Collin Archer -vs- Alberg, etc.?

Hi all,

I’ve got a design SAILING Charateristics question (vs. hull materials question). I’ve read up on the forums here and a few other areas, and I have a general idea. We don’t have the ability to try out both, but I’ve sailed on Archer's before, and liked the tubby feel, and I've been on faster more modern designs but I don't recall which designers except I would prefer slower and stouter for passage making vs light and fast bouncing around.
Differences?

40’ Collin Archer -Double-Ended Cutter (40’x14’x7’8”) -Fat, Heavy Displacement, Long-Full (Deep) Keel boat (currently rigged as a cutter, but we’d want to shorten the mast and turn it into a ketch eventually). It’s like a finer-entry lifeboat with a deep keel.. Absolutely typical Collin Archer double-ended- just google it and you get the idea (I can post some pics of the bilges from the front and from the side). It's very much like a Westsail, but more wineglass shape to the hull perhaps?

vs.

Alberg designed 30-36’ Cutters (Pearson, Cape Dory, etc). Flat Sterns, slack bilges, bigger overhangs… some reportedly have hobby horsing, some have weather helm on those missing a bowspit (wind vane and sheet-2-tiller issues for single handed work), but they do better into the wind of course ...but not that a gentleman goes into the wind, eh?
lol

OUR INTENDED USE:
Mostly SINGLE HANDED in the Trade winds (broad/beam reaches or downwind, mostly me, and I need sleep); Long Distance Cruising. I want to cross oceans and need lots of space for water/provisions for a few people. Since none can really outrun bad weather, it would be nice to be able have one that can handle some of the worst we might see.

FACTORS:
We LIKE the Collin, as for the same price is has at least 3-4x the VOLUME for provisions and storage as all the other designs (it’s far bigger than even the 40-42’ Alberg designs). But people buy these pretty Alberg designs and sail them around the world all the time.
Why? All things considered, what kind of handling characteristics would one expect from either designs?

–-Is the sailing characteristics better or worth this trade off?

Caveats: The 40’ Collin Archer has a VERY long, deep keel and it’s ferro (check out the thread here if you want, as we decide if it's worth restoring or not for us), so it has less ballast than one would normally expect -before we’d get the ferro we’d make sure it’s a good ferro (it’s 40+ years old and just the issues in that thread, so possibly a good boat for someone like us on a budget).


What kinds of sailing characteristics and behavior would one expect from either design? What’s your experience with them? What might be better for our trade wind sailing? Is that Collin design going to trip up too much or be more of a liability for broaching far more than the Albergs?

I'm also concerned about a wind vane -we've only found a used Aries so far; the Albergs will need a wind vane for any chance of single-handing it, but the Collin's I've heard can be set up for self-steering (this one was) with just the sheet-to-tiller blocks. That would be wonderful.

Thanks!

 

You can set just about any boat for self-steering. Divided rigs make it much easier. For example cutters and ketches can use different combinations. I have sailed over a week on a Coronado 25 set as a cutter without touching the tiller. My autopilot died in Nicaragua.

 

Thanks Gonzo. Fast on here and fast on the water too it sounds like- without needing to even touch the tiller! You've been very helpful on here and in the other thread on the ferro.

Can one rig up a stronger weather-helm boat like, say, a pearson 35 to self-steer downwind though, without a wind vane? I know a Collin Archer type Ketch can do it (had one) but I've not tried anything else except little day sailers for a 1/2 hour or so...

 

If you are talking about long distance voyaging where you will be on the same point of sail for days, it's quite possible.
I used two nearly identical jibs set flying with the tacks attached close to the mast and the sails poled out somewhat forward. From one boat to the next the system needed tinkering and sometimes a sheet led to the tiller. You need to study how your boat behaves and make adjustments accordingly.

I used a variety of sheet to tiller self steering arrangements on different points of sail back in the days when vane steering wasn't as widely available as today.

 

I remember growing up going out to help adjust the jibs sheets for our tiller when the wind changed oh my parents boat.

Sounds like as long as the wind is stable and your course is stable, that a boat can be adjusted this way or that to remain fairly stable at some points of sail....

Well here's a basic on the Collin Atkins -it has the traditional Redningskoite form, but looks like a really big Atkin's Eric -ala:

It should be a serious contender for anything, except speed, eh?

 

The Alberg will be a better all around boat, more maneuverable, quicker in stays, etc. The Archer's are like carrying along all that you need, just in case and reality is, that you'll never need it. Simply put, the Archer will be like driving a full size van, loaded to the gills with everything you might need, in the event a zombie apocalypse might just break out. Whereas, if you just got a minivan, you'd bee just fine with better milage, maneuverability, etc. and still have the internal volume for your stuff.

 

The two jibs work great downwind.

 

That's the way I do it in the trades.

 

Archer = Winnebago
Alberg = Honda 4-door


We found a nicely outfitted Cape Dory 36' that's a decent price. It has about the same volume as a 30' Archer I estimate.
I just found Bob Perry's blog on double-enders last night...
http://www.sailfarlivefree.com/2011/12/double-enders-according-to-perry-guest.html
-very informative. I've only sailed double-enders except as a guest so I've had that same attitude "well...they[re just better for offshore!...they split the seas... they... umm...

-look nice!"

I think where some of the decision making for us comes down to is in how well we can BALANCE the sail plan for any given point, so we can self steer whenever possible, if we can't afford a good wind vane for a year or two.

I've been worried about too much weather helm as a regular, constant issue with most of the Alberg's we've seen... I want to be able to get some regular sleep on long passages -6 hours at a time if possible. I could do that on my old wood ketches, but I've not tried it on a sloop or a pretty, faster boat like the Alberg's.
I got more research to do!
thanks