boat brands - prejudice or reality

[dunedin]

There are techniques used by dinghy sailors using the waves to work their way into the wind, but the average cruising boat won’t be responsive enough to gain from such micro-management, even if it may help to keep the principles in mind.

The best dinghy racers tend to use body weight to steer the boat upwind through waves, avoiding tiller use as rudder causes drag.
In a cruising yacht definitely will benefit from using helm in cycle with the waves to go upwind, rather than keeping course dead straight.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Crikey, some A+++ top quality stalking going on here. Top marks.

You can thank googles Gemini AI .... I was looking for pros and cons of various old boats, structural problems etc. and then following the links ... geem should be pleased, it means his blog is seen as a relevant source by Googles search and AI Tech .... didn't realise it was his boat at first. The internet remembers everything

 

[Norman_E]

I think you are talking about the boating equivalent of the classic car enthusiast, appreciating something for what it was back in its heyday - and that's OK. But I for one wouldn't use a classic car (or a classic boat) for a long trip with many hours aboard. There are other options these days.

When I see an 80s boat, particularly one that was a legend back in the day, I do feel nostalgia, and I watch happy people sitting cheek-to-jowl in narrow cockpits, with a tarp thrown over the boom to shade them from the sun. I see them gingerly handing shopping bags up over the guard rails from a dinghy, or clambering up a ladder after a swim - it reminds me of my childhood. My family did all that in the 70s & 80s (apart from the swimming-it was Scotland) - we had no other choice, the swim platform hadn't been invented and boats were what they were. It doesn't mean I have to relive it today - there are choices, things have changed. Part of the reason I have so many friends who come sailing is because of the boat. There is space, it is light and airy, we don't sleep in the saloon and the 3 cabins are proper doubles. There's no drama or gymnastics using the dinghy, water access is easy for SUPs, windsurfers and swimming, the cockpit is big enough for us all to lounge around with a table we can all eat from .... to me it is great to take family and friends boating, something most of them simply wouldn't do if it was not comfortable.

Back in the early 80s, it was Moody that was the butt of the "floating caravan" jokes. The demise of Angus Primrose on a Moody 33 only cemented that reputation, and it still persists with my father to this day. My dads generation who formed the "old boat fraternity" back then have simply passed the baton on to the next generation, repeating the behaviour of the past, with AWBs now the floating caravans instead of Moodys. So owners of old heavy, chopped mat clunkers can look down on these modern floating IKEA loft apartments - and feel good about themselves. There is a very definite element of snobbery mixed I suspect, with the knowledge that actually, there's a lot about modern boats to like.

People adjust how they "feel" to help them get through life, being happy with one's choices is essential to avoid stress, disappointment, envy, burnout. You can't go through life feeling you've made the wrong choices, feeling sorry for yourself, or being envious of others - it's not healthy. So our brains adjust to reassure us that we have made the right choices, and we cling to reasons supporting those choices, logical or not. It's normal.

I understood it all from a very early age ..... I remember going aboard our friends Moody, with its spacious saloon, and sumptuous upholstery. As kids we were in awe of the "big boat feel" ... as was my mum. My dad was forced to agree through gritted teeth, (we'd have had one in a heartbeat if we could have afforded it) but there we were, sitting in the same anchorage, having fought our way through the same shitty weather, and we knew that when we set off the following day, we'd watch the "caravan" show us a clean pair of heels while my dad sat in the cockpit waxing lyrical about why his older long keeled boat had a proper pedigree and would "keep us safe" in a blow ... all the usual stuff as the rain dribbled down the back of our necks, cranked over at 45°, wondering when I'd be sent to the foredeck to hank on a smaller foresail. He had some valid points. Many boats from that era had cockpit floor hatches leading into the engine and bowels of the boat - breach them and the boat sank ..... similar with anchor lockers which drained into the bilge. I realised that it is seamanship and crew competency that matters above all else - assuming the boat has a minimum level of capability. The boats they thought were "blue water legends" back then are way down the list today. Who would choose a 32ft boat for a circumnavigation unless they were budget constrained adventurers? No-one .... but the Contessa 32 was THE blue water idol of that generation, primarily due to the '79 Fasnet.

I have often wondered, what do people actually use these days for a trip across the pond? The only data is the ARC so I found someone who had crunched the numbers on ARC data from 2020 to 2025 ... here are the results, which boats by Make and Model show up most often on the ARC start line?

1st Place with 10 ARC entries each.
Clipper 60
Bavaria Cruiser 51
Beneteau First 47,7

2nd Place with 9 ARC entries.
Oyster 56

3rd Place with 8 ARC entries.
Amel Super Marramu

4th Place with 7 ARC entries.
Dufour Gib Sea 51

5th place with 6 ARC entries each.
Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 519
Beneteau Clipper 473
Grand Soleil 50
Hallberg-Rassy 44

6th Place with 5 ARC entries each.
Hallberg-Rassy 54
Bavaria 44

7th Place with 4 ARC entries.
Dufour 56

8th Place with 3 ARC entries each.
Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45,2
Hanse 411
Hanse 445
Beneteau Oceanis 43

.... so these are the choices ARC sailors are making to head across the Atlantic. There are a lot of production boats in there and nobody seems to be dying from their choice of boat.

An interesting list, which confirms my view that the build standards of BenJenBav went downhill in the early 2000s. The last group is headed by the boat I owned, the Jeanneau 45.2. Its successor, the 45 does not even appear. The reason seems clear to me. The 45.2 and earlier 45.1 were designed to be strong, ocean capable boats, with a masthead rig, thick hull layup, (mine measured 16mm where I replaced hull fittings) and a hull shape that pre-dated the trend towards over wide flat stern sections. True, it had a bolted on keel and a spade rudder, but the former had a double row of very substantial bolts, and the latter a big diameter stainless shaft. A couple I knew crossed the Atlantic in one and were happy with it, but much less pleased when they delivered a mid 2000s Jeanneau.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

An interesting list, which confirms my view that the build standards of BenJenBav went downhill in the early 2000s. The last group is headed by the boat I owned, the Jeanneau 45.2. Its successor, the 45 does not even appear. The reason seems clear to me. The 45.2 and earlier 45.1 were designed to be strong, ocean capable boats, with a masthead rig, thick hull layup, (mine measured 16mm where I replaced hull fittings) and a hull shape that pre-dated the trend towards over wide flat stern sections. True, it had a bolted on keel and a spade rudder, but the former had a double row of very substantial bolts, and the latter a big diameter stainless shaft. A couple I knew crossed the Atlantic in one and were happy with it, but much less pleased when they delivered a mid 2000s Jeanneau.

I think it actually has a lot to do with legislation, particularly .... The International Tropical Timber Agreement

ITTA2 (1994) was drafted to ensure that by the year 2000 exports of tropical timber originated from sustainably managed sources and to establish a fund to assist tropical timber producers in obtaining the resources necessary to reach this objective. It further defined the mandate of the International Tropical Timber Organization. The agreement was opened for signature on 26 January 1994, and entered into force on 1 January 1997.

ITTA3 (2006) aimed to "promote the expansion and diversification of international trade in tropical timber from sustainably managed and legally harvested forests and to promote the sustainable management of tropical timber producing forests". It entered into force on 7 December 2011.

International Tropical Timber Agreement - Wikipedia

And then in 2005, the EUs Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Regulation.

The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 2173/2005) entered into force in 2005 with the objective of regulating the control of the entry of timber to the EU from countries entering into bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA).

The FLEGT Regulation is implemented by the Member States' Competent Authorities.

EU rules against illegal logging

Both had the effect of making tropical hardwoods more difficult to obtain and more expensive, so we saw the boat industry pivot to alternatives to marine ply faced with hardwood veneer, and/or solid hardwood interior furniture. The industry now seems to have settled on Alpi as a substitute, ALPI - A wood that has something more , but some of the interim solutions resulted in interiors that didn't wear as well as hardwoods, and resulted in the IKEA label for more recent AWBs - which in some cases was well deserved IMO.

The actual hulls and other hardware were still fine, just let down by their interior fit-out. This was a major factor in my boat buying decision last year.

EDIT: Masthead rigs are a consequence of boats designed with large overlapping genoas, particularly when sailing downwind ... modern boats have moved away from enormous overlapping genoas, so can use fractional rigs which offer superior sail shaping, easier handling with smaller jibs, and better performance through increased mast bend control. Again, it's not a question of one being an obvious choice over the other, just modern boats no longer have huge overlapping genoas, so don't need a masthead rig to accommodate them.

 

[doug748]

flaming has made the long form point that I have mentioned in the past (to no great effect) in answer to folk who try to insist that newer boats are universally "better" for everyone, in some unspecified way.

The newer style boat will tend to need more active sailing and to a larger extent reward careful sail trim and thoughtful work on the helm. Older boats (narrow hull, longer deep keel, high ballast) will be more tolerant. She will plod on regardless of sloppy work or tardy reefing by a busy and sometimes distracted skipper, nice for a singlehander for example or me. These are not necessarily slow boats, though some are, they are placid though.

That's my advice to a beginner's question. Before I get jumped on, this does not mean you can't happily buy the boat of your choice.
It's partly a cast of mind, personally I don't have much interest in lively boats, I notice I have the same attitude to motor cars, preferring ease to excitement. Always did.
I also note Daydream Believer seems to be a similar old fart and seems to do similar sailing to me, quite happily in his Hanse 311. A boat I would consider dangerously farouche.

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