MapisM
Well-Known Member
Ok, actually it's not like I haven't cruised on a P boat for that long.
But it's since the very end of the previous century that I got used to single digit speeds on my own boat, and I'm now just beginning to get used again to my old habits of faster cruising.
And fwiw, the first impressions are as follows:
First of all, on the old subject of the comparison between D hulls and P hulls used at D speed, I can only reconfirm what I always said: forget the idea that a P boat can be as comfy as a D boat at slow speed (particularly if stabilized). This is quite simply not true. Yes, my new tub has no stabs and the old one, on top of a D hull, also had stabs. So, the comparison is obviously unfair. But it's not just a matter of rolling, it's also the difference between the way a D hull "cuts" through the waves vs. the "fighting" attitude of a P hull that makes a day and night difference. But this didn't come as a surprise to me.
The second (and somewhat worrying) consideration is that P hulls scream for speed.
I guess this can seem irrational, but during the first shakedown cruise I made a 40nm passage twice. One of them with a bit of waves, that sort of "forced" to go at P speed to self-stabilize the boat and make the journey shorter. And that's all well and good.
The second time I had a mirror like sea, which would have been perfectly comfortable at any speed. But what happened is that I started cruising at 8 kts or so as I was used to, and I got bored - a feeling I never experienced with the old tub, but don't ask me why. Then I increased to the borderline of SD speed for a while (around 10 kts), but the boat didn't like that. Eventually, I jumped on the plane at 15kts, then increased to 20 'cause the boat seemed happier with that, and after fiddling a bit with rpm and flaps I ended making most of the trip a tad under 2000rpm and at a whopping 26 knots (3 times what I got used to in the last 17 years!).
And even then, the hull seemed to say "is that all you can give me?"...
I resisted the temptation to increase the throttle further just because I had an image in mind of a vortex in the tank bottom... Thanks God for the mechanical engines with no real time fuel burn numbers!
Bottom line, my message to those who are thinking to buy a P boat with the idea that it's still possible to use it in an economical manner is, quite simply, forget it.
I know that some of you guys made longish passages at 10kts with P boats, and what I just said is after 4 days of P boat cruising, so I might reconsider all that, sooner or later.
But I have a funny feeling that all those years of slow cruising in the almost complete silence and rock solid feeling that only heavy D hulls can offer will make it pretty hard for me to accept the somewhat disappointing experience of slow speed with P hulls for much more than very short island hopping.
In other words, what I would suggest to the same folks to which the previous paragraph was addressed is as follows: if you really want to go for a P boat and you are thinking to use it often at D speed, do yourself a favour and do NOT try a proper D hull of similar size before.
Or if you already have an idea of the sort of cruising comfort of a 50' D boat and you wish something comparable in a P boat, don't look at anything less than 80 feet.
It is indeed that different.
But it's since the very end of the previous century that I got used to single digit speeds on my own boat, and I'm now just beginning to get used again to my old habits of faster cruising.
And fwiw, the first impressions are as follows:
First of all, on the old subject of the comparison between D hulls and P hulls used at D speed, I can only reconfirm what I always said: forget the idea that a P boat can be as comfy as a D boat at slow speed (particularly if stabilized). This is quite simply not true. Yes, my new tub has no stabs and the old one, on top of a D hull, also had stabs. So, the comparison is obviously unfair. But it's not just a matter of rolling, it's also the difference between the way a D hull "cuts" through the waves vs. the "fighting" attitude of a P hull that makes a day and night difference. But this didn't come as a surprise to me.
The second (and somewhat worrying) consideration is that P hulls scream for speed.
I guess this can seem irrational, but during the first shakedown cruise I made a 40nm passage twice. One of them with a bit of waves, that sort of "forced" to go at P speed to self-stabilize the boat and make the journey shorter. And that's all well and good.
The second time I had a mirror like sea, which would have been perfectly comfortable at any speed. But what happened is that I started cruising at 8 kts or so as I was used to, and I got bored - a feeling I never experienced with the old tub, but don't ask me why. Then I increased to the borderline of SD speed for a while (around 10 kts), but the boat didn't like that. Eventually, I jumped on the plane at 15kts, then increased to 20 'cause the boat seemed happier with that, and after fiddling a bit with rpm and flaps I ended making most of the trip a tad under 2000rpm and at a whopping 26 knots (3 times what I got used to in the last 17 years!).
And even then, the hull seemed to say "is that all you can give me?"...
I resisted the temptation to increase the throttle further just because I had an image in mind of a vortex in the tank bottom... Thanks God for the mechanical engines with no real time fuel burn numbers!
Bottom line, my message to those who are thinking to buy a P boat with the idea that it's still possible to use it in an economical manner is, quite simply, forget it.
I know that some of you guys made longish passages at 10kts with P boats, and what I just said is after 4 days of P boat cruising, so I might reconsider all that, sooner or later.
But I have a funny feeling that all those years of slow cruising in the almost complete silence and rock solid feeling that only heavy D hulls can offer will make it pretty hard for me to accept the somewhat disappointing experience of slow speed with P hulls for much more than very short island hopping.
In other words, what I would suggest to the same folks to which the previous paragraph was addressed is as follows: if you really want to go for a P boat and you are thinking to use it often at D speed, do yourself a favour and do NOT try a proper D hull of similar size before.
Or if you already have an idea of the sort of cruising comfort of a 50' D boat and you wish something comparable in a P boat, don't look at anything less than 80 feet.
It is indeed that different.
