Define "Seaworthy"

Wiggo

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Define \"Seaworthy\"

Merriam-Webster Online defines it thus:

Main Entry: sea·wor·thy
Function: adjective
: fit or safe for a sea voyage

Cambridge Dictionary:

seaworthy
adjective: (of a ship) in a condition that is good enough to travel safely on the sea
 

Gludy

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

Please refer to the RCD regulations that specify a number of tests so that boats can be rated for their sea worthiness. if you want to argue, argue with them.

Seaworthiness is not a balck and white thing - there are degrees of sea worthiness and even for the same degree variations such as one boat handling better in a running sea than another. However, as a number of qualified navala architects have already defined the tests it would be chrlish of me to pretend to know more....
 

powerskipper

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

seaworthiness
in this context and as it is generally accepted, is the Stability of the vessel when they tip. or its "vanishing angel of stability" and all that jazz.

simply put how far over it can tip before it will not right itself
 

jhr

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Nurse! Nurse!

I've kept out of these debates because, frankly, I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about different types of boat design to make an informed contribution. However, it does seem to me as if you are missing the point in a fairly major way in relation to RCD categories.

Fundamentally, they are an exercise in bureaucracy, giving boatbuilders various guidelines to help them to calculate the "seaworthiness" of their craft. However, this allows all kinds of oddities, such as the fact that my Sea Ray 215, at 6.5 metres, is the same category (B) as JFM's Squaddie. Much though I love my boat, which is a cracker, I know where I'd rather be in a F8. By the same token, in the kind of extreme conditions we are (theoretically) talking about here, I don't think there would be much real world difference between a planing and a semi displacement hull. In both craft, the boat would be coping with the weather, albeit uncomfortably, and the crew would probably be crapping themselves.

Anyway, in those kinds of condition, I'd rather be in a big, heavy, long-keeled sailing boat than any kind of mobo.

IMHO, I think this subject has been done to death, at least for the time being, but I suspect you have yet more to say..............
 

Wiggo

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

Now I may be a cynic, Paul, but since when did anything that came out of Brussels have any semblance of common sense about it?

The RCD defines a number of tests that a boat must undergo - agreed. They are all about the boat's ability to not get swamped or break under very specific conditions. Then it lumps all boat designs into four categories. So, for example, the Trader is 'as seaworthy' as the QM2, while the Squaddie is as 'seaworthy' as a 25' Sealine.

Don't hide behind the RCD, that just defines a few safety considerations, and has nothing whatsoever to do with how a boat will 'feel' or 'behave' at sea.

If what you mean by 'seaworthy' is that it passes the 'bacon butty test', then say so.
 

tcm

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

massive enclosed steel midchannel buoy thingy 10/10
lilo 1/10 (cos it floats)
non floating things 0/10

everything else boatwise a bit in between. Incidentally, i don't think seaworthines is much if anything to do with the motor(s) - it has to just sit there, perhaops for days and long after all the diesel used up, imho.
 

AJW

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Re: Nurse! Nurse!

Absolutely spot on. Anyone who uses RCD category as a measure of the actual, experienced, would you want to take your family out in this, perceived seaworthiness of a boat is barking. IMHO.
 

[2068]

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Submarine ?

The bacon butty test would be part of it, but there would be other things in my "seaworthy" boat. It would be a reasonably heavy layup for it's length, and the CofG would be as low as possible. It would have watertight internal bulkheads, big pumps, and any green water that washed over would have a place to go other than below. The windows would be super-strength, the engines super-reliable, the electrics properly protected, and the people inside wouldn't be thrown around like badly packed shopping.

Planing hull, SD hull, whatever, so long as I had enough spare engine power and hull performance to accelerate around the worst of the waves.

Unfortunately, the consequence of this is that my 25 foot "seaworthy" boat would have a dry weight of eight tons, cost £300,000, and consume 40 Gallons/hr at cruise....

....IF it floated.

dv.
 

hobiecat

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

Practical Boatowner June 2004: Tests show that a well designed catamaran is more resistant to inversion by breaking waves. Whats more the comparison with sail powered craft is between ballasted monohulls and unballasted catamarans - whereas ballast does not enter into the equation with semi displacement or planing motorboats.
 

Wiggo

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

Sorry, as per Gludy's Arbitrary Definitions, you're talking about Stability here - that has nothing to do with Seaworthy, which is either defined by RCD categories, or the ability to pass the GBB Test, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
 

BarryH

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Re: Define \"Seaworthy\"

I think what your after is the condition rather than its seakeeping abilities or its seakindlyness. So for a vessel to be seaworthy it'll have to be a condition where the machinery works the hull floats and its equipment levels are at a basic minimum for it to be used safely in the conditions prevailing.

You could have the best sd hullin the world but if its got a hole in it it ain't seaworthy. It could have the best engine in the world, but if it don't work!
 
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