New Boat lengths

[scottie]

Nothing to do with length per se, although it does come into it. Like many rating measures it is a calculation based on a formual using various key measurements and where the answer is 12 metres.

Sounds a bit like all the other lengths discussed earlier then

It was a rhetorical question however !

 

[Bosun Higgs]

A few years ago manufacturers built boats with a greater LOA than their names suggested, A Bavaria 36 was over 37 feet and my old Jeanneau 45.2 is 46ft 5in LOA. In the latest issue of Yachting Monthly, page 102 shows three new boats. The Sun Odyssey 379 is not a 37 footer as you might expect but 36ft 1in LOA, the Sun Odyssey 44DS is a mere 42ft 7in and the Hanse 385, instead of being the 38 footer you might expect is a mere 35ft 9inches. Why the change? Do builders now want to give customers the impression that the boats are bigger than they really are?

Dont rely on what the mags or even the boatbuilders say. My Starlight 35 was 34ft in one magazine boat test and 36ft 1" in another, both withing a month of each other.

And as for the weight - well thats anyone's guess. I believe the boatbuilders dont even weight them but use designers target weights.

 

[haydude]

Just another example of the lingering power of the Anglo Saxon world in boating.

I am afraid the foot was in use in Greece and the Roman Empire well before the Anglo and Saxons achieved any communication through the use of words.

Although having different sizes the foot remained in use in the whole of Europe until the metre was introduced as a scientific standard of measure in the 19th century.

The Romans first divided the foot (pes) in 12 unica (inches).

 

[wklein]

Imperial vs metric

How come boat builders name their boats in the opposite system to the one they use: Nearly all French boats are named in feet and most American boats named in metres? I would give examples but my brains gone dead.

 

[Tranona]

How come boat builders name their boats in the opposite system to the one they use: Nearly all French boats are named in feet and most American boats named in metres? I would give examples but my brains gone dead.

That is not true. Many European builders use numbers based on metric dimensions as model names, although most use feet. In USA Feet are commonly used as model names. Think you are confusing the names of Metre class boats (6m, 12m) etc where the figure is the outcome of a formula using a range of size data about the boat that results in the fogure - nothing to do directly with length.

 

[Lucky Duck]

That is not true. Many European builders use numbers based on metric dimensions as model names.

Not sure that is correct, from memory most of the main players (eg Beneteau, Jeanneau, Halbery Rassey, Arcona, Dufour, Bavaria, Elan, X-Yachts) use the length in feet as part of their model names.

 

[Tranona]

Not sure that is correct, from memory most of the main players (eg Beneteau, Jeanneau, Halbery Rassey, Arcona, Dufour, Bavaria, Elan, X-Yachts) use the length in feet as part of their model names.

Historically some have used metric - Feeling, RM and early Jeanneau spring to mind and if you look at many of the smaller manufacturers you will find other examples. The major builders you quoted probably do it because they sell in a multinational market place where historically (ie when most boatbuilders were Anglo Saxon), Imperial (feet) designations were the accepted way of describing size. That is post the UK dominated era when TM was common currency.

 

[oldgit]

Rank Amateurs

Yots are real beginners at this game.

The tired old past its sell by date Fairline Phantom 40 miraculously morphed into a the BRAND NEW Phantom 43.............by adding a couple of feet........to the bathing platform.