this race twice in my Merit 25. Basically the same boat as a J24. Once I finished in 34 hours in 4th place. The next year we finished in 35 hours and won our class. We beat "boat for boat" the entire PHRF B fleet over the line. Both years it was entirely upwind. Does that mean the Merit 25 with 20' of waterline is faster upwind than a newer 33 footer upwind? No, it doesn't.

There's is now doubt in my mind we would've won the Miles river race on saturday. We took Second last year in our class and with a downwind ride in a 3000 lbs boat that J24 surfing wouldn't of had a chance. Unfortunately I'm injured and had to bail.

Fact is that I know my boat is fast downwind in a blow. It will surf and plane much sooner than larger heavier boats. Newness has nothing to do with it.

The Hobbie 33 is a downwind machine. Take a look at the results from past transpacs. A typically downwind race. Lots of videos of these 33 footers surfing and planing. Some boats go downwind like a rocket. Others, not so much.

The TP 52 is a "Trans Pac 52" footer. It was built specifically for a downwind sleigh ride in the pacific ocean screaming down waves in 25+ knots. When you purposely build a boat for specific conditions it will scream in those conditions. Hobbie 33's are built for similar downwind conditions.

The real impressive feat here, is the TP52. Set a new course record of just over 7 hours. That's an average speed of 17 kts.

James, if you'd like discus this more, I'll be at SBRW this weekend. Stop in for a beer and I can go into more detail. I'll be on the other Merit 25 down there, not mine.

 

[zz4gta]

...and in other news, two ancient, Pearson Tritons rating 252 corrected to 1st and 2nd place in PHRF C in the Miles River Race on Saturday. They didn't even have any high-tech rags for cryin' out loud.

I managed to surf my way to 10.8 knots SOG and peg out the knot meter multiple times in a Pearson 30 and was still DFL.

Mortifying.

You know why...

 

[PCP]

Not sure what rating the Hobie had, but IIRC in South Cal, the hobie has 3 ratings, around the bouy rating of say 100, ocean rating with some up and down wind of say 90, and a down wind projected race of say 80. NOW, that I have posted 3 ratings for this boat per say, please note, I doubt very much my numbers are correct. BUT it does show the how some regions will rate a given boat, and why the hobie probably smoked the course, adn to a degree, the J24. If a Moore 30 would have been racing, probably would have done the same. if it woudhave been an upwind race, then some old heavy clunker might have been able to do the same......

Lets all be realistic, some races do bring out the best conditions for a given boat, and that boat if sailed well, will smoke the fleet!

I would also agree, that NFS is hard to compare to nfs ratings too. Some boat will sail way faster than the 18sec credit one gets with a spin vs with out! Folding vs fixed props are also not true. a fixed will cost one more than the 9 sec credit one gets! same with furling..........

It is fun to see well sailed boats win races!

Marty

Not Bad at all. On that race the PHRF of the Hobie 33 was 96 the one from the Jeanneau 409 was 90, the one from the Jeannau 42ip 81 and the one from the J105 90.

Either the J105 and the Hobie 33, if very well sailed by an experienced crew and if the race is downwind with strong winds can get to planning speeds and on those conditions make much better than heavier boats, specially when those are racing without spinnaker. That would not be so in any other conditions where they would be slower, assuming equally competent crews, that was not obviously the case here.

http://www.yachtscoring.com/boatdetail.cfm?Yacht_ID=38217

http://www.yachtscoring.com/boatdetail.cfm?Yacht_ID=38351

http://www.yachtscoring.com/boatdetail.cfm?Yacht_ID=38083

http://www.yachtscoring.com/boatdetail.cfm?Yacht_ID=38822

Regards

Paulo

 

[rgscpat]

From what I'd heard, the Hobie 33 was racing without spinnaker most of the time... they only had it up for about thirty minutes, then took it down as conditions built.

 

[pdqaltair]

Sounds like the same old stuff I heard when sailing my 12K 30-year old Stiletto with original sails and 8-year-old crew against 6-7 figure race boats; you're cheating, that's a catamaran and not a real boat.

Whatever. My fun/$ ratio had them buried and they didn't like that. They couldn't afford to loose, I could.

 

[PCP]

Here is what it looks like when a $10K, low-tech, 35-year-old J/24 planes past your $300K Open 60-styled boat incorporating all the lastest technology and electronics (different race, same conditions and same effect): Miles River Race onboard a J/24, May 25, 2013 - YouTube

The $20K 30-year-old Hobie 33 would also spray you with its bow wave as it passed you...

I continue without understanding your point. If your point is that 30 year old boats are as fast as today's boats or even close...well what can I say, Wolfie in another thread is saying the same regarding 70 year's old boats and you are as wrong as him.

For any comparison to make any sense you have to compare similar types of boats. What is the sense of comparing and old high tech (at the time) and very expensive (at the time) racer cruiser (much more racer than cruiser) with an inexpensive mass production boat like the Jeanneau 409? True, the Jeanneau is faster, at least in most conditions, but then it is also a bigger boat.

If you want to compare the Hobie 33 compare it with a modern boat of the same size and type, for instance the JPK 10.10. Not much of a comparison, the JPK will smoke the old Hobie upwind, downwind in weak or stronger wind and not by a little but by a lot. have a look at one going downwind:

No, this is not a downwind boat, it is a IRC champion, the boat wins upwind or downwind and contrary to the Hobie 33 it can be also a winner solo sailing, able to go fast on autopilot. The boat has also a much better cruiser interior than the Hobie and much more interior space.

Regarding prices how can you compare prices of new boats with 30 year old used boats? But if you think that you can race effectively an old Hobie without a complete overall of the boat including new sails you are wrong...and then the boat will not cost $20K anymore and the money you have "invested" would almost all be lost when you sell the money...for $20K.

An interesting article about that:

"The first production ultralight displacement boats are turning 30 years old, and that means their price is finally down in the ultra-affordable range. I bought a 1986 Hobie 33 in New England for $23,000, dreaming of 20-knot surfs and front-of-the beer-can-fleet finishes, but its ancient sails and knotty foils needed replacement or repair, as well as some other standard old-boat touch-ups.....The worn deck is just one of the tired parts of the boats. The halyards have another year or two of life, and the sheets are dirty but serviceable. The wood parts of the cabin sole need refinishing, and the cushions need recovering or replacement, but those items can wait. This year, my family has an appointment with the front of the fleet."

Total cost, even without recovering the interior or the worn deck : $37,796

I wonder what would amount a proper boat recuperation and what would be the resale value of the boat after that.

And james, a JPK 10.10 does not cost $300 000

Regards

Paulo

 

[chef2sail]

Had the Hobie 33 had any upwind legs we wouldn't even be talking about it here. Conditions that day fit that boat. You can draw generalizations about the boat from hat.

Dave

 

[KeelHaulin]

IIRC a Cal 20 sailed Pacific Cup (SF to Hawaii) a couple of years ago... It arrived a couple of weeks behind the first to finish; but corrected to 1'st place.

I think too much is made out of the PHRF numbers. These are ratings based on displacement hull designs with the assumption that the boat does not plane. The extremely low, even negative PHRF ratings that are given to larger and faster boats (like maxis, cats, etc) are for their ability to exceed hull speed (plane). The smaller boats will plane or surf more readily than a larger hull and when they do it's going to far exceed it's downwind PHRF rating, which only accounts for it's non-planing theoretical hull speed.

 

[anthemj24]

Horses for courses. Hobie 33s go downwind very fast, that is what they were designed to do. They still do that 30 years later. If you want to go downhill really fast on a budget, a Hobie 33 or Olson 30 is your ticket. If you want to go uphill fast too, then you might want to look at some other boats. If you want to be comfortable while you do it, you are going to need to dig into your wallet a bit more. I love some of the older boats, I even own one. But you can't compare them with new ones without taking into account the requirements the design is meant to meet.

 

[PalmettoSailor]

I'm guessing the owner of Irie, isn't all that worried about where he corrected out in PHRF. You own a boat like that to take line honors and he did that setting a course record that could stand for decades.

 

[jameswilson29]

There is a reason why there are races, and actual results.

Some love the theories and the numbers, and who should win based on abstractions. (When I was involved in SCCA solo II racing, people did the same things with sports cars: "Well, based on the numbers, this one should easily beat that one..." It did not always work that way in reality: some things in vehicle design cannot be accurately measured. The whole is often greater than the sum of the parts. Also, some of the guys with the most expensive cars were not willing to actually push them to the limit while racing, because they were too precious to risk destroying.)

Results matter.

In sailing, when the wind blows 20-30 knots on the race course, the hype and the B.S. are separated from the reality. These theoretically faster boats are apparently not showing up for the races. The fact is, these 30 year old West Coast ULDBs, the Olsons, the Hobies, the Santa Cruzs, the Moore, even the older East Coast J boats and early 90s racers, are still winning races.

Is it possible that all the claims about technological improvements in sailboats in the last 20 to 30 years is mostly puffery to sell boats, in an industry that is a victim of its own successes in the 70s and 80s?

The marine industries took a left turn after the recession in the '80s in order to survive, dropping value-oriented spartan race boats and dual purpose boats in order to survive. Now, the bulk of boats are either expensive production condo cruisers that appeal to wives at boat shows (and rate no better than the 70s and 80s racer/cruisers of the same LOA), or expensive all-out high-tech racing boats that break fairly easily. A sane boat buyer today asks, "why should I pay X for a new boat, when I can buy a used boat that does 95% of what X can do, for one-tenth the price?"

I don't buy the hype. Outside of Gran Prix sailboat racing, there has not been such a great improvement in production boats over the last 20 to 30 years to justify the greatly higher prices. It is a matter of value. The planing racers from the '70s, '80s and the early '90s racers can still win, at all but the highest levels. If you have any doubts, look at the 2012 Newport to Bermuda race results.

Is anyone surprised that Sabre Yachts just ceased production of its sailboat line? Exactly why would someone pay half a million dollars for one of its new cruising sailboats?

You wonder why sailing is a dying sport, a dying activity? It is not because we sailors are not inviting enough novices in. The marine industries stopped catering to the affluent-but-not-rich masses in the late 80s, and they have been headed down ever since. The other thing you can notice about this past weekend's local races - the Down the Bay race and the St. Michaels race - is not too many people are participating any more.

 

[tommays]

First I sail and race on old boats and we do win are share of silver against for the most part against other older boats when we do beat the modern stuff it is because conditions are just really perfect for us and don't allow them any conditions were there speed advantage comes into play

And I have to add the Zzzoom may be a 1970 boat BUT it is on its third keel and second rudder and has a current state of the art bendy aluminum mast and a full modern 3DL sail inventory

Except for the current sail inventory most of the stuff was done by a deep pocket PO who got tired of the boat and passed it along to the current owner who put a pretty massive amount of effort into putting the boat back into race condition

And none of the other old boats we race against are doing it with old rags they also spend BIG MONEY on modern sails



If there is any kind of balance of upwind VS downwind were getting killed on the downwind legs



On are trip out to port Jefferson last summer which took place on a Strafford Shoal race day (36 mile round trip) we left 4 hours before the start and the Farr 400 in the picture made up the 16 miles that took us 4 hours in about 2 hours and there was really nobody in second place

This season in are area the spinnaker fleets have been divided up by sprit boat and symmetrical boat division's which is pretty much a new boat and old division as it was completely impossible for us at a PHRF 115 to keep up with a J80 downwind if it was above 12 knots ?

We are stuck at 7 knots and there turning at the mark and surfing away at 12 knots

 

[jameswilson29]

This season in are area the spinnaker fleets have been divided up by sprit boat and symmetrical boat division's which is pretty much a new boat and old division as it was completely impossible for us at a PHRF 115 to keep up with a J80 downwind if it was above 12 knots ?

We are stuck at 7 knots and there turning at the mark and surfing away at 12 knots

Yes, and the J/80s are now turning 20 years old. When I crewed on an Olson 30 in the Bay in PHRF A2 in the early to mid-90s, we were sailing against some 35-40 footers that were difficult to beat unless conditions allowed us to plane downwind. CBYRA formed a new "sportboat" class for the ultralight and A-sym boats; I am not sure whether it ever caught on.

So what has happened in the last 20 years, other than the prices of new production boats have increased exponentially while performance has not really improved?

 

[tommays]

Well

The new J70 is proving to be a good bit faster for one with its 111 something rating

For the most part here older boats still get raced the J44 has a big group with deep pocket owners of course Rambler races here a lot also (the 90 is back in action)

Most of the expense in new boats is all the stuff now somehow needed that we did without on older boats like 50,000 dollar wind/navigation systems

 

[anthemj24]

Yes, and the J/80s are now turning 20 years old. When I crewed on an Olson 30 in the Bay in PHRF A2 in the early to mid-90s, we were sailing against some 35-40 footers that were difficult to beat unless conditions allowed us to plane downwind. CBYRA formed a new "sportboat" class for the ultralight and A-sym boats; I am not sure whether it ever caught on.

So what has happened in the last 20 years, other than the prices of new production boats have increased exponentially while performance has not really improved?

A new J24 today will cost you 60k when all is said and done. A J/22 new today will cost you 50k when all is said and done. A new J/70 will cost you 50k when all is said and done. As far as I can tell, new boats are more expensive because they are new, not because of design changes. Design changes occurred because what people wanted changed. You can race a j/70 with 3, a J/22 needs 4. A J/22 requires someone to go up on the foredeck for jibes, a J/70 does not. A j/22 requires a hoist to launch it, or at least a steep ramp, a trailer tongue extension, and a lot of time and patience. A J/70 is easily ramp launched and rigged. Of course, if you want to race with 4 or 5, and you want to have a v-berth because you want to sleep in it once in a while, and you want to keep it in the water, because you hate trailering your boat, then the J/22 makes much more sense.

I paid $2,500 for my J24. I have put another $5,000 into it between new sails, new cushions, new cabin sole, new electronics, etc. I also put a ton of hours into it, sanding off 30 years of accumulated bottom paint while in positions that would make a contortionist cringe, scraping out 30 year old soggy vermiculite, updating deck hardware and rigging, etc. etc. I think I got a great deal, even though my boat will never be competitive on a national or even regional basis. But it is great for what I need and want. If I had bought it to compete at the J/24 Worlds and gone through all that, it would have just been a waste of time and $7,500.

Horses for courses. Some folks buy new boats and have a reason why. Those reasons don't have to match up with yours. Be glad that some people buy new boats, it means some of those golden oldies are available for sale at very reasonable prices.

 

[jameswilson29]

I agree. I have always liked the J/Boat line of boats. It is one of the few builders who have stayed true to the idea of relatively simple, affordable, great sailboats

 

[tommays]

The J24 is my favorite case as are first new sailboat was a Victoria 18 which was a nice boat on the shallow Great South Bay

But when we moved to Peconic Bay we kept getting beat up and seeing these strange looking boats go by and trust me the J24 was a strange looking boat in 1981

Anyway at the age of 26 or 27 I was able trade in the 18 and but a new J24 with a pretty limited income

At 57 with a far bigger income I find the thought of dropping 50,000++ dollars on a tiny boat a NO GO and cant begin to justify close to 200,000 on a new 30 foot

With the way sailboat sales are going I would think I have plenty of company