Looking for love or hate. Give me your opinions on this design

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Vineet, Jun 4, 2021.

  1. Vineet
    Joined: Apr 2021
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    Vineet Junior Member

    I am looking for informed/professional input on this design. Opinions are like... well, we've all got them. I'm not looking for that here. I'm looking for information based on experience and knowledge about design, function and performance.
    Here is the design. Intended use: long distance, offshore cruising.
    If folks have done it in a Flicka and speak highly of the design, in what ways is this design inferior or superior? I don't like the question, "which boat is better?" I like to ask, "what does the design offer and what are the compromises of the design?"

    What say you?
    Silver Penny 25 http://www.macnaughtongroup.com/silver_penny_25.htm
     
  2. bajansailor
    Joined: Oct 2007
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    bajansailor Marine Surveyor

    I think that this design does offer a lot in terms of having a small and safe ocean voyaging yacht - this is a type that many people would have aspired to 30 odd years ago as being the ultimate.
    People like my old friend Henry, who built a smaller (19'6") similar craft from a standard Colvic hull in England and went on to have some incredible adventures with her - the article below describes Glory very well.

    However the cost of building a new Silver Penny nowadays would be significant - and for this price one could probably buy a very sound and proven offshore sailing yacht around 30 - 35' in length.
    The extra 5' or 10' in length would have a huge effect on the comfort, room and average speed of the vessel, when compared to Silver Penny.

    Glory article in PBO P 1.jpg


    Glory article in PBO P 2.jpg

    Glory article in PBO P 3.jpg
     
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  3. BlueBell
    Joined: May 2017
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    BlueBell . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _

    Vineet,

    The full keel speaks volumes as to how I feel about this design for your purpose.

    BB
     
  4. Milehog
    Joined: Aug 2006
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    Milehog Clever Quip

    For the same amount of material and labor a more modern design will be more weatherly, faster and not sail on her ear. One of the biggest safety at sea developments in recent years is the world wide availability of weather information and a boat with enough speed to avoid the worst.
    Her motion will be easy though.
     
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  5. wet feet
    Joined: Nov 2004
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    wet feet Senior Member

    Lots of wetted surface,so probably never going to get you anywhere quickly.Would take the ground reasonably well.A design of a type that would only appeal to a small proportion of the boating world and could be correspondingly difficult to sell on.Without knowing the skill level of the enquirer it s difficult to know how long it might take to build,but for an amateur with limited facilities and tools-perhaps four thousand hours.For less than it would cost to build and fit out you could buy a more modern design and be sailing in a few weeks.
     
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  6. Vineet
    Joined: Apr 2021
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    Vineet Junior Member

    Very good input. I will say about the wetted surface area that the s/ws ratio is 2.27 which is not that bad for a cruising design. The shape of the hull is quite full at the turn of the bilge to the keel.
     
  7. bajansailor
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    bajansailor Marine Surveyor

    I can see how Silver Penny tugs at emotional feelings - she does with me - but realistically, a longer full keel boat of similar displacement would make more sense all around nowadays.
    Silver Penny is a heavy boat - over 6 tonnes - we have a Challenger 35 which is of similar displacement, but her waterline length is 30' rather than 20', so that is a hull speed of 7 knots rather than perhaps 5 knots for Silver Penny. And for passage making that extra 50 miles a day will add up quickly, not too mention you have almost twice as much room down below.
    And you can easily buy a secondhand long keel 35' yacht for much less than the cost of building Silver Penny now.
    Here are some links to our Challenger for reference -

    https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/challenger-35-primrose

    Challenger 35 archive details - Yachtsnet Ltd. online UK yacht brokers - yacht brokerage and boat sales http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/challenger-35/challenger-35.htm

    There is also a (totally different) American Challenger 35 -

    https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/challenger-35-usa
     
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  8. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    fallguy Senior Member

    The SOR needs to lead you, not romantic love affair with a design.

    I once fell in love with a boat design and purchased the plans.

    Then I did the SOR and I realized the boat didn't separate the living area well from the cockpit and it didn't have a nice height above the sea and other things I decided I wanted from a boat, like adequate beam, beachable, etc.

    Then I found the Skoota 28 and really liked all of the features and it hit my wishlist well.

    I encourage you to go about your process differently. Step away from or use the romantic notions and develop a thorough statement of requirements.

    For example, very few true liveaboards will tell you a 25/6 foot boat is comfortable for more than a month journey I'd say.
     
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  9. Vineet
    Joined: Apr 2021
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    Vineet Junior Member

    Thank you for the links and the personal experience. One thing about a 35' boat length is that most of my sailing will be single handed. My wife would get sea sick in a rocking chair. Also, the single handed use is also why I'm keen on a junk rig such as the one in Macnaughton's coin series. Deck time in gales isn't my ambition. Actually all of his cruising designs can be had with Junk Rig arrangements. I like that a lot. 35' is a bit more boat to deal with than I'm interested in. I totally hear what you are saying about the extra 50 miles a day. That is significant. But cost over time from maintenance for storage is a factor I'm considering in a cruising design. I've always been a fan of the Flicka 20 but I just don't like the plumb bow with a narrow, lower buoyancy stern and the flow over the diagonals. Whether helm and tacking in chop isn't so great. But decent cruisers under 25' are just so rare.
     
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  10. Milehog
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    Milehog Clever Quip

    Is a 35' boat of the same displacement and sail area really more work?
     
  11. Rumars
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    Rumars Senior Member

    It's a pretty specialized design, so it depends on what you want to use it for. If you are thinking North West Passage or the north of Scotland, she's great, if you think tropical paradise she's much less suited. Long distance is relative, she's slow by design, not a light air or windward monster, so your primary concern is how much diesel she holds, and how long does it last before resupply. Food and water are much less of a problem as long as you are willing to spend some money to get them. If you are willing to live with the boats limitations you can go anywhere in it, but this applies to any other design.
    If you detail that "long distance offshore cruising" some more, maybe we can comment more. Where do yo want to go, how do you imagine doing it with this boat?
     
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  12. Vineet
    Joined: Apr 2021
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    Vineet Junior Member

    That is a very good point made in the form of a question.
     
  13. Vineet
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    Vineet Junior Member

    That is a great reminder!
     
  14. CT249
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    CT249 Senior Member

    Re the wetted surface/sail area ratio - this seems to be a popular ratio among sailors of heavy boats but in reality the ways it's used can be very misleading. I've read of many people who claim that the ws/sa ratio is the best measure of light wind performance but real life shows us that is simply not true. To use an unbiased example, my 28'er would have a significantly better WS/SA ratio than my 36'er when both are using big headsails, but having raced both of them I know that there is no way that the 28'er will beat the big boat even in light winds, despite the fact that many of their ratios are similar.

    As a more scientific example, the sophisticated ORC VPP shows that a J/35 with a short overlap jib has a SA/WS of 2.8. A J/24 with normal 150% genoa has a SA/WS of 3.3. Both boats have very similar hull shapes allowing for the proportional difference created by their different sizes, and the J/24 gains about 2% speed because it doesn't drag a propeller. The J/24, however, is 10% slower upwind in 6 knots of breeze.

    If SA/WS ratio was of such importance, the J/24 would be much faster upwind because of its higher ratio. In fact it is much slower upwind because it is shorter. A shorter and heavier boat will have much wider entrance angles and, for equal draft, less leading edge on the keel and rudder which will therefore be less efficient. The weight has to go somewhere, so it's going to have a fatter underwater shape, a steep rise to the buttocks that will reduce pressure recover, etc etc etc

    A thread in the Junk Rig Association says that one set of data shows that "in normal sailing conditions, and taking account of both tacks, most of the junks make ground to windward at between 75% and 80% of the speed of the bermudan rig." A JRA member with a carbon sparred junk says it's 10% slower than a bermudan. The bermudan, by the way, loses about 2% of speed by not carrying a spinnaker. So a boat that is already of a pretty slow design will lose a significant amount of speed from the rig.

    Sure, the junk rig may be easy to handle - but surely we should also consider their handling if both rigs have equal performance. The JR guys keep on comparing a fast or standard bermudan to a junk rig, instead of comparing two rigs of equal performance. A bermudan rig that is 10% slower than a standard bermudan rig will be very small (and therefore not need reefing very often) and can be extremely simple; perhaps even a cat rig with no battens.

    Sure, people may speak highly of the Flicka, of MacNaughton designs, etc. But once start saying "people like it so it must be good" then logically we have to also consider the people who like IOR boats, modern production boats, lightweight multis, heavy multis and 70 footers for cruising and say that they are the best. I've met people who cruised for many years around the world on an IOR lightweight flush-decked alloy boat with a fractional rig that needed runners to stay up, and they loved it. There are very experienced people who say that such a boat would be the worst possible cruiser - but who should we believe in such a case?

    Looking at the story about Glory II we see that she usually has to motor and that she could be turned 180 degrees off course by a big wave. If there was a modern boat that had to be motored to average slow speeds and had such bad directional stability, some people would be using that as proof that most modern boats are rubbish.

    Over on your other thread, you compared modern production boats to SUVs. Arguably, heavy full keelers can be compared to SUVs because arguably some people buy them for their perceived safety in extreme conditions and arguably that is not borne out by the evidence, or such a small factor as to be largely irrelevant. For example, the hull construction you need to make a 25 footer weigh 6 tons is a bit like the stereotyped SUVver who feels safer because of their "bull bar", mass and size. Both the boat owner and the SUVer may buy their kit because of the perception that mass = safety and that their "go anywhere" machine is better and more macho than a "wimpy" item.
     
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  15. Vineet
    Joined: Apr 2021
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    Vineet Junior Member

    I've got to say, I am really appreciating this forum. I wish I would have been active on it a long time ago. Thank you for the thoughts. About the SUV reference I agree with you about the "it's safer" idea. I was speaking more to what I thought might be an active marketing campaign to boost sales of a product that is more profitable. But I could be off base with that assumption. I see that many very experienced sailors have glowing opinions of modern designs that define seaworthiness in a way I am unfamiliar with. Trust the ones who have gone before you. This is about learning for me. I can also respect the advice of sailors who advise to keep gathering my own experience to develop a deeper awareness of what meets my interests and needs in design.
     
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