snowleopard
Well-Known Member
It is certainly possible to achieve some spectacular speeds by overpowering a boat downwind. A friend with an Island Packet 42 got caught in a tradewind squall and hit 13 knots before he managed to douse his Parasail spinnaker. Hull speed is not an absolute and sufficient power can get most sailing boats out of displacement mode, more so a modern flat-bottomed design with a broad stern.
That said, an awful lot of people see a momentary figure or hit the 'Max speed' button at the end of a trip and use that as the basis for their bragging. We have had countless threads on this forum containing 'my boat does 9 knots' etc. If that were true I'd expect to see AWBs screaming past every day but it hasn't happened yet.
I have seen 16+ knots STW a couple of times but I passage plan on 7 knots and rarely fail to make that. I did have this for half an hour - you can guess where...
That said, an awful lot of people see a momentary figure or hit the 'Max speed' button at the end of a trip and use that as the basis for their bragging. We have had countless threads on this forum containing 'my boat does 9 knots' etc. If that were true I'd expect to see AWBs screaming past every day but it hasn't happened yet.
I have seen 16+ knots STW a couple of times but I passage plan on 7 knots and rarely fail to make that. I did have this for half an hour - you can guess where...
