Centre cockpit boats

[waterboy]

Is it just me or are centre cockpit boats a serious liability? Sitting there in the cockpit, relatively high and forwards with the foresail leach abeam, what chance does the crew have of seeing anything behind the sail? That means the spotting of other boats on the oposite tack is badly compromised At least with an aft cockpit boat, the crew can see some distance ahead to leeward.

 

[snowleopard]

I disagree. It's not the centre cockpit that's a liability, it's deck-scraper genoas. The racing world obviously needs them, indeed there's no way I can see round the genoa of my International 14, but on a cruiser they have no place except to make up for an unbalanced sail plan. Far better to design the rig to use a higher-cut foresail.

My cat has a self-tacking blade jib.

 

[Birdseye]

Quite agree, certainly on small boats below (say) 50ft.

The cockpit is already fairly high so the last thing you want to do is to raise the centre of effort of the genoa, which will then go up further when reefed. You have to do the same to the main so the boom clears heads.

Because you are higher up you move through a wider arc as the boat rolls, you are further forward and get wetter from spray, cockpits are usually more shallow (though that rot is applying to rear cockpits these days)