Confession time, motor/sail.

How much time do you spend under sail alone

  • 0%

    Votes: 8 4.9%

  • 0-25%

    Votes: 15 9.1%

  • 26-50%

    Votes: 35 21.3%

  • 50-75%

    Votes: 50 30.5%

  • 75-95%

    Votes: 40 24.4%

  • 95% plus

    Votes: 16 9.8%
  • Total voters
    164
fisherman

fisherman

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What percentage of your time afloat do you spend under sail alone? Results may have to be adjusted as for a 'how often do you have sex' poll.

I ask because I still very rarely see a yacht under sail alone, maybe ten a year. Yesterday a very nice 40ft plus yacht passed me in a spanking following breeze, no sail up. In the olden days before handy diesels were available you had no choice.
 
PeteCooper said:
Why does anybody care what other people do on their boat? Just enjoy your own boat in any way which makes you happy.
Click to expand...

Don't care about the others - but I do care about ours - too much time under diesel ... it's not good and it needs to change otherwise we might as well just have a stinkpot and get the benefit of a 1/2 decent speed !

If there is wind - why do you motor?
1) Wind in the wrong direction
2) Not enough wind to sail fast enough
3) Too much wind to sail comfortably
4) In too much of a rush to get to the destination

Guilty of all those.
 
fireball said:
Don't care about the others - but I do care about ours - too much time under diesel ... it's not good and it needs to change otherwise we might as well just have a stinkpot and get the benefit of a 1/2 decent speed !

If there is wind - why do you motor?
1) Wind in the wrong direction
2) Not enough wind to sail fast enough
3) Too much wind to sail comfortably
4) In too much of a rush to get to the destination

Guilty of all those.
Click to expand...

very well put, the 'fast enough' bit is the most frustrating one, having to meet a tidal gate when I'd rather be enjoying the speed I am actually achieving.
 
Guilty also to all four.

I wish I had inmast furling on the mainsail instead of slab reefing. Sometimes it's just too much hassle to get the main set on a short coastal hop. If the wind is right I set the genny and motor. I'm certainly getting lazy in my senior years
 
By the by, when the yacht got out off the Lizard and met the ebb he did hoist his sails, so he was 'motoring but not fast enough' or maybe just the crew were not up from breakfast yet.
 
but like all this stuff "it all depends..."

When on a passage where tidal streams or hights are crucial then the motor will be used when needed to maintain appropriate average passage speed. On a long off shore passage of more than a couple of days the dynamic changes a lot and we will keep sailing until speed drops below 2 or 2.5 knots.
 
Hi Fisherman,

75%-95% based on logs of last two cruises.

Could you reciprocate with a poll in a fishing forum?

Poll - How often to you lay pots in small boat channels?

never
sometimes
frequently
always
whats a small boat channel?

Partisan interest declaration ...

We caught a pot off Eastbourne this year. It was not the fishermans fault it was broad daylight and it was a bloody great orange thing. It was not entirely my fault as I had handed over the tiller 10 minutes previously telling the new watch "Be careful, there is a guy over there laying/hauling pots".

It was a bit nervewracking as we dropped from 5.8 SOG to 1.7 SOG and I wondered what was happening to my brandnew Kiwi prop. Luckily we weren't under motor at the time (see response to poll) so the line was caught around the skeg with the flotation of the buoy meaning it could not drag free.

I though he might call us on CH16 and offer some helpful suggestions in fisherspeak (abuse) rather than just skulking after us at reduced speed as we dragged slowly towards Beachy Head - especially when I began brandishing a breadknife in the cockpit.

Luckily for him the buoy popped free when I got the sails off to reduce tension in the pot line so no need to cut.

Luckily for me it did not remove my windvane self-steering gear from the transom - The hinge bolt and sacrificial nylon setscrew on the pendulum blade worked as designed.

Still, I was pot-shy for the rest of the holiday. Especially on the return leg when we beat back into Royal Sovereign, in the dark with a F5-6 Northerly :eek: No chance to see the pots in that (even tho' I was sat on the pulpit, freezing my ass off whilst being occasionally deluged with spray).

Mmm - I feel better now :o
 
I have a friend who is selling Prelude at the moment. He is over 80.
He has spent 100% of his time under sail as he never had a motor.
 
fisherman said:
I ask because I still very rarely see a yacht under sail alone, maybe ten a year. QUOTE]

That seems incredibly low (how many yachts do you see per year).

We sailed both ways past the Lizard this year so if you were out I hope we improved your batting average.
Click to expand...
 
It's much less in the Med than in UK/French waters, so 50% at best. In our last boat in the UK it was at the high end of 75-95% as we changed boats to one that could sail in lighter winds and stopped the "5 knots or motor" passage plans that blighted so many sails.

Even so, we still had 48 hours continous motoring across Biscay as there wasn't even enough wind for 3 knots at best.

One thing I've never done (except for the last mile or so) is motor because the wind is too strong or in the wrong direction, but if that's how others want to use their boats, well fine. I have many daft boat foibles that plenty of people would strongly disagree with (flares and liferafts are pointless, would never have a chart plotter etc.)
 
Of course it matters not one jot but it is interesting. I can work this out with some science:

My average number of log entries is about 80 per year (this includes all time off the mooring so may even be on a trip when I sit on a marina berth and don't actually move, but that is bye the bye)

I do about 100 to 150 engine hours per season.

I do about 1000 to 1500 miles per season.

Roughly speaking I do about 1.5 hours under motor each average trip of 15 miles.

So 10%

I switch the thing off unless in stong noser and adverse tide. A dislike of motoring is one of the reasons I chose a good upwind performer.
 
doug748 said:
Of course it matters not one jot but it is interesting. I can work this out with some science:
My average number of log entries is about 80 per year (this includes all time off the mooring so may even be on a trip when I sit on a marina berth and don't actually move, but that is bye the bye)
I do about 100 to 150 engine hours per season.
I do about 1000 to 1500 miles per season.
Roughly speaking I do about 1.5 hours under motor each average trip of 15 miles.
So 10%
I switch the thing off unless in stong noser and adverse tide. A dislike of motoring is one of the reasons I chose a good upwind performer.
Click to expand...

Ehm ..... if your average speed under sail and motor is a conservative 5kts, you are a lot closer to 50% of your time under motor.
 
doug748 said:
Nope.

Average speed under engine is probably little over 1 knot.
Click to expand...

Really? You spend 1.5 hours of each trip going just a little over 1 knot? I can see the first and last 5 minutes of a trip being done at that speed, but what's the other 1 hour 20 minutes motoring at low speed for?
 
Moored about 12 miles up a relatively narrow river, you do either spend a lot of time under engine, or not go very far! Whose law is it that which ever way you want to go, the wind is always dead on the nose? No matter how much you like sailing, tacking ten miles along a river that is just a couple of hundred yards wide soon loses its appeal!
 
I like to add a reason 5
5) Water too shallow to lower keel (I haven't got the cohoneys to try raising ANY sail with the keel up!)
 
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