Great cruising boat suggestions.

[pvb]

Nope, not a myth: step on any well-found British or Swedish cruising boat and notice how much steadier it is underfoot as opposed to the comparable light weight foreign offering. The reason is simple: Archimedes was Greek and he omitted to patent his principle in the Northern countries.

 

[pvb]

I always believed that older British boats were heavy, so half-inched some other figures from Mr. Wilson's website. How about these?

Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 34.2 = 10,253 lbs
Beneteau Oceanis 361 = 12,125 lbs
Bavaria 35 = 12,786 lbs
Rustler 36 = 16,800 lbs
Nicholson 35 = 17,630 lbs

The Rustler 36 and Nic35 were hardly typical production boats, though, very few made and certainly heavily built.

 

[Allan]

Over and over again we get this myth repeated. Moody 31 weighs 9966lbs, Westerly Longbow 31 weighs 9400lbs, Bavaria 31 (2007-) weighs 10340lbs.

Yes, I totally agree. My boat weighs in at about 14000lbs dry. I try to keep her pretty full to top that up (300lts of water/fuel, bikes, Avon dinghy, outboard, months food, fat skipper etc.) I don't think I've sailed a Bavaria 31 but the slightly larger ones have been impressive. I think the Beneteau oceanis 311 I sailed to Cyprus weighed about half of mine! In light winds and flat seas it would leave me standing. Horses for courses?
Allan

 

[doug748]

Over and over again we get this myth repeated. Moody 31 weighs 9966lbs, Westerly Longbow 31 weighs 9400lbs, Bavaria 31 (2007-) weighs 10340lbs.

This is getting repeated a lot as well.

If you have a much bigger boat it will tend to weigh more, fibreglass is one culprit, furniture is another. For a better picture look at the Bal/Disp ratio:

Bav 31 - 23%

Longbow - 45%

Moody 31 - 37%

 

[pvb]

This is getting repeated a lot as well.

If you have a much bigger boat it will tend to weigh more, fibreglass is one culprit, furniture is another. For a better picture look at the Bal/Disp ratio:

Bav 31 - 23%

Longbow - 45%

Moody 31 - 37%

But it's surely the overall displacement of the boat which helps to contribute to comfortable motion? If you start to look at the ballast weights, that mainly shows that older boats had more lightly-built hulls than many modern boats.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

..., that mainly shows that older boats had more lightly-built hulls than many modern boats.

Or less stuff / fittings / gadgets / etc....

 

[Allan]

This is getting repeated a lot as well.

If you have a much bigger boat it will tend to weigh more, fibreglass is one culprit, furniture is another. For a better picture look at the Bal/Disp ratio:

Bav 31 - 23%

Longbow - 45%

Moody 31 - 37%

I'm not sure Bal/Disp is that important in this case. From memory mine is 40odd%. When it comes to maintaining speed through chop, which I think we were discussing, I believe it's just weight that counts.
It might be nice to get back to trying to decide which boats to look at.
Allan

 

[E39mad]

But it's surely the overall displacement of the boat which helps to contribute to comfortable motion? If you start to look at the ballast weights, that mainly shows that older boats had more lightly-built hulls than many modern boats.

Do you really believe the second sentence. In my experience the older the yacht the more GRP lay up was used in it's construction thus producing a thicker hull and topsides. It is rare that you can see daylight through the topside laminate on these older boats in comparison to the lighter more modern production yacht.

A displacement/volume ratio is perhaps a better indicator than displacement/length

 

[doug748]

But it's surely the overall displacement of the boat which helps to contribute to comfortable motion?

If you start to look at the ballast weights, that mainly shows that older boats had more lightly-built hulls than many modern boats.

I don't think anyone would fall out with the first bit. The degree to which different designs affect performance at sea will always be another matter.

The second bit has me foxed.

 

[pvb]

The second bit has me foxed.

OK, the Moody 31 weighed 9966lbs, inc 3675lbs of ballast, so the hull weight excluding ballast was 6291lbs. The Westerly Longbow 31 was 9400, less 4200 ballast, giving a hull weight of 5200lbs. The Bavaria 31 (2007-) was 10340, less 2470 ballast, giving a hull weight of 7870lbs - that's substantially more, even allowing for a bigger beam. So, the oft-repeated claim that older production boats were much more heavily built than modern ones warrants re-examination.

 

[michael_w]

Having owned 2 Scandanavian buit boats, one Swedish the other Danish, I can state that they are no better built than any other quality manufacturer. What you are paying for is Scandanavian worker's compensation.

Lots of French families trust their babies will be safe to cross oceans in Beneteaus Jeanneaus etc.

 

[doug748]

So all the stuff we hear about modern light hulls is possibly wrong. And in the case of cruising boats, we might have to consider the that the weight of an average square foot of hull from a Bavaria 31 is actually heavier than that from a Westerly Longbow.

Maybe we should bring the Westerly team out of retirement.

I don't buy it. If you create a large beamy hull with tall topsides and fill it with stuff it will be heavy. If you lightly ballast it the only way you can keep it the right way up is to engineer lightness into the structure. That's wot I think.

 

[Allan]

Having owned 2 Scandanavian buit boats, one Swedish the other Danish, I can state that they are no better built than any other quality manufacturer. What you are paying for is Scandanavian worker's compensation.

Lots of French families trust their babies will be safe to cross oceans in Beneteaus Jeanneaus etc.

I've looked at Hallberg Rassy, Najad, Malo, Westerly and Starlight recently. All from 1994 to 2002. In my opinion there was no appreciable difference in build quality in any of them.
Allan

 

[Malo37]

OK, the Moody 31 weighed 9966lbs, inc 3675lbs of ballast, so the hull weight excluding ballast was 6291lbs. The Westerly Longbow 31 was 9400, less 4200 ballast, giving a hull weight of 5200lbs. The Bavaria 31 (2007-) was 10340, less 2470 ballast, giving a hull weight of 7870lbs - that's substantially more, even allowing for a bigger beam. So, the oft-repeated claim that older production boats were much more heavily built than modern ones warrants re-examination.

This is a simplistic approach to a more complex question. Apart from the fact that the terms 'older' and 'modern' are not defined. Realistically it is not possible to directly equate hull weight with quality. Also there are different lay up techniques using different resins and different materials e.g. woven glass, balsa or foam cores, even Kevlar and carbon stiffening etc. It is probably correct to state that weight for weight, modern GRP construction is stronger than it was 40 years ago. However there is also no doubt that several 'modern' boats are built down to a cost which results in a flimsy, only just adequate, boat with little or no built in structural safety factor. There are lots of well documented failures. The Swedish quality boats and UK boats of similar quality (and cost) such as Rustler have avoided this. As in everything, generally you get what you pay for.

 

[dom]

This is a simplistic approach to a more complex question.

Agreed, with Archimedes out of the way we are now up against the law of conservation of mass; tricky one this. Perhaps expanding beams provide the key to this conundrum, for general relativity informs us that mass and energy conservation does not strictly hold in a rapidly expanding volume of space. I'm wondering whether pvb has factored this in

 

[pvb]

This is a simplistic approach to a more complex question. Apart from the fact that the terms 'older' and 'modern' are not defined. Realistically it is not possible to directly equate hull weight with quality. Also there are different lay up techniques using different resins and different materials e.g. woven glass, balsa or foam cores, even Kevlar and carbon stiffening etc. It is probably correct to state that weight for weight, modern GRP construction is stronger than it was 40 years ago. However there is also no doubt that several 'modern' boats are built down to a cost which results in a flimsy, only just adequate, boat with little or no built in structural safety factor. There are lots of well documented failures. The Swedish quality boats and UK boats of similar quality (and cost) such as Rustler have avoided this. As in everything, generally you get what you pay for.

My old HR352, built at a time when HR construction was well respected, didn't really weigh any more than similar sized modern boats (and a lot of the weight might have been interior woodwork!). I think actual hull construction quality today is much higher than the old Moody/Westerly era.

 

[Sybarite]

I admit that my recommendation for the Sharki takes into account my age. I now am looking for more comfort on a boat for what will likely be longer trips. The Feeling 920 is a superb sailing boat and I love its performance.

However on a long trip I am now looking for an easier movement and weather protection as well as build quality and an emphasis on mimizing required maintenance. Sharki meets those criteria.

In the Doug-Le blog quoted above, the owner says that on a 10 hour sail they might arrive an hour after the other modern boats, but they will arrive fresh and will not have been soaked in their oilies. They then quoted a transat where they left at the same time as a similar sized J boat. In fact they arrived first because of the slamming that the J boat had to do upwind. And nothing significant was broken because of the easy movement.

 

[adwuk]

teak decks and maybe too racy, but I haven't seen a Sweden Yachts 36 mentioned yet...

http://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=397052

 

[Daydream believer]

Hanse 37.
Get for £50-60K in good nick & fully spec'd
Excellent for single or short handing. All controls to the cockpit
Very fast- one owner reports almost 20 kts whilst under autopilot on the ARC whilst the watch keeper was down below.
Several have done the ARC
Very easy to sail short handed
Look at the older 370's not the newer 385 the latest Hanse s are not in my opinion as good
Suggest you go onto the Hanse owners forum & look through the subject & what owners say
i have been looking at the single aft cabin version & galley etc is excellent for cruising

 

[Tranona]

This is a simplistic approach to a more complex question. Apart from the fact that the terms 'older' and 'modern' are not defined. Realistically it is not possible to directly equate hull weight with quality. Also there are different lay up techniques using different resins and different materials e.g. woven glass, balsa or foam cores, even Kevlar and carbon stiffening etc. It is probably correct to state that weight for weight, modern GRP construction is stronger than it was 40 years ago. However there is also no doubt that several 'modern' boats are built down to a cost which results in a flimsy, only just adequate, boat with little or no built in structural safety factor. There are lots of well documented failures. The Swedish quality boats and UK boats of similar quality (and cost) such as Rustler have avoided this. As in everything, generally you get what you pay for.

There are also cases of serious hull failure in Scandinavian boats - they just keep very quiet about it, although you will find cases that went to court.

The hull mouldings of mass produced boats are vastly better than those of the cottage industry examples from the past. Thousands of modern boats live working lives that are far more demanding then the pampered lives that many up market boats lead and survive pretty well.