Sensible Small Boat Cruising

Comment

Comment by CommodoreSwab on June 15, 2008 at 11:50pm

Roller furling to me makes a lot of sense at least for the jib. There are problems that can develope true enough but if it is used correctly and maintained you shouldn't have problems. You can compare it to helm steering gears/pulleys, adjustable backstays, hydraulic vangs, or any other number of innovations. As you can tell I am in favor of roller furling on the jib, if you are at sea and cant do anything you can always sail the boat in circles and wrap it up. Unfortunatly you can't do this with in mast furling. My boat will have roller furling for the jib (if I add a sprit I will have a loose luff furling foreward). The boom is roller furling which I don't plan on using except for sail stowage possibly.

Comment by Richard on June 15, 2008 at 10:40pm

Bob: Your post hit two points I'd like to address...

Hank-on vs roller furler. My own preference is hank-on. If I've learned one thing in all my years of running boats it's this...if it has moving parts it's probably going to break down at the worst possible time, and that goes for roller furlers, too. I'm a big supporter of the KISS principle. Remember when cars had points? You could fix them yourself if worse came to worse. NOW they have to be hooked up to a damned computer to figure out what's wrong with them.

Teak. . .When I bought my Kaiser 26 I stripped down the teak toe rails, main hatch and doors (yes, doors, not wash boards) and the cockpit trim. I estimated that it would take me approximately an honest week's worth of work each year to keep the stuff gleaming. Now, I do great varnish work when someone is paying me. I used to run an old classic motor yacht and had everything Bristol fashion with 19, count 'em nineteen, coats of varnish. The bright work was like glass. But on my own boat I figured I had better ways of spending a week of my life keeping the trim bright. I laid on three good coats of varnish on all the wood and covered that with two good coats of one-part polyurethane. Five years later the paint still gleamed and I'd had over a month's worth of time to do more important things than sand and varnish...like spending time drinking sundowners.

It's important to put down the varnish coats before the paint so the paint doesn't soak into the wood. Always assume that you'll eventually sell the boat and if the new owner wants to spend days varnishing things then when they go to strip off the paint the wood beneath wont be all messed up with soaked in paint.

Comment by Bob Leahey on June 15, 2008 at 12:54pm

The most useless things on my boat are anything made out of teak! While I sure enjoy the asthetics of lots of wood, I can't justify the amount of time to keep up with the bright work.

Probably best piece of equiptment for me is the roller furler. Previous boat had hank on jib...and it was a PITA to always be going forward on a relatively small foredeck. I'm not a racer in any sense, so I'm not worried about the increased windage or the .1 or .2 knots that I'm giving up with the less efficent leading edge.

Not all smaller boats seem that much more inexpensive than some larger ones. Pacific Seacraft's Flika, a 20 footer, was well over 90K when they stopped building them. Bristol Channel Cutter, at 28' can be very expensive (and have a ton of wood to keep up with), even small Island Packets seem to have pretty hefty price tags.

For me, the 35 footer seems to be the ideal size, enough room, storage, etc. and truth be known, it was about all I could afford to obtain a blue(ish) water boat.

Comment by Richard on June 14, 2008 at 12:18pm

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HOUSE AND A BOAT,
ACCORDING TO ARTHUR RANSOME
Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you can not think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable, not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition.... The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.

Comment by Richard on June 14, 2008 at 12:14pm

Mike: It is a fact that boats are used in INVERSE proportion to their size. The smaller the boat the more it gets used.

Comment by ___/)ances With Sails on June 12, 2008 at 8:32pm

I m not certain on where I would trek first (it will be a while, and I realize charts are available), just trying to get the feel of each coast (from a landlocked position), and the demands each possess and perhaps the attributes of the worthiest dinghy for said venture(s), focusing on the USof A shorelines at this moment. HA, I say dinghy but bigger, I certainly dont want/need much more than "?" feet. Ive lived in an rv through college and quite a spell there after, so Im accustomed to reclusive conditions lol. Real curious if an East coast boat will sail fine on the West Coast vice versa.

On know I may sound vague, so dont beat yerselves over this. Ive got time to learn.

All your advice is helpfull and hopefully I can return the favor to another salty wanna be.

___/)

Comment by Mike Malone on June 12, 2008 at 2:22pm

Boats in some aspects have become like houses, the bigger the better. In the 60s the average sq footage of a house was about 1500, today 3500. Why do we need so much space??? But in regards to sailing, It all really comes back to the question of what type of sailing do you see youself doing. I've seen many boats 35 ft and under cruising the east coast down to the carrib with little problems, also at a far lower cost. I've also seen alot of boats over 35 ft that never leave the docks.

Cheers, Mike
*
~~_/)~~

Comment by ___/)ances With Sails on June 12, 2008 at 1:36pm

Im listenin'

Comment by CommodoreSwab on June 12, 2008 at 10:32am

I have sailed larger boats (around 60+ feet) and after spending a lot of time on board I started to notice that while they are comfortable due to large amounts of space much of that space is never used. When you have a 40 something foot boat, how often does one go into the v-berth when your living in an aft cabin etc. The other thing that they feel is that a small boat is not adequate to carry the gear they need. With modern technology (watermakers, refridgeration, outboards able to be used for propulsion, etc) taking an older small boat cruising can be even easier than when the boat was first made. 20 years ago if you had a 35 foot boat it may of been considered large, today you need something around 60 feet to be considered large. The ocean hasn't changed but it seems peoples comfort requirements have

Comment by Richard on June 12, 2008 at 9:47am

Mike: I believe too many people have been influenced by the yachting magazines to believe that if you leave the dock in anything less than a 40 footer you're doomed to die before you reach the horizon. The reason, of course, is that their advertising income comes from the large boat builders and therefore the have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth.

I'm with you 100% about not wanting a boat bigger than one can handle themselves. Of course it's possible to single hand large boats at an advanced age. Look at Chitchester.

Everyone in their youth has their dreams of sailing off into the sunset, but they never see themselves as older and having to eat a handfull of pills every day to keep the ticker going. I know, for myself, I'll be a lot more "challenged" by age and physical condition than on my last adventure 16 years ago. Oh, well, but it isn't going to stop me.

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