Are modern boats up to it?

Tranona said:
If we spend most of our time in coastal waters, or swanning around the Med then just about any boat will cope with that safely.
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The Med can be very dangerous. Waves can be big, 5m or more, very short, steep and breaking. Wind can go from F3 to F8 in a matter of minutes with no warning. Often the weather forecasts don't forsee this either.

Just google for knockdown, Cap Bear, Cabo Greus, catamaran capsize etc.

We had a classic last year - a yacht called up the Cap Bear signal station and asked for a weather forecast. This was duly read out to him. Basically the forecast was for calm seas, no wind and sunshine. After the days forecast for the local area, they added "oh by the way, just outside here, it is blowing a gale and the sea is rough".

An hour or so later, we passed the yacht which made the call - and indeed, it was calm seas, no wind and the sun was shining. Which was quite a contrast to the gale we had just sailed through an hour earlier.
 
Just for a bit of balance there was a long thread here last year from the owner of a Bowman 48 who had to rebuild the bottom of his boat in Antigua because the floors were breaking away. Couldn't understand it as he had never hit anything and he thought the boat was designed for "Bluewater" cruising .....

Once and for all, structural failures are rare and individual events and not confined to particular types of boats.
 
michaelchapman said:
The Med can be very dangerous. Waves can be big, 5m or more, very short, steep and breaking. Wind can go from F3 to F8 in a matter of minutes with no warning. Often the weather forecasts don't forsee this either.


Yes, I know, I have been caught out a few times in the Corfu channel - usually thunderstorms and it is not pleasant. Never felt unsafe, although at times noisy and uncomfortable.
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Tranona said:
Well said. A re-reading of Miles Smeeton's adventures in an old fashioned heavy boat which pitchpoled twice in the Southern Pacific would put things into persective.
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But the interesting thing about Tzu Hang is she was in the Southern Ocean and she and the crew survived.

http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/blogs/dick-durham/410261/once-is-more-than-enough

Not the case with the Needles boat.

But Tranona I do broadly agree with you here, we are talking about extremes which most will never meet and the boats will cope long after the crew have given up.
 
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That is the point I am making. In both cases the boats were overwhelmed by the conditions - waves, not wind. There are some (like Maurice Griffiths) who argue that shallow draft boats are actually better in severe sea states. Slocum's boat was the very opposite of the convential bluewater cruier and MG's most successful design the Golden Hind has been all over the world - probably more than any other single design - but would never have got Category A (although the last half a dozen did after Mark Urry redesigned the keel, ballast and cockpit).
 
KellysEye said:
>Where is the evidence for this structural damage?

A Jenneau (charter boat) was being deliverd by two ladies fron the BVI to Antigua upwind. The ladies were circumnavigors and left in a full gale in order to meet the delivery deadline. The boat had been slamming for thirty six hours and then water started to pour in. It sank so fast that they didn't have time to get the liferaft out of the locker and got in their dinghy at night. They had passed through the cut between Statia and Kitts, fortunately the dinghy drifted back on to the reefs on south Statia. If it had not done that the next stop would be Central America, they were very lucky.

So yes slamming can cause structural damage and the Jenneau of that peirod (early nineties) was more strongly built than most AWBs now.
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I slammed our J SO30 into the wind for 12 hours (it took 18 to get to Cherbourg - but not all that time was slamming!) - and she didn't fall apart ...

I'm of the view that if you mistreat your vessel she will break - but I'm also aware that I will wimp out long before the boat does ...
Ocean crossing - yes, I'd like to - one day - AWB or MAB ? don't mind too much ....
 
KellysEye said:
>So yes slamming can cause structural damage and the Jenneau of that peirod (early nineties) was more strongly built than most AWBs now.
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I was designing cars in the early nineties and what became blatently apparent when we got computers that could do finite particle analysis was .... 'looks strong and heavy' and 'over-engineered' in no way predicted how the component would fare when subjected to real life - it was a black art balancing weight and strength in the good 'ole days.

Saying something constructed in the 90s was more strongly built than most AWBs now is utter nonsense and not true. The fact that people think that weight or thickness means the structure must be stronger says more about the MAB mindset than anything else.

The designers (or perhaps the builders) of the afore-mentioned boat (which by your standards was strongly built) didn't really know where the high-stress points were in the hull, deck, rigging etc. and just oversized everything - AND THEY STILL FAILED TO KEEP THE BOAT TOGETHER!!! - Says it all as far as I'm concerned - read "Voyage for Madmen" most of
their boats fell apart.

Lighter and stronger is possible through computer modelling and advances in material science. Just accept it and move on.

Every modern yacht builder knows this, as does every car manufacturer, plane manufacturer etc. etc. etc.

I'm off to the pub, but for your enjoyment here is the aeronautical equivalent of slamming, it's called flutter....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQI3AWpTWhM
 
Baggywrinkle said:
I was designing cars in the early nineties and what became blatently apparent when we got computers that could do finite particle analysis was .... 'looks strong and heavy' and 'over-engineered' in no way predicted how the component would fare when subjected to real life - it was a black art balancing weight and strength in the good 'ole days.

Saying something constructed in the 90s was more strongly built than most AWBs now is utter nonsense and not true. The fact that people think that weight or thickness means the structure must be stronger says more about the MAB mindset than anything else.

The designers (or perhaps the builders) of the afore-mentioned boat (which by your standards was strongly built) didn't really know where the high-stress points were in the hull, deck, rigging etc. and just oversized everything - AND THEY STILL FAILED TO KEEP THE BOAT TOGETHER!!! - Says it all as far as I'm concerned - read "Voyage for Madmen" most of
their boats fell apart.

Lighter and stronger is possible through computer modelling and advances in material science. Just accept it and move on.

Every modern yacht builder knows this, as does every car manufacturer, plane manufacturer etc. etc. etc.

I'm off to the pub, but for your enjoyment here is the aeronautical equivalent of slamming, it's called flutter....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQI3AWpTWhM
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Can slamming and flutter effect structures in boats and planes then?
I suppose that modern awb designers may consider it because some of them sure can slam in some conditions!
 
Baggywrinkle said:
I was designing cars in the early nineties and what became blatently apparent when we got computers that could do finite particle analysis was .... 'looks strong and heavy' and 'over-engineered' in no way predicted how the component would fare when subjected to real life - it was a black art balancing weight and strength in the good 'ole days.

Saying something constructed in the 90s was more strongly built than most AWBs now is utter nonsense and not true. The fact that people think that weight or thickness means the structure must be stronger says more about the MAB mindset than anything else.

The designers (or perhaps the builders) of the afore-mentioned boat (which by your standards was strongly built) didn't really know where the high-stress points were in the hull, deck, rigging etc. and just oversized everything - AND THEY STILL FAILED TO KEEP THE BOAT TOGETHER!!! - Says it all as far as I'm concerned - read "Voyage for Madmen" most of
their boats fell apart.

Lighter and stronger is possible through computer modelling and advances in material science. Just accept it and move on.

Every modern yacht builder knows this, as does every car manufacturer, plane manufacturer etc. etc. etc.

I'm off to the pub, but for your enjoyment here is the aeronautical equivalent of slamming, it's called flutter....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQI3AWpTWhM
Click to expand...

But you still can't beat displacement.
 
Truth is the MABs so beloved here are so slow they would never ever slam, because you have to be making headway above 3kts or so upwind for that...:)

Weight as Uffa Fox once said is only of use in steamrollers.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q
"Truth is the MABs so beloved here are so slow they would never ever slam, because you have to be making headway above 3kts or so upwind for that...
Weight as Uffa Fox once said is only of use in steamrollers."


Well when I crossed Biscay in a Nic 38 3 seasons ago we didn't slam even being hardpressed in a F7 and we were making an average speed of over 6 knots, for 4 days and 500 miles.
What awb would you choose to do that in and
a. not get wet
b. be really comfortsable
c. feel safe?
 
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jonic said:
But you still can't beat displacement.
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Taken from your own advert for a Bendytoy 473 ...

"Bluewater equipped Beneteau 473"
"set up by her owners for Blue Water/ liveaboard cruising."
"A fast and spacious passage maker"
"Specified for Caribbean cruising and the ARC Europe crossing"
"She gives a gentle and dry ride making long passages a comfortable and enjoyable experience."

I have absolutely no doubt it is all true.

... and she's an AWB, a darling of the charter companies, with the same underwater profile as pretty much every other AWB out there. I rest my case. :D:D:D
 
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Baggywrinkle said:
I rest my case. :D:D:D
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What case?

I also have a Hallberg Rassy 46

Same length but twice the price and almost 50% heavier.

One caters for one man's budget and the other for another man's budget. They both do the job but they are not the same.

Sorry you have lost me, what is your case?
 
Baggywrinkle said:
My case is simply that a modern AWB is up to it, that was the question the OP asked - I believe you are of the same opinion.

In fact you put it very well, yacht choice is a question of budget and preference.
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Ok, misunderstood you.

It is a function of budget, todays AWB allow more people to get on the water at larger sizes (more displacement).

I personally have owned Beneteau, Westerly and now Moody. I have sailed offshore in Bavarias, Oysters, Dufours, Jeanneaus, Sigmas and Rassy's. They are all different and offer something for varying budgets. As ever with boats it's always a compromise.
 
galadriel said:
I was actually posting in response to the claims by MAB owners who were suggesting that after a particular passage the AWB they had been on would have been damaged in some way, claims that were then exposed by other posters as being pure conjecture.
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Indeed. Sopranino proved half a century ago that light can be very seaworthy.
 
Flying Penguin said:
Name one boat that was sold that didn't function as a boat and sunk immediately upon launch?
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Vasa%20Museum.jpg
 
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