Sailing across the Atlantic on a sailing boat, under 40ft.

lustyd said:
You're not wrong, but that 56 days could have been 80 in a small boat. Unless in your strange world larger boats actually don't go faster. There's certainly a lot of evidence in the real world that they do.
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It's a shame that you dont seem to know what really happens in the real world....

I'll try again. I've done Cape Verdes to Windies in 16 days on a 33 foot yacht. I've averaged around 24 on various other yachts of 40-48 feet. I've also taken 27 on the same 33 foot yacht.

As has already been pointed out, bigger boats don't always get the best passage speeds. It took me 14 days from Antigua to Azores on a 74 foot cat that I thought would be quicker. Dreaming of potential speeds on paper doesn't cut the mustard out there. Which if perhaps you had done it, you would be agreeing. It's not an Xbox game
 
Gary Fox said:
If you are on watch, meaning on deck, you don't listen to music or tinker with gadgets, full stop.
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That’s one point of view. Personally I don’t give a monkeys what the crew do so long as they don’t fall asleep, they keep a good lookout and plot as required and call me if there’s a problem.

I suppose one earpiece in might be a good idea so that they can hear what’s going on with the other ear, but I’ve never had a problem with this in fifty years of sailing. If they read a book/kindle, I insist they use a cooking timer to ping and remind them to look up every few minutes.

You rarely see anything when ocean sailing anyway. See a ship on the horizon and the whole crew come up to watch.
 
lustyd said:
One of us doesn't that's for sure. You're definitely right, you always are. Nobody else on the forum knows anything, I don't know why you bother coming. You might as well bugger off really and leave us to our conversation. It's not like you really care what other people say, think, or do anyway. You're a magnificent sailor I'm sure, we should all be glad you're here so it's weird that I'm not.
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Nah, simply one of loads of people on here that are happy to share their hard won experiences with others who appreciate advice. For those who aren't interested, they have the choice of not reading the stuff from those that have been there. What seems pointless to me would be if I was to continually argue with someone on here that has done stuff I haven't. I would rather learn from them.
 
capnsensible said:
It's a shame that you dont seem to know what really happens in the real world....

I'll try again. I've done Cape Verdes to Windies in 16 days on a 33 foot yacht. I've averaged around 24 on various other yachts of 40-48 feet. I've also taken 27 on the same 33 foot yacht.

As has already been pointed out, bigger boats don't always get the best passage speeds. It took me 14 days from Antigua to Azores on a 74 foot cat that I thought would be quicker. Dreaming of potential speeds on paper doesn't cut the mustard out there. Which if perhaps you had done it, you would be agreeing. It's not an Xbox game
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Ok so I haven't done it yet. I have done one Southern Ocean crossing - the right way, in a really big boat. The time we took has little to do with the time another boat took or might take another time.

Bigger boats don't ALWAYS get the quickest times because (mainly) of weather. You are comparing different trips in, presumably different weather, with crews of different aptitude and ambition. If you lined all those boats up to cross the pond leaving at the same time with similarly competent folks, I bet you a pound to pinch of sh!t that I can choose the finishing order.

The ARC, Fastnet, RORC 600 and Sydney Hobart - just picking events with large fleets - aren't known for line honours going to 30-footers who, whaddya know, trot out the same 5 knot rule as the 80-footers or whatever. Of my six Fastnets, the slowest trip was in the notionally fastest boat...because it was a light-wind affair, and line honours were the slowest for twenty years; and we thrashed (in that year) all the slower boats.

The faster boats are....well, faster.. As theory tells us all, and indeed yacht games on the xBox.
 
capnsensible said:
It's a shame that you dont seem to know what really happens in the real world....

I'll try again. I've done Cape Verdes to Windies in 16 days on a 33 foot yacht. I've averaged around 24 on various other yachts of 40-48 feet. I've also taken 27 on the same 33 foot yacht.

As has already been pointed out, bigger boats don't always get the best passage speeds. It took me 14 days from Antigua to Azores on a 74 foot cat that I thought would be quicker. Dreaming of potential speeds on paper doesn't cut the mustard out there. Which if perhaps you had done it, you would be agreeing. It's not an Xbox game
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I fully agree. I weather routed a friend with a high performance 56 cat a couple of years ago from West Indies to Azores. A fast trip of 12 days. I weather routed the same boat from the Canaries to Antigua a few weeks ago and the trip took 19 days. Size of boat is not always the deciding factor. Crap weather can change everything
 
RJJ said:
Ok so I haven't done it yet. I have done one Southern Ocean crossing - the right way, in a really big boat. The time we took has little to do with the time another boat took or might take another time.

Bigger boats don't ALWAYS get the quickest times because (mainly) of weather. You are comparing different trips in, presumably different weather, with crews of different aptitude and ambition. If you lined all those boats up to cross the pond leaving at the same time with similarly competent folks, I bet you a pound to pinch of sh!t that I can choose the finishing order.

The ARC, Fastnet, RORC 600 and Sydney Hobart - just picking events with large fleets - aren't known for line honours going to 30-footers who, whaddya know, trot out the same 5 knot rule as the 80-footers or whatever. Of my six Fastnets, the slowest trip was in the notionally fastest boat...because it was a light-wind affair, and line honours were the slowest for twenty years; and we thrashed (in that year) all the slower boats.

The faster boats are....well, faster.. As theory tells us all, and indeed yacht games on the xBox.
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In theory, but...

I spent a bit of time following the 2019 ARC and it was interesting that different size models from (shock horror given other threads on here!) mass producers fared quite differently, sometimes with smaller boats doing better than their bigger sisters. I suspect this principally comes down to how hard each boat was driven and weather routing though. But agree with the sentiment that a longer lwl would normally give a faster passage all other things being equal
 
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FWIW I made four crossings with our 41': I chose that size because it suited best our family of four and singlehanding during longer passages; without the family -which will eventually be the case, becoming teenagers etc etc- I would feel more at ease with a 36-39'. I delivered West -East a 60' Swan, no way I would want a personal boat that big, not even a 45', personal preferences of course.
As for speed/passage time, I quite like being at sea for longish periods (much easier when singlehanding), I think a nice crossing should satisfy one's personal recipe for pleasure, to me it's 99% the technicalities of offshore sailing (weather, comms, sleep management, etc) and 1% starry skies and the like-, I enjoy every day with their ever changing ups and downs and I like being there, so passage time will be just an end result. If really in a hurry it's difficult to beat a 747. :)
Re weather and boat size, it's my personal pride trying and avoid the worst (so far so good), should something really odd happen it would catch me on a 35' or on a 60', so best be prepared anyway and hope for the best. :)
 
john_morris_uk said:
You carry on and you’ll find out in the real world immigration take a very close interest in comings and going’s. Maybe you’ll think yacht movements aren’t 100% noted everywhere and in every port, but they’re noted enough for me to make sure I ALWAYS do the paperwork. Leaving without paperwork sorted also leads to all sorts of problems in some areas of the world. You need your exit certification from one place before you’re officially let in the next. It’s part of the joys of blue water sailing. It’s definitely NOT like sailing around Europe.

You’re in for a rude awakening and some very long and tedious sessions with officials who have a lot of power to make your life difficult and unpleasant if you don’t follow immigration procedures.

(You’ll get little sympathy from the Brutish consul or embassy either)
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What about coming back though? Say I've done their exit stuff, so when will they twig I'm back if I don't tell them? (I'm not suggesting this is the way to do things I'm just curious about the system}
 
38mess said:
Well I'm learning something today.
I always thought the bigger the boat the faster the passage, but I guess not.
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For your route the ARC results over the years definitely give a good indication. A longer LWL is definitely is correlated with quicker passage.
Its just that boat design, weather, routing and (very often on ARC) approach to how much sail to use, especially during the night, are other big factors.
 
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