willbank
Member
This is a question I’ve long been asking both myself and boating friends. And clearly it depends on your kit and your mood so what I suppose I’m fascinated by are scenarios: what are you willing to go out in on your boat.
So, from my perspective: I used to have a 6.5m RIB that I’ve taken out in pretty large 2m+ seas with 40 knot winds off Falmouth. That was definitely for the fun of the experience rather than trying to go anywhere and speed was down to a very ginger 10 knots max. 20-30 mins of play and return to base.
I’ve also come back down the coast in the same boat trying to average 20 knots but falling to 12-15 knots in heavy chop (1.5m+ crests, lots of whitecaps) with jarring impacts and basically pretty tiring and unpleasant but not at all unsafe.
I wanted to buy a larger boat that could handle the weather better and allow me to be out when the RIB would have been too tiring. So, I recently purchased a 8.5m XO Front Cabin which rides through the 0.75m sort of chop with much greater ease and is comfortable at 20 knots cruise while throwing water about liberally but you're sheltered and warm in the cabin.
But coming back last Friday morning into a head sea during that low there was 20-30 knot winds against an ebb tide, no swell but quite steep 1.5-2m, shortish duration chop between Falmouth and Helford and she was heaving and crashing along which was disappointing.
One of the issues is that a small RIB has relatively little moving around, flexing and banging - it’s very visceral, and hard on the human body, but you don’t feel it’s so hard on the actual boat itself.
However, with the cabin XO there’s more stuff to creak & groan, there are bits and pieces in lockers and cabins that can rattle and bounce. I suppose I was surprised by the feeling that I was subjecting her to much more pain that the RIB despite the fact that I was much less affected, personally. And frankly I really didn't feel I was giving her much of a workout.
So, anyway, long-winded illustrations but what sort of weather will you happily tackle longer journeys in (1 hour or so) and what sort of boat are you using to do it?
(An old jaunt on the RIB:
)
So, from my perspective: I used to have a 6.5m RIB that I’ve taken out in pretty large 2m+ seas with 40 knot winds off Falmouth. That was definitely for the fun of the experience rather than trying to go anywhere and speed was down to a very ginger 10 knots max. 20-30 mins of play and return to base.
I’ve also come back down the coast in the same boat trying to average 20 knots but falling to 12-15 knots in heavy chop (1.5m+ crests, lots of whitecaps) with jarring impacts and basically pretty tiring and unpleasant but not at all unsafe.
I wanted to buy a larger boat that could handle the weather better and allow me to be out when the RIB would have been too tiring. So, I recently purchased a 8.5m XO Front Cabin which rides through the 0.75m sort of chop with much greater ease and is comfortable at 20 knots cruise while throwing water about liberally but you're sheltered and warm in the cabin.
But coming back last Friday morning into a head sea during that low there was 20-30 knot winds against an ebb tide, no swell but quite steep 1.5-2m, shortish duration chop between Falmouth and Helford and she was heaving and crashing along which was disappointing.
One of the issues is that a small RIB has relatively little moving around, flexing and banging - it’s very visceral, and hard on the human body, but you don’t feel it’s so hard on the actual boat itself.
However, with the cabin XO there’s more stuff to creak & groan, there are bits and pieces in lockers and cabins that can rattle and bounce. I suppose I was surprised by the feeling that I was subjecting her to much more pain that the RIB despite the fact that I was much less affected, personally. And frankly I really didn't feel I was giving her much of a workout.
So, anyway, long-winded illustrations but what sort of weather will you happily tackle longer journeys in (1 hour or so) and what sort of boat are you using to do it?
(An old jaunt on the RIB:
