the perfect long range cruiser

Discussion in 'Option One' started by Roy23, Jan 5, 2010.

  1. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Not hard at all. For the most part, its just style. In moderation, I find it very attractive. When carried to the limit, as some are, I find it a little silly. That is only taste, which cannot be rationalized. Much about any boat that an individual likes is just style. In my opinion, a long line up of Carolina Offshore Fishermen in their slips is about as beautiful as powerboats get. http://www.hatterasharbor.com/images/header.gif

    Some wear their pants down around their knees. Some think they are well dressed in a T-shirt and a carefully clipped three day old beard and tousled hair:cool:
     
  2. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    No idea what that could be, but sounds "fashionable", so it will not become part of my thoughts.
    No nonsense vessel, you know Mark.;)
     
  3. C-mack
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    C-mack Boat Dreamer

    When you have to ride out a hurricane at night you hope and pray your hull will get you through. I have had that ride and know what it is like to take a sea over a 6' high bow every other wave.
    Charlie
    P.s. I'm not from that" local " area. When you have lived on the sea and have been on as many hull types as I; you come to like a couple
     
  4. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    For a long range cruiser I would call that counterproductive, if the picture posted by Tom L. shows that sort of bow.
    Too much flare means insufficient buoyancy. Not what I need in severe weather.
    I had a boat with a pronounced bow like these vessels shown. It was nice in moderate seas, but a pig in heavy weather.

    Regards
    Richard
     
  5. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Apex, For your kind inspection, here is an example of Carolina flare.
    http://www2.worldpub.net/images/3_4.jpg
    http://www2.worldpub.net/images/3_2.jpg
    I suppose there are none of these in Hamburg.

    There are some more extreme than this. These boats go out daily into the Gulf stream in some of the roughest water anywhere. I used to be concerned about that deck being torn off hitting large waves. Notice how high and sharp the bow is in the photos. The owners have the builder put some aft rocker on the hull to get the bow up like that so the boat will ride over waves rather than punch into them. The combination of hull form works well in both following and head seas.

    Almost all of these boats are one off and built of wood. The dominant construction is laminated plywood with some built of strip planking. All are heavily sheathed in glass and epoxy. They are rugged, powerful, fast, "relatively" smooth riding and high quality.
     
  6. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Thank you Tom.

    You are right, we do´nt have this sort of boat in North Europe. But we have a idea how seagoing vessels could be made though.

    And my comment was not meant to argue or deny that these boats are capable machines.

    Below is a picture how I do them. Not as much flare, and cold moulded mahogany.
     

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  7. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    I do like yours better than the extreme flare. I also like that the tumblehome ends aft of the sheer break. Yours look more like the earlier Carolina boats and the Rybovich which originated the style.
     
  8. dobsong
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    dobsong Junior Member

    Good Cruising designs...

    How about a production cat 45' that cruises at 15 Knots getting 3 nm per US gallon and with a range of 3000 miles....

    Sounds too good to be true.....

    Anyone know of better cruising performers?
     
  9. Wavewacker
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    Wavewacker Senior Member

    How would a light cat be punching through rough seas?
     
  10. sabahcat
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    sabahcat Senior Member

    Depends on what you call light.
    Depends on WLL
    Depends on speed
    Depends on BD clearence
    Depends on what you call rough
     
  11. High Tacker
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    High Tacker Junior Member

    High Tacker (www.damsl.com)

    Practical application of proa canted sail geometry on a cruising cat

    See details at www.damsl.com

    I think of my Catbird Suite as two proas leaning together so that sails can be canted in either direction, to windward or to leeward, take your pick for the conditions. She has A-frame mast and four sails so far, all on furlers, including mainsail, staysail, and a genoa on each bow. The mainsail and staysail are on soft furlers, so their tacks can be moved easily around to different positions on deck, because with the beam of a cat there are many possible and advantageous sail configurations in addition to the usual straight up and down-fore and aft plan.

    Since I'm a lazy 70-year-old cruiser, and safety conscious, and my cat is pretty fast anyhow, I usually do the opposite of what the Sailrocket guys do. On a long passage-making tack, I attach the main and staysail tacks to the windward side deck and use those sails and the windward genoa so that I can go from close hauled through reaches to run and have the entire width of the boat to sheet down to, to various tracks and pad eyes, and thus maintain ideal sail shapes with no booms needed. The leeward genoa can be added without a whisker pole when close hauled or with a whisker pole for reaching and running.

    In addition to having no booms bashing about, so that an accidental jibe is a non-event, there are built-in safety factors with sails canted away from the wind. The heeling moment is substantially re-directed downward, and since the sails themselves are "heeled" away from the wind, even though the boat herself is not heeled, there is some spilling of wind in gusts, so that the shock loading that would be experienced on a big cat with vertical sails is somewhat diminished. As cat sailors well know, big cats are very unforgiving in a gust, no heeling, so no shock absorbing and wind spilling effects. So everything about the rig must be much stronger than on a monohull. (Not to mention an A-frame with each leg stepped in a hull, rather than a single big mast in the middle trying to break the boat in two. A monohull rig on a cat just doesn't make sense to me. A cat is two boats in one, so why not take advantage of that. Uh, a proa is one and a half boats in one, LOL.)

    Uh, I don't fly a hull, but if she ever did heel much, with sails already canted away from the wind, the increased spilling would be dramatic before the heeling became dangerous.

    On the other hand, if you don't want to spill any wind, if you want to go faster instead, and with upward lift on the sails and thus upward lift on the boat, a la Sailrocket, then you attach the mainsail and staysail to the leeward side deck and use the genoa on the leeward bow, so that the sails are canted into the wind, like Sailrocket or like a windsurfer leaning into the wind. Sorry I don't have any photos of this configuration. I haven't done it often, and when I did, I was too busy to take photos. In the sailing photos below, all sails in use are attached on the windward side. Hey, as I said, I'm old.

    It is also advantageous in very light airs to have the sails attached to the windward side and thus canted away from the wind so that they set into proper aerodynamic shape by the effect of gravity when there's not enough wind to lift them into shape. You remember when sailing a little dinghy, when there is very little wind you move your butt over to leeward to heel the boat a bit so that the sail will fall into shape. So in very light wind, as soon as I unfurl a sail I'm away, while all those vertically rigged boats have sails hanging like so much laundry, all drag and going backwards. Also, my sails don't come flopping down in the lulls; they're already down and so maintain their shape, ready for the wind to come back.

    For short tacking, I attach mainsail and staysail on the center line of the boat. The leeward genoa can be added and then when coming about onto the other tack, that genoa must be furled and the genoa on the other bow unfurled as it becomes the leeward one. The older I get the more often I think about getting electric winches, but then I don't short tack often using a genoa, just use a motor or two if there's that little wind. What the hell, a cat is too fast to be short tacking up a narrow channel anyhow, but if you really want to do it, quite often the mainsail and staysail are enough.

    A monster main could be added, but she does very well to windward without one, and she is superior reaching and running. She's great motorsailing, too, or just motoring. But I shouldn't get too longwinded here. Read all about it at www.damsl.com

    Cheers, Tom Bradshaw
     

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    Last edited: Oct 16, 2011
  12. Wavewacker
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    Wavewacker Senior Member

    So Tom, at Christmas time, how do you get the angel on the top of all that rigging and how many lights does it take to string that tree? :D
     
  13. High Tacker
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    High Tacker Junior Member

    High Tacker (www.damsl.com)

    I just wack her on the butt and she flies up there like any angel worth her salt. Uh, I've never counted the lights...
     
  14. High Tacker
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    High Tacker Junior Member

    High Tacker (www.damsl.com)

    BTW, Wavewacker, what do you mean by "all that rigging"? Look closely. There's actually less rigging than on a conventional rig, and thus less parasitic drag, especially when all four sails are in use.
     

  15. Wavewacker
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    Wavewacker Senior Member

    Really? Has more than my sunfish....LOL :D

    One mast vs the "A" frame? Do you always use all those sails (don't even know what to call them) I'd think they would catch a little wind while packed away.

    Looks like a cool set up, but I can't argue with you about the efficiency or which would be better, just not the customary approach I've seen. :)
     
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