The building of small boats, like small cars, is relatively uneconomic, which distorts things a bit for new boats but i think that in the second hand market the cube rule would be nearer the mark.
Are you sure it's a marketing wheeze? It might be a cost cutting exercise, or an unnecessary complication? ... I'm sure it's not a more efficient design made possible by detailed computer modelling combined with modern materials and construction techniques - providing todays cruisers and charter customers with products they want at prices they can afford .... can't possibly be that.
30 footer with an 11m mast needs a 10mm halyard of 26m = £65
Depends on the boat. My 30 footer has a 13m mast, 4m boom. Halyards and main probably same cost as a 40 footer. Certainly less antifoul.
But thicker lines need changing less often so it even out.
There are always exceptions but as a general rule it's true and your exception isn't relevant to the discussion.
No they don't, where did you get that from? Lines degrade and we replace them because they are no longer able to take the same load. The loads are larger on bigger boats, we don't just buy thicker lines because they are more in keeping with the look of a larger deck.
Well, that's me told.
Excellent.
I get it from actual experipence. I used to need to change chafed lines on my 31 footer every 4 or 5 years. I bouught the current ones on my 42 footer in 2011 and so far more sailing each year than I used to. If deck stuff on a bigger boat isn’t lasting longer than smaller boats for you then either you are a racer and need that tiny performance gain or you have set up your running rigging wrong.
Chafe is due to setting things up badly, not boat size. Wear and tear happens regardless, and rope degrades in UV which applies equally.
Sorry I wasn't meaning to shut you up, just highlighting that your outlier would be matched by an outlier in other sizes so doesn't change anything as far as the thread goes. Oversize rigs are available for any sized boat, but then you'd be comparing oversized rig with oversize rig, not to standard rigs. Obviously I worded it poorly so apologies.
Decent rope doesn’t degrade much in UV. We leave the jib on all year in the Med and 6 months of the year now in the Caribbean and I can’t see a change in over 10 years. Why are you changing your ropes?
Not sure why you're fixating on this. Ropes, whether you like it or not, are a consumable item on a boat and need replacing periodically. That is demonstrably twice as expensive on a 40 as a 30 footer. It was just one simple example of how costs are much higher on larger boats, I could have used sails as another example but the costs are harder to find.
The Sigma is from 1989 so every bit of mild steel and stainless steel on board has been corroding for around 35 years, the other boats for 20 ... if I remember rightly, the Sigma has mild steel reinforcements providing extra strengthening to the tabbed in plywood bulkheads, not all bolts are accessible but will almost certainly be well corroded, and the forward lower shroud SS chainplates are not accessible without removing bits of the interior, they need to be properly inspected replaced after 35 years. On the Bavs these things are all clearly visible.
Bavaria
