sailorman
Well-Known Member
We have a fine Mike Pocock Ali yacht moored almost beside us at the moment. No expense has been spared on this Lady
Ocean Cruising Club member’s yacht types
- Thread starter KellysEye
- Start date
jonic
Well-Known Member
dslittle
Well-Known Member
I would differ. I 'qualify' for OCC Membership but chose not to join. We sail two up and manage perfectly well on our AWB. We spend considerably more time not going anywhere after getting there and enjoy the destination in our spacious modern AWB. We have been in some 'interesting' seas/weather and the boat has stayed intact. I passage plan for good weather windows to make things easy for us. I have been on older boats and can appreciate them but would not want to live on one.
Horses for courses...
Tradewinds
Well-Known Member
I agree with that.
Plenty of 'unsuitable' boats out there making long passages. It's all about the people onboard.
Wouldn't swop my Nic 39 though
Birdseye
Well-Known Member
Quite right. You see it all the time with heavy old tubs, long keels, wind steering, cutter rigs. What is the point, for example, in owning a Tradewind for just pootling across the channel? Very slowly.
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>I passage plan for good weather windows to make things easy for us. I have been on older boats and can appreciate them but would not want to live on one.
Long distance sailing you can't plan for a good weather window you have to take what comes along, which is where a medium/heavy displacement boat comes along. They are more seakindly, they don't broach, don't head up to wind in a gust, don't surf and don't heel as much. My experience from sailing many AWBs when chartering is they did the opposite of all of those things. Our heavy displacement ketch did all of those things.
Long distance sailing you can't plan for a good weather window you have to take what comes along, which is where a medium/heavy displacement boat comes along. They are more seakindly, they don't broach, don't head up to wind in a gust, don't surf and don't heel as much. My experience from sailing many AWBs when chartering is they did the opposite of all of those things. Our heavy displacement ketch did all of those things.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Getting back to the original post which was offering this list as advice on what to buy to go long distance sailing. This is on the evidence of 37 boats owned by members of a small club with 2000 members. That is 1.8% of even that small sample of people engaged in the activity. There is no indication about what sort of boats the other 1963 members own, so we don't know that it is even representative of this group!
As I said earlier if you derive your list from a different sample of long distance sailors you get a very different picture. The 2016 ARC has just under 300 entrants, of which 33% are AWBs, mostly Jeanneau, Beneteau and Bavaria, 12% were multihulls, mostly production catamarans and the rest a whole range of boats from "wooden yacht" to racing boats, to big luxury cruisers like Oyster. Almost none of the boats featured on the OCC list are feature in the ARC list. all the owners of the ARC boats would qualify for OCC membership on completion, but guess very few do join.
This of course gives the lie to the suggestion that AWBs are unsuitable for long distance sailing, as this pattern has been there in the ARC (and other organised rallies) for many years. It is inevitable as the supply of older style boats declines and increased affluence means that new boats are more affordable.
So, it is a mistake to take a very small sample out of an unrepresentative group and claim that it is representative of "good practice" never mind representative of what is actually going on. It is just a snapshot of what those 37 people chose, and judging by the age of the boats, may well be choices made a long time ago.
As I said earlier if you derive your list from a different sample of long distance sailors you get a very different picture. The 2016 ARC has just under 300 entrants, of which 33% are AWBs, mostly Jeanneau, Beneteau and Bavaria, 12% were multihulls, mostly production catamarans and the rest a whole range of boats from "wooden yacht" to racing boats, to big luxury cruisers like Oyster. Almost none of the boats featured on the OCC list are feature in the ARC list. all the owners of the ARC boats would qualify for OCC membership on completion, but guess very few do join.
This of course gives the lie to the suggestion that AWBs are unsuitable for long distance sailing, as this pattern has been there in the ARC (and other organised rallies) for many years. It is inevitable as the supply of older style boats declines and increased affluence means that new boats are more affordable.
So, it is a mistake to take a very small sample out of an unrepresentative group and claim that it is representative of "good practice" never mind representative of what is actually going on. It is just a snapshot of what those 37 people chose, and judging by the age of the boats, may well be choices made a long time ago.
GHA
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. If you have a look in Las Palmas marina in November you'll find plenty of white plastic boats about to go for a 2 week passage.
Same if you have a look in the backwater anchorages around the world you'll find lots of people wondering just where are all these white plastic you're talking about.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. If you have a look in Las Palmas marina in November you'll find plenty of white plastic boats about to go for a 2 week passage.
Same if you have a look in the backwater anchorages around the world you'll find lots of people wondering just where are all these white plastic you're talking about.
All that illustrates is just the point I was making earlier. Long distance sailing is a very eclectic activity and the original list is just a snapshot of a small part of it. Rather unfair to describe the ARC as just a 2 week passage - the boats have to go somewhere afterwards and many use it as a start of a longer adventure.
Not everybody wants to visit "backwater anchorages" so the wondering people anchored there are no more representative of long distance cruisers as a whole than the hedge fund manager doing his circumnavigation in his 80' all electric Oyster!
It is not me that is talking these white plastic boats, but just showing that many (and an increasing number) of people are successfully long distance cruising in them - despite all the know alls claiming they are not suitable.
GHA
Well-Known Member
You didn't respond to the earlier request about who said "only" certain boats are valid, so this time who is saying white plastic isn't suitable?
Plenty people suggesting heavier built long keel etc have a lot going for them for serious bluewater sailing (the arc really ain't that big a deal
) but that's not passing judgement on white plastic.doug748
Well-Known Member
You didn't respond to the earlier request about who said "only" certain boats are valid, so this time who is saying white plastic isn't suitable?
Plenty people suggesting heavier built long keel etc have a lot going for them for serious bluewater sailing (the arc really ain't that big a deal
Spot on, exactly the point.
The usual problem.
It is far easier to make a partial and florid response to what people did not say.
I will bow out now, post 45 is probably the herald of more pottiness and abuse.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
You didn't respond to the earlier request about who said "only" certain boats are valid, so this time who is saying white plastic isn't suitable?
Plenty people suggesting heavier built long keel etc have a lot going for them for serious bluewater sailing (the arc really ain't that big a deal
See post 24 and 46 for examples.
Of course some people prefer heavier built long keel, but they are a small and declining minority - as I said earlier the supply is fixed (and aging) and the demand is growing so it is inevitable that more AWB type boats will be used.
ARC seems pretty a pretty serious activity to me. Putting that amount of time, energy and money into buying and preparing a boat, doing the qualifying passage and going a quarter of the way around the world is not a trivial undertaking! Just different from buying an old boat on a shoestring and wandering the oceans on your own, so the two activities suggest different priorities and therefore different choices about boats!
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Ah, but they did say it - and not for the first time.
It is a failure to recognise facts that is the problem - not about opinions, and the fact is that more and more people are choosing to go long distance cruising in boats that are not long keel, heavy displacement designs.
It is all too easy to pick small bits of information that support your opinions, but in doing so you ignore all of the readily available information that says differently.
geem
Well-Known Member
I never mentioned long keel. My boat is deep fin and skeg. Most of my OCC friends sail this configuaration. A few people still sail traditional long keel but they are in the minority. In fact being out of the water next to a current model Oyster last summer, there is little to choose between our hull designs. We are slightly deeper draft but otherwise very little difference.
I dont believe yachts hulls designed for ocean sailing have changed significantly in the last 30 years. We dont have a sugar scoop but that about it
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>Getting back to the original post which was offering this list as advice on what to buy to go long distance sailing.
It wasn't advice just a list I thought people here would be interested in. I could post the type of yachts 2,000 members have but it would take me at least a day to look up the information in the membership book and be too long to post
>Almost none of the boats featured on the OCC list are feature in the ARC list. all the owners of the ARC boats would qualify for OCC membership on completion, but guess very few do join.
That doesn't surprise me 98% of the ARC boats are doing an Atlantic circuit not going going away for years, hence they are happy to buy AWB's. I say 98% because when we did the ARC 2004 we only saw 4 other boats in the six and a half years we were doing Caribbean circuits and we kept in touch with them by SSB.
>It is just a snapshot of what those 37 people chose, and judging by the age of the boats, may well be choices made a long time ago.
Yes many of then have been cruising 10 years and a lot more but the boats they have are still in demand as you can tell when somebody asks here for a boat for long distance sailing. All the well built boat names come up - Nicholson, Moody, Bowman, Halberg Rassy, Rival etc and no AWBs.
It wasn't advice just a list I thought people here would be interested in. I could post the type of yachts 2,000 members have but it would take me at least a day to look up the information in the membership book and be too long to post
>Almost none of the boats featured on the OCC list are feature in the ARC list. all the owners of the ARC boats would qualify for OCC membership on completion, but guess very few do join.
That doesn't surprise me 98% of the ARC boats are doing an Atlantic circuit not going going away for years, hence they are happy to buy AWB's. I say 98% because when we did the ARC 2004 we only saw 4 other boats in the six and a half years we were doing Caribbean circuits and we kept in touch with them by SSB.
>It is just a snapshot of what those 37 people chose, and judging by the age of the boats, may well be choices made a long time ago.
Yes many of then have been cruising 10 years and a lot more but the boats they have are still in demand as you can tell when somebody asks here for a boat for long distance sailing. All the well built boat names come up - Nicholson, Moody, Bowman, Halberg Rassy, Rival etc and no AWBs.
Robin
Well-Known Member
Retiring for good, as I am sadly about to do, after nearly 60 years of sailing, one thing I definitely will not miss is such pure opportunistic 'here is the proof that I'm right all along' prejudice posted here.:disgust:
geem
Well-Known Member
I just dont understand comments like this. Who is being prejudiced? The fact is the OCC membership boats consist up very few modern AWBs. Its a fact not prejudice. I have the membership list and boats so I can see this. Some of us have tried to explain why members choose these types of boats. Its not trying to be prejudice although both sides of the discussion obviuosly have loyalties to their type of boat or they wouldn't have bought them in the first place. It would appear to me that there is more prejudice towards people CHOOSING to sail old designs than the other way around.
D
Deleted member 36384
Guest
I think prejudice is a bit strong, opinionated would be more apt. I know what you mean, mention that you own an MAB and all sorts of comments pop up defending modern boats. Clearly both styles have their advantages and detractions and both styles are as capable as each other for either marina hopping, coastal sailing, ocean crossing and even high latitude sailing; plenty of facts around that supports this.
ghostlymoron
Well-Known Member
If you look at the OCC website, it appears to be a club for a particular type of sailor with references to 'invite the port officer over for cocktails' etc. The membership also appears to be in a fairly elderly age group and necessarily is of 'clubby' type people. It is therefore probably not representative of the thousands of people who sail across oceans. I get the impression that this thread sets out to say that if you want to cruise around the world, you need a certain type of boat, heavy displacement, relatively narrow beam etc, like the originator of the thread, this is not true, sure, you need a seaworthy vessel because at times you'll encounter heavy weather, but many younger, non clubby, non cocktail drinking types choose to sail in modern, beamy comfortable boats which are equally suited for life in a new cruising ground as crossing an ocean to get there. Look on YouTube, search under world cruising and you'll find loads of young couples happily exploring the world under sail in modern AWBs. Some like the classic old boats, some like modern comforts, there's no right or wrong, it's just personal preference.
geem
Well-Known Member
I think there is a misunderstanding about the kind of boats lots of OCC members cruise. Although few are jens, bavs, bens etc many are Rassys, Contests, Moodys, Bowmans etc. My own boat is a 1980 Trintella 44. These boats are hardly hard core long keelers but they are built for comfort. They are well built with good deck hardware etc. Many of them are 1980 boats so not current designs but very much up to ocean sailing or sitting in a Caribbean anchorage drinking your rum and coke. Interestingly, from my experience of the OCC members we have met of the years there is more of a following for long keel designs in USA than from the UK sailors.