Evaluating Sailing Performance

lpdsn said:
It sounds like you are tending towards the Co26. In the end, if that's the sort of boat you want that's what you should get. As a bit of a caveat, don't expect her to point well compared to a more modern boat. The ratio of lift and drag from a keel like that is never going to allow you to point high, but it gives you other advantages, like being able to cope better with heavier weather.

Another word of warning is that the Co26 is a bit of a cult boat, which will make her easier to sell, but means you will probably pay quite a premium. There must be dozens of vaguely-folkboat-derived designs from that era that will be much cheaper.
Click to expand...
The Co32 is a"Cult" boat it still took be 12 months of tyre kickers to contend with b 4 Mr right came along
 
PaulR said:
very interested in this thread as I have been doing almost exactly the same exercise (including comparing uncorrected time for RTIR) for 3 designs we are considering next (or to be more accurate been trying to compare 3 designs- sadly the ovni does not appear in the RTIR listing),

we thought the RTIR uncorrected times would be a very useful measure of real speed over a reasonable distance - especially bearing in mind each of the boats we are considering are much the same size and I assumed were starting at relatively the same time hence having largely similar tidal effects,

also been trying to pace ourselves against any examples of the designs we are considering next when on the water but frustratingly they never seem to be out when we are !

one thing we do believe strongly is that in many instances it is the nut on the end of the tiller which makes a huge impact on performance of any boat
Click to expand...

I did the rtir about 4-5 years ago in an ovni 435 and i think they did at least a year either side without me. oats name was knotide. Ill look up the result if your interested. (although not a fair test of the ovnis cruising speed as we spent a lot of time dipping other boats as we couldnt point as high despite matc hing their vmg.
 
Aside from the fact that a shallow draft can get out of the tides more effectively in the RTIR (as said above) the Folkboat would tend to be helmed by someone who wants to get the best out of it and works at it I suspect. A Fulmar is a lovely boat but often owned by folk who are about enjoying them rather than getting the nth degree out of them. Contessa 26 is often helmed in RTIR by people with local knowledge as they are Lyminton boats (especially true in the case of a certain Co 26 called Sundowner). I would imagine all these could distort the results away from giving you best boat speed. Can you get hold of polars for any of the boats you're looking at?
 
I too like playing with numbers Amp, but you need to stand back a bit and have a think. The time differences you are talking about in the RTIR are a tiny percentage. If performance really matters to you then you need to think multi - the real life difference between boats like the contessa and the folkboat are two tenths of sweet sod all. And its likely to be lost in real life since no one cruisingconcentrates on helming for a full day so anything you gain in theory with a marginally faster mono is only likely tobe lost in concentration lapses not to mention bade decisions, heavy loading etc.

As an illustration of this our racing fleet includes two sigma 33s. On py handicaps they differ by more than 15%. One is near the front, the other gets beaten by bilge keelers.
 
Last edited:
There are a few conflicting issues here.

The OP mentions hull speed which for a Folkboat and Co 26 is a shade under 6 knts have both got lwl of 20' give or take a couple of inches.
However for example (and I am no fan of these) a Jeanneau 26 has a lwl of a shade over 22' which gives it a hull speed of 6.3 knts (it's also only 24 1/2 ft long not 26)

I fancy the Jeanneau would get to hull speed a lot faster than the Contessa and a bit before the Folkboat.
Downwind the Jeanneau would leave the other two behind quite quickly.
There will be more room down below also.
However caught in a gale or on a 40 mile beat I'd want to be in the Contessa.

The point being when cruising is there is no substitute for lwl in terms of average speed on a passage.
Rig, weight and hull keel configuration kick in when factoring how windy does it need to be to get the boat up to or near hull speed.
And conversely how well will she handle once it blows above 25 knts, as she may be fast but by the time you get where you're going you'll be very wet and very tired.
Then you need to consider that you need space to live in when you get there, not something that the Contessa and Folkboat have in abundance.
 
Javelin said:
However caught in a gale or on a 40 mile beat I'd want to be in the Contessa.

.
Click to expand...

No you wouldnt. You'd want to be in port tied up to a quay. And you'd be cursing your own stupidity in being out in a gale when there are so many weather forecasts around that would have warned you off.

There is a point here. There is no sense in gearing yourself up for entirely avoidable extremely unpleasant weather situations by having to lug an old narrow gutted smelly 40 year old yacht around. We potter round the coast in decent weather not across the southern ocean in a howling 40kn gale.
 
birdseye said:
No you wouldnt. You'd want to be in port tied up to a quay. And you'd be cursing your own stupidity in being out in a gale when there are so many weather forecasts around that would have warned you off.

There is a point here. There is no sense in gearing yourself up for entirely avoidable extremely unpleasant weather situations by having to lug an old narrow gutted smelly 40 year old yacht around. We potter round the coast in decent weather not across the southern ocean in a howling 40kn gale.
Click to expand...

I would counter that perhaps you are being overly melodramatic. We think a beat in sprightly weather in our old fashioned 70's boat is a pleasure as she is such a joy when doing it - we study the weather obsessively but we've been caught out in a totally unexpected 30+ knots (the weather doesn't always read the forecast round here) and had a whale of a time, (if a bit wet) with two reefs to spare; this is because, she is entirely manageable with impeccable manners. We enjoy a potter as much as the next man and we think our 37 year old, narrow gutted, although non-smelly boat is ideal for us.

I fully appreciate the advantages of a modern beamy, spacious boat (in the harbour at least) and I know that no amount of gushing about our boat will change your mind, but here in North Wales you have to take the weather as you find it if you don't want to stay tied to the dock. Many of the families here who buy a big modern boat seem to find them a bit of a handful, the cavernous space suddenly becomes a hazard in a big swell and before you can say "rounding up" they are farming algae in the marina after the wife and kids mutiny. The boats we seem to see out most are much more modest and/or sea kindly.
 
Last edited:
grumpy_o_g said:
Aside from the fact that a shallow draft can get out of the tides more effectively in the RTIR (as said above) the Folkboat would tend to be helmed by someone who wants to get the best out of it and works at it I suspect. A Fulmar is a lovely boat but often owned by folk who are about enjoying them rather than getting the nth degree out of them. Contessa 26 is often helmed in RTIR by people with local knowledge as they are Lyminton boats (especially true in the case of a certain Co 26 called Sundowner). I would imagine all these could distort the results away from giving you best boat speed. Can you get hold of polars for any of the boats you're looking at?
Click to expand...

This.

Folkboats and CO26s are well known to hit the sweetspot of speed needed to ride the tide all the way round, and so between them win the RTI more years than they don't. This has resulted in a lot of very, very talented sailors hopping on some little boats for the RTI. Jeremy Rogers (builder of the Contessas) has won it 3 times I think, and his Nephew Nick won it in 2011. His nephew the Olympic 470 sailor that is...

How far do you think those sailors would be ahead of the other Fulmars if you made them sail one?
 
I fear that the NHC doesn't offer any real improvement over the old PY and unless returns from clubs using it are forthcoming it will suffer the same fate. Perhaps it would have been better to put all the software on the RYA's own server so that all the results were available from the clubs giong online for the calculations thus providing continual updating of the ratings. Unfortunately club racing between older, affordable cruisers tends not to yield any returns and yes, the adjustments to the handicap reflect the capability of the crew - though that may also reflect the level of capability required to sail one.

I don't know whether the Byron listings are getting regularly updated, but they should certainly be a good guide in selecting a cruising boat!

Within our owners' association there have been various handicaps used at different clubs, including a listing showing different handicaps for a Varne 27 and a Varne 850 within one club. There is no difference in design and specification, the change of name was just a marketing ploy, so maybe one is sailed better or just has better sails?

Rob.
 
rob2 said:
I fear that the NHC doesn't offer any real improvement over the old PY and unless returns from clubs using it are forthcoming it will suffer the same fate. Perhaps it would have been better to put all the software on the RYA's own server so that all the results were available from the clubs giong online for the calculations thus providing continual updating of the ratings. Unfortunately club racing between older, affordable cruisers tends not to yield any returns and yes, the adjustments to the handicap reflect the capability of the crew - though that may also reflect the level of capability required to sail one.

I don't know whether the Byron listings are getting regularly updated, but they should certainly be a good guide in selecting a cruising boat!

Within our owners' association there have been various handicaps used at different clubs, including a listing showing different handicaps for a Varne 27 and a Varne 850 within one club. There is no difference in design and specification, the change of name was just a marketing ploy, so maybe one is sailed better or just has better sails?

Rob.
Click to expand...

There is a basic misunderstanding here. Both Byron and the NHC are calculated based on boat data and are not based on returns at all. Thats the reason for the NHC existance - clubs didnt make sufficient returns for PY to be reliable.

NHC is, as I understand it, a simplified version of the sort of formula that gives us IRC numbers. OK its clearly too simplified, for example not differentiating between bilge and fin in the same hull let alone things like folding props. The idea was that the adjustment would be made by the scoring system after the first race in a series of regatta. That nicely ignores that the bilge keeler may well have lost the first race through no fault of his own.

Both Byron and NHC can be corrected if there are input data errors as for example Byron had on my Starlight. But I cant imagine there are many people like me daft enough to tell him that my handicap was too generous so errors will remain.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

stu9000
HHow long is too long (solo sailing)?
3 4 5
Replies
84
Views
3K
seeSimon
S

Share this page

Top