Sprays

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by greenwater, Aug 5, 2008.

  1. pdwiley
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,004
    Likes: 86, Points: 48, Legacy Rep: 933
    Location: Hobart

    pdwiley Senior Member

    They can be but as you say, few are. The other problem is, God help you if you go aground on a falling tide i a place with a decent tide range. You'd better get props to hold the hull up pretty quick because if the boat lays over, long odds it'll flood long before the buoyancy is sufficient to refloat her.

    Thing about long voyages to windward is, they're painful and hard on the gear. In races, nobody cares, it's part of the cost of racing. Cruising - why bother? The cook goes on strike, you get peanut butter sandwiches, you're sailing on your ear, the beer slides into the scuppers, it's all ugly. Yeah, if you have to, you do it. But if you can sit somewhere nice for another 2-3 days waiting for a wind shift, why not wait....

    I picked my hull design for its shoal draft and long keel. I can poke into 4' of water, if I run aground big deal, the keel shoe is 200 x 40 solid steel bar 7.5m long. With that draft I can get over bars that a fin keeler can't possibly manage so I'm sitting in a calm anchorage while the fin keeler is rolling its guts out. I can also careen my hull, the fin keeler has to find a marina with travel lift.

    I'm not saying my choice is superior, just that I decided what tradeoffs I was willing to make and superior windward ability wasn't worth the price to me. I have reasonable tankage so I can motor-sail for approx 500NM in theory.

    PDW
     
  2. BATAAN
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 1,614
    Likes: 101, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1151
    Location: USA

    BATAAN Senior Member

    Almost all modern boats have engines. Those with beam, displacement and room for adequate tankage are usually the ones that need a bit of help motor sailing to windward. The light racers commonly carry very little fuel so it's all a trade off I guess.
     
  3. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
    Posts: 16,679
    Likes: 349, Points: 93, Legacy Rep: 1362
    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ======================
    Will wonders never cease.........
     
  4. CT249
    Joined: May 2003
    Posts: 1,449
    Likes: 191, Points: 63, Legacy Rep: 215
    Location: Sydney Australia

    CT249 Senior Member

    /\

    Of course, the fact that people motorsail when cruising has no logical bearing whatsover on the use of motors when racing.

    It's perfectly common to do things outside of competition that are banned in competition. It's the same as the fact that dinghy sailors will paddle out through a calm patch to get to the start, but they will not paddle when racing. Touring cyclists can use bikes that are not legal to use when racing. Cruising kayakers can use means of propulsion that are illegal when racing.

    Implying that if someone uses a motor when cruising then they can't oppose the use of motors in the Hobart is like saying that if David Beckham grabs a soccer ball with his hands while playing in the backyard with his kids, he can't call foul if someone use their hands in the World Cup.
     
  5. CT249
    Joined: May 2003
    Posts: 1,449
    Likes: 191, Points: 63, Legacy Rep: 215
    Location: Sydney Australia

    CT249 Senior Member

    While I'm not disparaging your choice in boats, I'd have to wonder whether a fin keeler will actually fill on a rising tide; I've seen plenty of them high and dry and yet to see one not float off. If a cruising boat has such poor watertight integrity that it will fill on a rising tide it may be better off sunk than sailing!
     
  6. CT249
    Joined: May 2003
    Posts: 1,449
    Likes: 191, Points: 63, Legacy Rep: 215
    Location: Sydney Australia

    CT249 Senior Member

    While I'm not disparaging your choice in boats, I'd have to wonder whether a fin keeler will actually fill on a rising tide; I've seen plenty of them high and dry and yet to see one not float off. If a cruising boat has such poor watertight integrity that it will fill on a rising tide it may be better off sunk than sailing!

    FWIW I know some very experienced sailors who point out that a lot of the time, there's not really the option of just waiting a few days until headwinds ease; tradewinds can blow for months at a time without ceasing. Around the Aussie coast, of course one has the option of waiting.

    I don't mind going upwind; you often get a nice steady angle of heel. It is 'orrible in a boat that crawls upwind, though.

    As you said, of course, it's all a matter of tradeoffs.
     
  7. pdwiley
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,004
    Likes: 86, Points: 48, Legacy Rep: 933
    Location: Hobart

    pdwiley Senior Member

    Doug, you're so biased and blinkered by your own pet hobby horses that frankly you're an embarrassment.

    In case you haven't noticed (or have never done any) there's a vast difference between racing and cruising. I've never objected to boats motoring to the start line, have I?

    Fair is fair. If something like WOXI can use an engine to drive its sailing systems, other boats should have the same fuel allowance to use as they see fit - including running their propulsion machinery. Your problem is that you're so fixated on your own favoured toys that you refuse to acknowledge the advantage running an engine gives over boats which don't or can't. Give everyone a fuel allowance to run their systems or none. What's your problem with that? If WOXI can't sail as-built without running an engine, so sad, too bad. Time for a redesign or double the crew so the below-deck gang can pump the hydraulics, pick one......

    Not that I care a whit, quite frankly. Discussing stuff like this with you is like discussing religion, it's a total waste of time because we're missing an agreed basis to start from. Your attitude is 'WOXI good, all criticism bad' and all you do is try to defend that position.

    PDW
     
  8. pdwiley
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,004
    Likes: 86, Points: 48, Legacy Rep: 933
    Location: Hobart

    pdwiley Senior Member

    Yes. It'll depend on the depth of the keel and the buoyancy. One would hope the designers had thought about it but boats do flood when put on the beach so?

    Going upwind in calm waters is fine. Doing it in 20-30 knots in somewhere like the Arafura Sea or the NW Shelf is not pleasant. I spent a lot of time up there in the 80's which is also why I'm wary about big tides.

    And yeah, you're right about trade winds. I hear going from Tahiti to Hawaii isn't nice. Which is why Cornell's Cruising Routes suggest you don't do it.....

    I kind of like the Spray type designs (not the BR ones though). You have to think of them as Percherons though, capable of carrying a massive amount of stores and plodding along at a steady pace over time. The fast fin keelers are more like high strung race horses. And cost accordingly, as a rule. I'm quite happy for people to own such things, friend of mine was seriously planning on buying an Open 60 and I'd happily go sailing on it. Just wouldn't ever own one.

    PDW
     
  9. sharpii2
    Joined: May 2004
    Posts: 2,246
    Likes: 329, Points: 83, Legacy Rep: 611
    Location: Michigan, USA

    sharpii2 Senior Member

    Thanks Bataan.
     
  10. BATAAN
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 1,614
    Likes: 101, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1151
    Location: USA

    BATAAN Senior Member

    SPRAYs... Slocum in 1906 showing the bamboo jibboom he used to help induce lee helm and self steering, an article from the 20s (I think) by Victor Slocum, IDGRASIL in Anacortes WA 3 years ago and NORTHERN SPRAY (ex-HERMANAS Y HERMANOS) in BC about 10 years ago or so.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. bpw
    Joined: May 2012
    Posts: 291
    Likes: 6, Points: 18, Legacy Rep: 34
    Location: Cruising

    bpw Senior Member

    Flooding angles will relate to depth, beam, and hatch placement, keel length won't have much to do with it.

    Even using the phrase fin keel to describe a boat is kind of silly since it covers everything from an open 60, to an islander 36 to the 50 ton steel schooner I used to work on.

    Most of the issues with fin keel boats as cruisers is being built as racers and not related to the keel shape. A high strung pure racing full keel boat would be a lousy cruiser as well. Quite interestingly the majority of the charter boats going to Antarctica are either fin keel or center boarders of some type. Very few if any tradition full keel boats being used, and multiple drake passage crossings a year plus the odd trip to South Georgia is one of the most severe tests you could put a boat against.
     
  12. BATAAN
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 1,614
    Likes: 101, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1151
    Location: USA

    BATAAN Senior Member

    A canoe-form hull with ballast on a fin can be an excellent cruiser if an experienced designer plans it as such.
     
  13. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
    Posts: 19,126
    Likes: 498, Points: 93, Legacy Rep: 3967
    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Racers are relatively easy to design, there's rule hoops to jump through, areas you can pinch and cheat, but mostly the goals are singular in nature. Cruisers are wholly different and much harder to design. The term cruiser is actually a broad category, divided into several columns.

    You can have a race/cruiser, which is what most production craft tend to be. They'll tend to fair moderately well, in an around the buoys thing some weekend, but will get crushed by a full up racer, even one with a questionable pedigree. There's the cruiser/racer, which is simply an over burdened racer/cruiser for the most part, usually with more equipment, accommodations and convenience stuff, like big gen sets and A/C units.

    The real cruisers typically address specific SOR issues and conflicts, such as shoal draft, ice breaking, comfort aboard, trade wind work, redundancy, multiple power sources, protected steering and sail handling stations, expected sea state environments, etc. These are a convoluted, compilation of discontinuous compromise, resulting in widely variable assemblages of engineering approaches, hull shape and rig decisions. These types of boats can range from the full up motorboat with some sail assistance to a dainty CCA yawl with just enough engine to punch through a 3' chop. It's really not fair to attempt to make general comparisons among these types of boats, simply because the group is so broad.

    I agree that fin keel boats can make excellent cruisers and several designers are well known for their ability to design fine, comfortable canoe belly cruisers, yet with enough heft to carry on well in a big blow or deep, mid ocean rollers, without the crew getting sick from the motion. I don't think the keel choice has much to do with how well suited a particular boat might be as a cruiser. The trend to reduce wetted area and efficiency with fins in particular, and divided appendages in general is a wise choice, regardless of SOR. You can have a shoal fin with a skeg mounted rudder (for example) that will out maneuver any full keel, attached rudder boat every time, which in it's self is enough convincing for me. Simply put, even the old school designers have to admit, you don't need a long full keel, even if it has an ice breaking requirement in the SOR. The only real consideration when looking for a cruiser, is how well it fits you peculiar requirements. Every single cruiser I've known has had a very specific set of requirements, which is an ever expanding/growing list. They know what they like, prefer and want, which is simply experience based biases and the design that rings most of their bells will be the most suited candidate.
     
  14. gilberj
    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posts: 72
    Likes: 4, Points: 8, Legacy Rep: 57
    Location: 034

    gilberj Junior Member

    Par has got it pretty much right on. I would add them most people will choose a boat, and then try to fit their requirements around the choice rather than the other way around.
    Choosing a cruiser really depends on a number of factors, most of us are limited in how much money there is to spend, both for the purchase and the fitting out, maintenance, and holding costs, insurance, Moor age, etc. Then there is technical stuff, shoal draft, divided rig, comforts of home, gizmos, feel-good, gaffer, Yawl, .......each ha a reason...if you look for it.....
    I bought my Meadowlark because I could afford it and was always interested in the design. I traded off other potential qualities because the were not there in that boat. It works for me and I found the boat better for my use, than I expected.
     

  15. BATAAN
    Joined: Apr 2010
    Posts: 1,614
    Likes: 101, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 1151
    Location: USA

    BATAAN Senior Member

    PAR's comments are excellent regarding the design of cruisers. BERTIE is an antique type that works well enough for my uses and was the result of my naive and unschooled design efforts many years ago. I needed a very cheap big boat, was aware of the limits to my design abilities, so picked one with a successful record and modified it as I thought fit from my extensive time at sea in the CG, not an education in yacht engineering combined with experience, which is what is really needed to come up with a successful cruising boat from a blank sheet of paper.
    All of us can doodle and dream with a pencil, but making that actually work is something else, and PAR is good at putting that into words.
    An experienced (!) and knowledgeable designer can really thread through all the hundreds of design decisions and come out with a superior vessel for its intended use. One of my favorites from the board of Nigel Irens....
     

    Attached Files:

Forum posts represent the experience, opinion, and view of individual users. Boat Design Net does not necessarily endorse nor share the view of each individual post.
When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. Your circumstances or experience may be different.