modern yacht design

[Birdseye]

Messing about with a classic car, I was struck by the progress in car design in the last 30 years. Rust? Whats that? 3000 mile services - you've got to be joking. 0 to 60 in 15 sec - a London bus will now do that.

Same thing in bikes - an R1 developes twice the power/litre of an old Bonnie and goes round corners like it is on rails. All totally reliably - or nearly so.

So why do modern boats perform little better (some would say worse) than old ones. It's not as if we dont know how to make them go better - all these single handed sailing races show that we can make even monohulls sail at 20 knots and still be controllable. And multis do even better. But we continue to buy the BenBavJans that struggle (at a typical 35ft length) to exceed 7 knots, or more expensive Swedish ones that are even slower.

So why do we buy "pudding boats"? Why are we so old fashioned and conservative. Its not rationally an issue of safety - the single handed racers prove that modern boats can be safe boats. Possibly cost since high performance equals high tech, but volume production like Bavaria does could produce a high tech design for less than the cost of an old fashioned HR, surely. Maybe its because cruising is about pottering - so we dont really want to go fast.

Any views?

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[ParaHandy]

cars go better and are more reliable, more powerful, because roads are better? if we had cart tracks we'd be trundling round in russian zils ... or landrovers ... with umpteen repairs to axles/suspension ....

on the other hand, the sea hasn't changed. no motorways etc ...

the ocean racing type or very fast boats seem to be almosty totally dependent on accurate weather forecasting to obtain weather most suitable for the boat's construction otherwise its a pile of matchsticks in pretty short order ...

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[Twister_Ken]

Not intended to be anything like a full answer, but here goes with a few points.

RUST and other forms of knackerisation mean that cars eventually get chucked away. Same is not true of boats which seem, in human terms if not geological ones, to go on for ever. So there is not the continual renewing of the boat population that there is in the car population, which maybe stifles innovation.

RELIABILITY. If your car or bike breaks you sit by the side of the road and wait for a man in a yellow van. If your boat breaks you swim. Which puts a high premium on safety over performance.

OPERATING ENVIRONMENT. Roads are smooth(ish) and can be engineered to match the performance of the vehicles on them, allowing higher speeds. Same is not true of sea, especially for sailing boats. When the power (wind) is there for boats to go fast, the road is generally pretty bumpy. Going fast in rough seas is not generally a comfortable option. Maybe your Range Rover can do 110 mph, but you won't drive it that fast along a mountain track. In fact your 2003/4 model Range Rover won't get you along a mountain track any faster than a 50 year series one Landy. As a sailing boat is almost always operating in a 'mountain track' maritime equivalent, why build one capable of high speed.

SAILING OR PARKING. People buy sailing boats to go sailing, not to get from A to B quickly then park. I accept that with a faster boat you can sail further, but for many of us it's time at sea which is pleasurable, rather than miles under the keel. So, as long as the boat's not a real dog, there's little attraction in speed.

INNOVATION - there's been plenty of it in saily boats, especially in terms of sail handling systems, auxiliary power and habitability below decks, but not (unless you are a deep-pocketed hairy-arsed racer) in speed terms (but QSIV will disagree).

My 2 cents worth.

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[tcm]

i agree with para and would also add:

Designers and manufacturers attend to the things which the masses want. Have a look at a boat show: average boaty wants to get inside, moans about space and certainly those aspects have vastly improved in the last ten years. They have to look acceptable and that's not too hard with something that has nice pointy bits all over. Speedwise, for most boats, we aren't that bothered - mostly, private boats aren't primary transport.

By contrast, carwise, we wanted them non-rusty, reliable and efficient - we compared 0-60 times and/or mpgh - hence those aspects have improved - and some brands of cars boast that over 60% of owner never drive one beforehand.

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[jamesjermain]

In addition to points already made:

There is a thing called wave resistance - basically a wave of given length will travel at a specific speed. A wave created by a yacht in motion is the same. Thus beyond a certain speed the yacht will be trying to climb up its bow wave which it can't do without an awful lot of power (planing powerboats eg). This speed is calculated by the formula: v=1.4(square root of waterline length).

Cars simply go faster with a bigger engine.

Ocean racing greyhounds are a) v long on the waterline, b) have huge, powerful rigs, c) can cheat by planing when reaching (to windward they are still pretty slow and v uncomfortable, d) are cats whichcheat in all sorts of ways but mainly by having long, thin, light hulls which slice through waves and don't need to go over them.

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[Sybarite]

I was just reading an article in the French Boat Show edition of "Bateaux" where leading French naval architects are giving their vision of the future. Gilles Vaton is eg working on a 50 knot potential sailing boat but what impressed me was Michel Joubert's logic. He incidentally is my favorite architect and comes up with many refreshing ideas from Admiral cuppers to cruising boats.

His contention is that what costs a lot in boats is the internal fitting out, not the manufacturing of the hull. So build a 60' hull and fit out only the middle 30 - 40 feet . Leave the rest empty. Not only will it be only marginally more expensive (ignoring for the moment the impact on berthing costs) than a 40 footer but it concentrates weight in the right area. The diagrammes accompanying the article are based on a catamaran where all the accommodation is at deck level and the hulls contain only fuel and generators for the rotatable diesel/electric propulsion pods. There is a carbon fibre bipod mast to eliminate shroud worries and two furling genoas where the airfow to the larger (mainsail equivalent) is not hampered by a mast in front. At 60' the vessel is large enough to have a couple of tenders on the roof.

Great thinking.

John


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[alec]

Speed = Light = Expensive = Bonecrunchingrride ( Best left to rich owners who like to be in the bar by Sunday lunchtime)


For many, raw speed is not what it’s all about. A satisfying sailing experience is a subtle sensation and can’t be measured in knots. Many of life’s most enjoyable endeavors are not improved by haste.

Unfortunately, many older boats were so frugal that they had to be suffered to overcome the guilt.

Accommodation, practicality and comfort will probably be of more use than advanced hull shapes that result in a 0.3kt increase in speed. This may result in orgasms for Grant Dalton and his men , but the rest of us will probably fake it.

Personally, I welcome the advances in boat production that will bring prices down and produce a boat for the masses. Unfortunately, this will upset Mirelle so much that I better not mention it.





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[MainlySteam]

Especially in the custom design and building of cruising yachts much of the applicable race performance attributes are being carried over and that has been happening for at least the 20 - 30 years that I am familiar with. Just two examples of designers currently producing boats of that ilk out this way are Elliot Design http://www.bakewell-white.com (look at the Gallery pages of their sites) where aspects of hull and appendage forms and rigs from race boats are being carried over. On the Bakewell-White site home page there is currently a big photo of the launching of the 30 m maxi racer Zena (launched recently here in Wellington) which shows the hull and appendages of the vessel very well - it is hardly likely that non extreme production cruisers will ever have such appendage configurations in my view, but comparison of the hull with some of the custom cruising designs now around does stand up.

Back in the late 70's and the 80's many of the race type attributes of the time were being carried over into production cruising vessels, but I suspect not so much so in Europe. The things such as shallow canoe drafted race vessels such as were promoted by the likes of Holland and Farr soon appeared in their cruiser racers (eg Farr 1020 and the 11 and 12+ m family of Farrs) and those vessels cruised extensively (but I personally would not like to be caught badly out in one).

I do not know if many similar designs to the many custom performance cruising designs are going into production but a range of Elliot fast cruising production yachts was featured in the August 2003 Yachting World magazine. These are quite different boats to Bav's, etc and it will be interesting to see what demand there is for them.

I agree with TCM that a reason why the mainstream production yards do not produce such vessels is because of the demand (although I am aware some eg Beneteau, Baveria build slightly more go faster versions of their production ones) from, in the main, relatively unsophisticated purchasers or those who just want something that can sail around the bay when conditions are nice. It is probable in my view that these boats will always be along way behind the race boats just in the same way as the bottom end Fords, General Motors, etc cars are a long way removed from Formula One and that so for very valid reasons.

John

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[david_e]

Modern boat designers (or even boat designers who have been around for a while and produce modern designs) are able to produce whatever type of boat you need but not one that will do everthing. Their knowledge, skills and capability have developed enormously with advances in IT.

For some analagies with cars (not exhaustive);

F1 = Americas Cup
Touring cars = Admirals Cup
Roller/Bently etc = Wally/Super Yachts etc
luxury Mercs/Lexus etc = Oyster/HR etc
GTi's, coupes = Cruiser/racers
Family saloon L, LX, GLX = Cruisers 30ft
Medium hatch = 25 - 29 ft
Shopping trolley = 18 - 24 ft

Classic car = Twister



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[qsiv]

I dont know that I would disagree...

My current boat has all the benefits of modern sailhandling(furling jib and staysail, Code 0 on furler, fully battened lazy jacked main with one string reefing, electric winches etc). She is certainly hugely comfortable down below, and on passage - but she doesnt really sail a great deal faster than a 50' cruising design of 50 years ago. She is beamier, and carries her displacement better, and has a powerful waterplane aft which will give better reaching speeds, but we certainly aren't a quanum step forward - particularly if you were to replace the Tape Drive sails with Egyptan cotton.

Race boats have moved forward dramatically, but largely through developing mechanisms to carry a hugely powerful rig, which places greater responsibility on the crew that a family cruiser would want. And they are b****y uncomfortable...

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[Birdseye]

I'm not sure how far you can carry the Formula 1 analogy. Cars are way better in every respect than they were 40 years ago, and quite a bit of that progress has been made on the racetrack. But the gap between everyday and F1 is , if anything, even larger than it was.

Racing boats have made great progress particularly in the area of the singlehanded races. Compare the modern racers with Suhaili, for example. But as you say, your boat is more comfortable but performs little if any better than a 5o year old equivalent.

The question isnt "why do we not all sail boats like Kingfisher" so much as "why dont we buy boats with some of Kingfisher built in". I think the comment about Bav building them if there were a demand is correct - but why isnt there a demand? Sure we all enjoy the journey, but most of us would enjoy it more in the floating equivalent of a sports car than that of a Mack truck.

Seems to me that many of us are rooted in the past, probably not unconnected to the age we are when we buy a cruiser. We venerate old style boats like the Twister or the old Nics as "good sea boats" - yet very few of us go out in the weather that might demmand a good sea boat, and there is little if any evidence that these older boats would handle bad weather better than the modern high tech boat might. Would you prefer to go through the southern ocean in an old Nic or in something like Alice's Mirror?

My guess is that our aversion to modern design is partly a matter of age and traditionalism, and partly a matter of cost. Cars are disposable (and often company owned) as are bikes - boats are like houses, they last forever and cost significant ammounts. So we are risk averse. Perhaps also we are more confident we can handle a fast car (we are all better than average drivers), but a bit leery of a high speed on-the-edge sailing machine.

(And whats all this about smooth modern roads? Either the posters here are young, or they live in somewhere heavily subsidised like Scotland. The roads down here arent a patch (or perhaps I should say they are multiply patched) on what they were 30 years ago. We used to laugh about potholes on French roads and the suspension of their cars - not any longer.)

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[qsiv]

believe me, I'm attracted to the new ...

but for family crusing? I'm not so sure I dont think that blindly emulating the features of the modern go faster (many people here have suggested the Open classes) leads to well mannered, safe cruising boats.

Firstly, sail areas are huge. I find my 3000 sq ft spinnaker to be a little edgy if I need to douse it in a hurry with the family aboard. Secondly, draught is extreme, which is contra indicated for most cruising boats (the new boat will have a draught of 8'6" - for a 40 footer). Thirdly light weight is EVERYTHING, As soon as you add weight to the interior you have to remove it from the keel (to keep disolacement static) or make the sections fuller to carry the weight. Both have disastrous impacts on performance.

Finally they can be truly vile boats for passage making, wet, very short, sharp movement, noisy in the extreme.

There are good things to carry over from race technology - primarily more efficient rigs and foil shapes - but the load carrying requirements of crusing boats often conflict with the fast 'easy' hull forms of the open calsses. The closest I believe are probably 'Beowulf' and her sisters and cousins, but such innovation carries a hefty price tag. The Transpac 52's are also close. Now maybe thats the clue neither are European (and we have already had some Antipodean examples cited by MainlySteam).

Maybe the ex-colonials are just much less conservative in their approach to this sport!

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[Twister_Ken]

Credit card touring

There's an expression from cycling, credit card touring. It implies you ride light and fast, with litle luggage, buying what you need - food, clothing, shelter - en route. Traditional (non credit card variety) touring implies self-reliance, with everything for a fortnight carried in panniers. Traditonal touring bikes are heavy and slow when loaded. The credit card tourer goes faster and further.

What we demand of cruisy boats is traditional touring, everything to sustain life without the necessity to call on outside resources with our credit cards. Yes, you could take the family crusiing in a Open 40, but you'd want to park it every night and check in to a hotel.

So a trad cruising boat is going to be heavy and slow compared with a credit-card-cruising boat. And that's the way most of us seem to like it.

Apropos the sea-keeping abilities of a a traditional hull shape. let me quote a neutral witness:

"Yes, we turned back after six hours but the boat positively groaned at the request because she was in her element. This was my first experience of a long-keeled boat and I hope it won't be my last. We only managed to slap the hull down on the waves twice - the bow just rises majestically into the sky and then descends majestically, however steep the wave. The bow never seems to leave the water and just cleaves a path through the sea, whatever the angle. Nothing violent, nothing alarming and a very pleasant and reassuring motion. It also tracks very straight and wasn't going to be thrown off line by wave or wind. Although quite low down in the cockpit, I thought it demonstrated the size of the seas in that we lost sight of the IoW occasionally at the bottom of a trough even though it was just off our starboard beam. Indigo did have a slightly wetter cockpit than Passing Trade* but, having read a few other reports, I don't think we had anything to worry about."

*Passing Trade is also a long keel boat, but 7 feet longer and 6 tons heavier.

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[ParaHandy]

Re: bakewell-white

there's a yacht in the gallery, Andiamo, and is described as follows "This design is generating a great deal of interest worldwide, particularly in Europe where the antipodean style of sailing is beginning to catch on. Style and performance mixed with good practical cruising features."

Do you know what antipodean style of sailing is? not inviting comments about sailing with a tinny in the hand but assume there's a serious point to the remark.

the Andiamo, in common with many of their designs, are uncompromising or would appear so through my eyes although there seems a good deal of artistic licence in that the initial design might show something extreme (particularly the keel) but the actual boat is rather more conventional. Water ballast in a cruising yacht would raise a few eyebrows ....

very interesting ...

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[Gordonmc]

One aspect of the questions put by Birdseye is that in relative terms yachts are as expensive now as fifty years ago while cars are almost universally affordable.
This is inversely proportionate to technological advances.
Could it be that the car is seen by every owner as a "necessity" while it would be hard to argue the same could be said to be true for boats. Ergo we are sold on the convenience, glamour and practicality of car ownership by manufactuers.
More practically I agree with the argument that the marine environment is not condusive to "faster - better."
Leave alone issues of theoretical hull speed, most yachts are pottering about on eingines originally designed for dump-trucks, building site generators and post office vans because they keep going.
I was interested in Volvo's new marinised car engine which boats an aluminium block with the weight of an outboard, and modern fuel distribution and ignition.
I wonder.

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[vyv_cox]

Sea keeping abilities

Ken, good example. Here's another.

A few weeks ago we took a late cruise to Blankenberge on the Belgian coast. While there the wind blew about F7 for W or NW for a day. We walked down the pier for a stroll and to see what was going on. While there we saw three boats either pass or enter, giving us great insight into designs and style of sailing.

The first two approached upwind from Zeebrugge direction. First was an older, possibly long-keeled but definitely traditional type design. LOA I guess was 35 - 38 ft. She ploughed steadily on, no fuss, little spray, looking very impressive, tacked inshore and continued onwards towards Oostende. Second was a Beneteau 42, wild appearance, carrying too much sail. Making noticeably less well to windward than the first boat. She turned to enter Blankenberge and, as she passed us in the entrance channel, one of the crew threw up over the transom.

The third came downwind from Oostende, two young lads aboard, full main and genoa. Looked like a fairly light, cruiser racer, I forget the make. As they approached the entrance one went forward to lower the genoa, sail blew into the sea, halyard flew out and went up the mast somewhere. Helm turned up wind, genoa blew all over the place, main down while the crew was still on the foredeck, main was on a bolt rope, not sliders, so it finished up in the sea as well.

A most entertaining illustration of the types of boats and styles of sailing. I know which we preferred!

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[jimi]

Re: Sea keeping abilities

Would suggest these examples say more about the sailors than the boats!

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[MainlySteam]

Re: bakewell-white

I am not sure what the "antipodean style" is but the term has a bit more intrigue when one realises that most of these boats built in NZ are in fact for overseas owners. Probably is, in some part, a meaningless marketing patter.

However, I think there is quite a deep ingrained culture here, at least among those who have sailed all their lives starting back in the 60's and 70's, of at least somewhere along the line sailing demanding boats. The other thing is that while there are alot of casual sailors who never venture more than an hour or so sail from Auckland city, for those who are inclined to do more than that there are few natural refuges along the coastline. For example, if we head north from Wellington we have several hundred miles to the first refuge and then the same again to the next if on the East Coast and probably 400 miles to the next reasonable one if going up the West coast.

In the culture of demanding boats, certainly in the past, skiffs such as the 18 footers (both here and in Australia) have been very influential and while not many get to sail those they provided groundings for the likes of Farr. It has only been in relatively recent years that Optimists have appeared here as an entry training class for kids, before then and still now the predominant training class is the 7 foot "P" Class which has all the propensities of a larger performance dinghy including a desire to make you swim regularly. These differences are, of course, not nearly so clear now in comparison to the rest of a world overrun with performance classes.

I am not personally very familiar with any of the Bakewell-White or Elliot cruising boats, as most are destined to leave NZ, apart from when reviewed in local magazines (I am familiar with some of the similar vessels from less productive designers). However, you mention the water ballasting of some of the boats and I can add another twist in that - I know one of the boats on the Bakewell-White site, Brisa, which is not there described as water ballasted, is designed to sail without water ballast but can pump its fresh potable water from side to side for ballasting purposes rather than the salt water of others.

Alot of these boats are appearing now with bowsprits or prod type bowsprits with big gennakers set from them on high modulus luff ropes with line furlers. However, in the end all of them are limited in speed by their waterline length and one of the approaches is to maximise that, so many of the examples are long boats. One I am familiar with, from another designer, is 55 foot long on the deck and only 4 inches shorter at the waterline, and has a beam of only 13 foot. That boat easily exceeds 200 mile days with just the husband and wife and such boats manage those days in quite low wind speeds and have 7 knot average type capability in 10 - 12 knots of wind.

These are all expensive vessels beyond the reach of most (in a similar manner to the Dashews Beowulf style vessels that QSIV mentions) and when one drops the waterline to less costly lengths between 30 to 40 foot the speed drops and the daily runs drop down under 200 nm. Given that a conventional competent 40 foot cruising vessel will do 150 nm a day, maybe the only advantage to be gained by a more performance oriented cruising boat is 15 to 30 miles a day but with the capability through being light of maintaing greater margins over a conventional cruiser in the light. And those margins are only of much merit in voyaging because when one looks at it from the point of view of a boat which is mainly used for day sailing (your average Bav, for example?) the advantages of the performance are even less apparant eg a destination 10 miles away may only be at best 10 to 15 minutes closer timewise in the performance cruiser.

John

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[vyv_cox]

Re: Sea keeping abilities

Probably true, but then the sailors picked the boats they were sailing.

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[Robin]

Re: Sea keeping abilities

Unless they were sailing schools or charter.

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