Episode #29 Best Cruising Sailboats

Great info! It was the great idea to get Jeff Halpern participate in your videos. Thank you!

You are so fortunate to have found Mr. Halpern. He is in possession of both immense knowledge & understanding and a natural generosity as well. You are a good man sir. We should all be so lucky. For that matter, we should communicate as well as he does. Happy New Year to all.

Hi Vin

Thanks for the educational videos.
With all due respect, I think your last couple slides might be misleading.
A 30 foot boat should be able to navigate 18 foot waves (trough to crest) in 'rolling' seas with long wave periods and gradual faces. It might be more helpful (and less alarming) to your viewers if you said 'A 30 foot LWL WILL be capsized by a breaking wave of 18 feet (trough to crest).' That is what your citation from 'Heavy Weather Sailing' said.

Hope this helps - and best of luck to you and Amy,
Mark

Excellent video. The nerd in me had visions of computer modelling to demonstrate the principles that were just very well described.

i would be interested to hear what Jeff has to say about the theoretical maximum hull speed which has traditionally been calculated as 1.34 times the square root of the water line length. this formula is used for all displacement hulls. if you look at the specs of a number of boats, you will see this number holds true. Yes displacement hull boats can go over hull speed, but it takes a great deal more energy (sail area, bigger engines etc ) .

I;d also like to hear what Jeff has to say about the comfort of a modern, light displacement boat in less then ideal conditions. I have been on a couple of them and they rolled like crazy.

And one last comment, most of the cruisers i know all say the same thing, you use your engine a lot more than you think, because the wind is always blowing in the opposite direction from your destination. So don't ignore the subject of the Iron Jenny

Wow, love the science - brought down to the lay person level - that you've repeated here for us, especially learning that one of the biggest [scientific] predictors of inherent seagoing safety is LWL, also explains why I have always instinctually felt safer at sea in bigger boats. Knowing the nautical dynamics of this [instinctual] feeling that I have always had, is absolutely fascinating!

A long keel boat is predominantly used in long sailing because they ARE steadier and easier to sail even though they suffer in performance.... Each to their own, and many many fin keelers sail over oceans but personally I'd rather have a steadier and consequently IMO safer long keeled boat..
Warren
s/y Legend

As with all things sailing, each situation has it's own subtleties, let's not make nervous sailors more nervous with absolutes. It is correct to say that wave height 30% of a boats length is where the trouble starts, but only when helmed by someone trying to capsize. In truth, even the most inexperienced sailor can read a single paragraph and learn to keep the boat and crew safe in such conditions. It's a bit like driving a car, if you don't pay attention, you will crash, this is not something to be freaked out about :-)

Thanks for this video.  It wsa quite insightful, and will definitely affect what I look for when I start looking for an ocean-going sailboat one day.

ask him if catamarans help?

excellent stuff, pls keep it up

I once watched a video on using a drogue. In it they showed a 35-40' sloop with a fin keel and spade rudder that could only lay beam to while the boat was attached to the drogue at the bow. I believe they said that a full keel would ride at a 45 degree angle...I think. It's been a long time since I saw it. Were they right?

Another educational vid! Good job guys.

Awesome information! Really spot on and appreciated! Thanks Vin and Jeff!!

I'm not quiet clear if he is saying that a full keel boat would be more comfortable but slower with more resistance to rolling.
I feel that a full keel hull would protect the prop and rudder better against debris and hitting bottom.

Very nice information. I really appreciate how you included Jeff's well explained justifications for his answers in the interview and your commentary. When asking difficult questions like these the justification for the answer can be just as important as the answer itself. People can be very passionate about boat design and it seems that objective reasoning can be lost sometimes in the discussion...

Are multi-hulls affected the same as mono-hulls (meaning do the figures provided also pertain to multi-hulled sailboats of the same lengths)?

From my small boat perspective , I have had huge swells come my way when a recently passed barge pushed a pressure wave into a shoal. Bad timing for me. The swells were at least 10 ft high peak to trough. Fortunately for me, the wave frequency was long so wave steepness was manageable and I was able to meet them almost at 90 degrees.
My biggest wave problem is from power boaters. Steep wake waves close together. Yikes.

I agree that the boats need to be balanced in order for them to track, but I do think some keel designs are better for off shore sailing. One thing you might want to talk with Jeff about is if you do get stuck in a storm which keel is better at heaving to? My thought is the full keel boats are better at this as you'll have less side slippage and the boat will create a bigger area of turbulence on the leeward side to better protect the boat from a breaking sea. Most boats today if you pay attention to the weather reports there is almost no reason to get stuck out in storm conditions. They can pretty accurately predict bad weather out a week in advance. Unless you're crossing an ocean your chances of going through something life threatening is slim.

Thanks for making these videos, keep up the great work guys...