Do ex dinghy sailors make good cruising yachtsmen?

[RupertW]

If we’ve got 5kn of breeze, we are doing 5-6kn. Who says we stay in harbour? We find it extremely rate that we have a day when we cannot sail at all. But we would pick a day with some wind, and hopefully in a decent direction for a trip of 100 miles. We’d just go somewhere nearer, or try and optimise our trip on the following days forecast. That 100 miles across the channel could be a 6 hour trip for us in good conditions. We used to motor when we were working people. Now we have time, we just don’t.

I get that in your type of boat. We have a lot of home comforts and need to have all the tools and spares for longer trips to places with no chandlers or very expensive limited ones, so a multihull would have to be pretty big to get anything out of under 10 knots wind.

We also always have plenty of time but like to spend that time enjoying new and familiar places at least as much as we enjoy putting up the flappy bits. I’d say sailing itself is maybe 3 or 4 places down the list compared to the other pleasures, maybe more. A motor boat would be no use as the fuel would be too expensive and impossible to have enough for the longer trips where winds are more reliable.

 

[Sea Change]

The limited weight carrying capacity of multi hulls is great for us- our friends are always offloading books, spare lengths of rope, etc etc. Our monohull barely notices it!

 

[Chiara’s slave]

The limited weight carrying capacity of multi hulls is great for us- our friends are always offloading books, spare lengths of rope, etc etc. Our monohull barely notices it!

We have been known to get our mobo friends to carry our tender for us. Whilst we are still quick with cruising gear aboard she is amazing fun empty. Another league, indulged for the RTI race, ans similar occasions.

 

[Laser310]

In that case, perhaps a Danish trimaran would do the job for you. We are going for our first sail of the year tomorrow, forecast is less than 5 knots. It is absolutely worth going.

they are certainly cool looking boats, and the videos show that they go well.

I have a J/92 S, and it's a joy to sail in 5kts.

i have a lot of catamaran experience - mostly big; the smallest one i have been on is 55ft, other than my hobie cat.

But i've yet to sail on a tri

tri's seem to give up a lot of liveaboard potential unless they are really big, or you can just do without.

there is a Rapido 40 for sale now, and that seems a bit spartan. Home - Rapido 40 "Run Time"

I have heard the 40 is a bit underpowered.

for a little more money, I would probably opt for the Outremer 4X, and I know that some Outremer 45's, the 48ft version,gave sold for about the price of the Rapido

 

[Concerto]

Part of many sailors problem today is they have too much information to consider. I was asked to crew on a 28ft Trapper to race from Harwich to Ostend in the late 1970's. As I went aboard, I was asked if I could navigate. Having done the race a number of times, I knew roughly what I needed to do. I checked what was on the boat. An echo sounder, an unswung compass, and charts fives years out of date. There was no log, parallel ruler, wind instruments, vhf, or radio direction finder. What was there was enough for me. I estimated the boat speed and cross checked it as we passed over a ridge in the sea bed half was across, I was a quarter of a knot out! The compass came into use as there was a tall block of flats in Ostend and all I needed to was keep the boat heading in a straight line with an adjustment for cross tide. The end result was the best result the owner ever had.

Now days I use a chart plotter and usually only punch in any important waypoints as I am sailing, frequently only one per day for the destination. I went round Britain doing just this as the only chart I bought was one of the whole of the UK. The Cruising Association Almanac was excellent for harbour information and whilst entering harbours I also used satellite view on my phone. I doubt if many of you cruiser sailors or ex dinghy sailors would do a major trip with such little information. This year I am going round Ireland using the same basic amount of information except I have not updated the chartplotter as my mark 1 eyeball will follow any buoyed channels. I try to be very low key so I do not suffer information overload and miss something obvious to the naked eye. Having learnt to sail with very basic equipment and using dead reckoning, the chart plotter makes navigating so simple.

 

[johnalison]

Part of many sailors problem today is they have too much information to consider. I was asked to crew on a 28ft Trapper to race from Harwich to Ostend in the late 1970's. As I went aboard, I was asked if I could navigate. Having done the race a number of times, I knew roughly what I needed to do. I checked what was on the boat. An echo sounder, an unswung compass, and charts fives years out of date. There was no log, parallel ruler, wind instruments, vhf, or radio direction finder. What was there was enough for me. I estimated the boat speed and cross checked it as we passed over a ridge in the sea bed half was across, I was a quarter of a knot out! The compass came into use as there was a tall block of flats in Ostend and all I needed to was keep the boat heading in a straight line with an adjustment for cross tide. The end result was the best result the owner ever had.

Now days I use a chart plotter and usually only punch in any important waypoints as I am sailing, frequently only one per day for the destination. I went round Britain doing just this as the only chart I bought was one of the whole of the UK. The Cruising Association Almanac was excellent for harbour information and whilst entering harbours I also used satellite view on my phone. I doubt if many of you cruiser sailors or ex dinghy sailors would do a major trip with such little information. This year I am going round Ireland using the same basic amount of information except I have not updated the chartplotter as my mark 1 eyeball will follow any buoyed channels. I try to be very low key so I do not suffer information overload and miss something obvious to the naked eye. Having learnt to sail with very basic equipment and using dead reckoning, the chart plotter makes navigating so simple.

At least on my first trip to Ostend in 1980, in a Mystere, I had a Walker log and parallel rules. I suppose you would consider me a softie.

 

[Beelzebub]

On one of my trips it became apparent that there were no parallel rules or alternative on board. A tube of Polos and a sail batten did the trick though.

 

[michael_w]

A good mate used to use a packet of Benson & Hedges as a parallel ruler.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

• Specific to multihulls, a good beach cat sailor has a MUCH better feel for capsize, pitch poling, and what it feels like before that happens. I would never be comfortable letting a person without considerable beach cat experience (and I don't mean the new water-down roto-molded toys) helm a cruising cat in really heavy conditions, or when over canvassed for fun or other reasons.

Oh dear. I've sailed Dragonfly trimarans for nearly 30 years now, but I've never sailed a beach cat. No capsizes or pitch poles yet, but I expect that's just luck. Looks like I'll need to go back to basics and get a Hobie and lots of practice in that or else I'll just be a danger to myself (no-one ever wants to sail with me) and be an accident waiting to happen. Oh dear oh dear.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

The limited weight carrying capacity of multi hulls is great for us- our friends are always offloading books, spare lengths of rope, etc etc.

I've found that the best way to keep weight down on a trimaran is to be a miserable curmudgeonly straying into occasional obnoxious type. Each person that doesn't want to sail with me saves 80kg, 100kg if they've spent their life hitting the pies. Then there's all the food they'd eat and water I'd need to wash in if there was anyone else around. What's not to like?

 

[vyv_cox]

Oh dear. I've sailed Dragonfly trimarans for nearly 30 years now, but I've never sailed a beach cat. No capsizes or pitch poles yet, but I expect that's just luck. Looks like I'll need to go back to basics and get a Hobie and lots of practice in that or else I'll just be a danger to myself (no-one ever wants to sail with me) and be an accident waiting to happen. Oh dear oh dear.

We raced Hobie 16s for years. We have capsized them in any way imaginable, including very spectacular pitch poles. Perhaps the daftest of all was hove-to between races eating our lunch. A big wave capsized us backwards, an astern pitchpole!

 

[DownWest]

We raced Hobie 16s for years. We have capsized them in any way imaginable, including very spectacular pitch poles. Perhaps the daftest of all was hove-to between races eating our lunch. A big wave capsized us backwards, an astern pitchpole!

I sailed a Hobie 16 out of my US family's place on the Chesapeak. First time on a beach cat, and stern advice about not burying the lee bow if I did not want to be flung out of it. The Sharpie was also fun, if much older. Plank on frame, + huge centerboard.

My father tried a few odd ones. In about '55, built a 18ft tri. triangular section hulls and a wing mast. The wing was around 30% of the sail area, with a fully batterned main off the trailing edge and a batterned jib. The twin rudders were in an inverted V, with turning together steering and turning inwards or out, controlled pitch. As you can imagine, while it works on some aircraft, like the Beech Bonanza, it was less successfull in sea conditions, resulting in frequent pitchpoling. Not helped by by the foils under the main and outrigger hulls.. Unstable, yes, a bit...
A mod was to put a foil on the bow to stop it going under. That helped a lot, but it did not result in anything useful.
I was too young to be allowed out in it (quite rightly..)
Few years later, he tried a cat. Hulls were ply inverted 'U' s with gently cambered bottoms. Slight V from the side elevation.. Quite heavily raked mast with the mainsail having a BIG batterned top.
We sailed it for year or so, mainly in Cornwall. Last saw it on the Crouch, at a distance. But the rig was unmistakable.

 

[dunedin]

We raced Hobie 16s for years. We have capsized them in any way imaginable, including very spectacular pitch poles. Perhaps the daftest of all was hove-to between races eating our lunch. A big wave capsized us backwards, an astern pitchpole!

Hobie 16s were simply badly designed - they lack hull buoyancy where it is needed, hence they are very tippy without being very fast.
Things like the Dart are much better designed for modest speed without being so temperamental.
And of course masses of very fast cats - with and without foils - most of which don’t have the Hobie 16 weaknesses (including most of the modern Hobie cats).

 

[vyv_cox]

Hobie 16s were simply badly designed - they lack hull buoyancy where it is needed, hence they are very tippy without being very fast.
Things like the Dart are much better designed for modest speed without being so temperamental.
And of course masses of very fast cats - with and without foils - most of which don’t have the Hobie 16 weaknesses (including most of the modern Hobie cats).

To be fair the Hobie 16 was never designed to be a race cat, just to be fun to sail, which it undoubtedly is. Despite that it rated only one less than the Dart on PY handicaps and is still used for National youth training. I owned two Darts (for family reasons), after several 16s, and found them extremely dull to sail with their relatively tiny sail area and only single trapeze.

Before the Darts we raced a Prindle 18/2 that was a super boat for our weight. Won our club champiónship on that one.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

To be fair the Hobie 16 was never designed to be a race cat, just to be fun to sail, which it undoubtedly is. Despite that it rated only one less than the Dart on PY handicaps and is still used for National youth training. I owned two Darts (for family reasons), after several 16s, and found them extremely dull to sail with their relatively tiny sail area and only single trapeze.

Before the Darts we raced a Prindle 18/2 that was a super boat for our weight. Won our club champiónship on that one.

Small cats are hyper weight sensitive. Mrs C and I did well on Darts, cos we are light. We are 20 stone between us now, I was probably a nearly stone lighter in my 20s. (A long time ago). We traded up to a 5.9, it took a while to settle into that groove, then a certain life changing thing happened, and we moved to cruisers. The dart feels powerful if you’re light on the boat. We managed a clean sweep at Datchet in our first winter season there. Following that by ambushing everyone back at our sea based club with our hard practised speed.

 

[dgadee]

At least on my first trip to Ostend in 1980, in a Mystere, I had a Walker log and parallel rules. I suppose you would consider me a softie.

You are. A Douglas Protractor was all I had.