Small Sailboat Adventures

I am starting this thread to illustrate and highlight small yachts, pocket yachts and microcruisers.

I have been utterly amazed at how little people actually know and quite frankly how stupid the general public is. People seem to think that you can only go to sea in an oceanliner ala Titanic or a condomaran with aircon and gold taps. Because of this misconception many guys "think big" and will never realise a dream of ever cruising, even if it is just short island hops or bay to bay, harbour to harbour. I absolutely believe in "safety first" but we all know big is not always safe. As the world is getting poorer by the minute folks must get the "Bigger is Better" ideas out of their heads, and if your little lady cant do without her 5 star trappings - leave her behind, and go look for one that can go with a minimalistic lifestyle. Sell those ******* BMW X5 / Jeep Grand Cherokee gasguzlers and get a life

I know MANY guys wont agree, but those of you that are starting to think differently please post links :idea:



Here are the French twins
3 different boats - France to Miami

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkjutgBXeUw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOyIWVIRoGA&feature=channel



Miss Cindy (amazing)
Canada to Cuba (farkit hows that)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miss cindy catamaran&search_type=&aq=f


Keep turning left
A voyage around England
many episodes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq2PEuUFzGo&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=DCCD9E425AB79637


Well at least we can build up a library of small cruises and crossings in one place and when another stooopid neighbours family comes crawling in when i open my garage i can tell them go to BD.net Small Sailboat Adventures

in my next life i will hire a WW2 bunker where i can build my egg in peace

tommorow is Friday - smile !

 

Ive never thought it was the size of the boat, but the experiance of the skipper that made the diffrence between safe and not safe passage-making.

K9

 

HERE HERE Kay9

 

That unfortunately, is as much right, as it is wrong.

Speed is a very important safety factor on a passagemaker! All your skills are half the value when you´re scuttled by a storm instead of escaping the front.

But we are on the wrong platform here! The train goes to, bay to bay, not passagemaking!

Regards
Richard

 

I couldn't disagree more with the size of the boat comment. Yes, some lucky and brave souls have make remarkable passages in boats too small for reason, but it doesn't mean it was a good idea, just brazen. Anyone that's be in seas bigger then the boat they're on knows full well what happens. Falling off the top of a 20' wave in a 15' boat isn't going to have a happy ending, regardless of skipper skill. We can build the boat strong enough to survive and we've bred them with enough guts to try it, but again it's still not a good idea, just a venture in publicity.



This is a real ocean going pocket yacht.

 

just for the records


http://www.microcruising.com/famoussmallboats.htm

 

Unfortunately there are just too many publicity seekers
small AND big boats

Which is very sad, because the ability to cruise and cross big oceans safely in a modest boat is lost with all the hype.
"The Dove" that was written around 1965 ?? was one of the beginnings of this youngest around nonsense.
We as South Africans probably see things a little different, we mostly have foul dangerous weather, very busy shipping lanes, horrible coastline with very - very few places to hide.
Our harbours are all minimum 2 days apart, so once you are out there you are committed, like a plane on take off at the point of no return. Our very small sailing faternity are not thrill seekers - they simply just love the sea, and will do what needs to be done to get out there.

 

I don't think that calling people stupid proves your point. In my last long cruise in a smallish boat-25 feet- I often had not enough speed to make it over the waves and got knocked back.

 

There's a considerable difference between cruising a 25' boat and crossing the Atlantic in a 5' 4" boat (Spain to Florida, 1993). One is frugal and the other purely for the headlines.

It's one thing to have a minimal cruiser, like a Bolger box or even My RYD-14.11, the guy that crossed the Atlantic in the 5' 4" boat couldn't even lie down completely. I think the trip was about 4 months, so you have to endure some painful sleeps for the notoriety.

 

Here is a great website of Micro tonners
huge site with many links

http://www.micro-ger.de/

these boats are raced and cruised all over Germany Denmark Sweden

nice to know for me that my design is not of the mark and actually quite "standard" by their builds
my LWL, beam and underwater body is quite similar

 

I didnt think I would have to do this, but as to my above comment on the experiance of the mariner, it should go without saying that an experianced mariner knows not only the limitation of his/her vessel but also thier limitation in seamanship.

In other words because someone got luck crossing in a 5' boat or even a 50' boat with no previous experiance, this dose not make them a seaman or experianced.


Apex:
That unfortunately, is as much right, as it is wrong.

Speed is a very important safety factor on a passagemaker! All your skills are half the value when you´re scuttled by a storm instead of escaping the front.

But we are on the wrong platform here! The train goes to, bay to bay, not passagemaking!

Regards
Richard

I couldnt dissagree more. Nathaniel Bowditch's authority "The Pratical Navigator" originally written in the 1800's expresses many heavy weather stratigies to be employed during storm and gale weather. Expecting any vessel to outrun weather is at best a huge waste of resources and at worst the most dangerous idea Ive heard of from a designer in a very long time.

Allways allways allways steer for the safe simi-circle nose into the weather and away from the lee shore.


Running from a storm will allmost allways drive you into the dangerous simi-circle and eventually onto the lee shore.

K9

 

Running is a good strategy is you got searoom.

 

Sure so is lying "a-hull" if you have a deep draft well heeled vessel.

K9

 

Running may be possible out in the ocean.... but I wouldn't count on searoom and speed alone to get out of trouble. In parts of the Great Lakes region, we can get wind/wave combinations that have been known to snap 700' freighters in half. This is in an area where if you go twenty miles off course, you're on dry land, and there may be no safe harbours for several hundred miles. I imagine there are plenty of coastal regions that share similar dangers.

No, you won't find me going beyond reach of help in anything that can't take a serious beating from a serious storm. And for the moment, I'm a powerboater- when I do make the transition to sail, I will want speed, lots of it. But I won't count on speed to get out of trouble.

Regarding tiny boats. I just don't understand these publicity stunts with tiny little boats on insanely hard voyages. If you can't live on it and sleep normally on it, you shouldn't be taking it out for more than a day at a time.

However- I do think that we have a tendency to make some things larger and more complicated than they really need to be. The "microcruiser" idea that Manie's been working on makes a fair bit of sense, IMHO. Big enough that you can move around a bit, small enough to be inexpensive and easily handled, with just enough systems to keep you comfortable.

 

The best storm tactic is sitting in a Tiki bar and letting others ***** about how bad it was. I've enjoyed this technique many times, watching sailors quickly get their boats together for a passage, because they have to be back at work on Monday morning and will attempt to squeak past a storm front moving in.

The biggest threat to voyaging on the oceans isn't the storms or how fit your boat is. The vast majority of times, owners and skippers are "forced" into making a passage when they darn well know better, but scheduling has forced their hand and they ship out anyway. This is the classic folly. Ask any experienced cruiser and they'll tell you the same thing, any port worth making is still worth making after the low has passed through a few days later.

Dragging warps, hoving off, lying too, running under bare poles over hull speed, etc. is all needless crap that usually wouldn't be the case, if you'd toss the rational of shore side life over the side, once aboard. It's extremely important to live as a seaman, not a bonehead out for a holiday on a yacht. It's the boneheads you read about and the seaman that never have these difficulties in a life time of cruising.