Tranona
Well-Known Member
Where is your evidence of this - or are you referring to the appallingly built boats from the 1970s and 80s?
so who buys them?
- Thread starter Birdseye
- Start date
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
According to Fibreglass Boats by Hugo du Plesis, no voids = no Osmosis.
Back in the day commonly boats had voids which eventually blistered - what we call Osmosis. Modern boats less so. I conclude because we've learned how to layup fibre glass without voids.
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gaylord694
Well-Known Member
I think your getting confused with information overload
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
It's 10 years since I read it so feel free to correct me.
potentillaCO32
Well-Known Member
Material science has improved hugely. I remember seeing grp being wetted out by hand in a shed in Rochford for hunter boats and years later seeing a french boat builder using temperature and climate controlled vacumm bagging for a complete hull. No comparison between the results.
ANd for the other poster, fatarses and scow bows are very very fast.
doug748
Well-Known Member
I think newer boats are well constructed to rather restricted standards. It's not quite true that they are badly designed either but they are designed with a narrow focus.
So, applying a broad brush, they are great in port but can be a liability at sea. "Performance" is often spoken about in this place but what is usually meant is the narrow "sailing speed in flat, inshore water". That's it, bit schoolboy really.
Real all round performance: Sailabilty is another matter - the ability offshore to make good progress with a small crews, in poor conditions, with a minimum of work and attention to the needs of the boat. As the phrase used to have it: "A boat that will look after you"
A lot of modern boats make hard compromises in order to do one or two things well, either:
1) Create as much interior space as possible- which is an excellent marketing tool it appeals to non sailors and is impressive at a boat show.
2) Sail fast - Like the Pogo mentioned, great if you want to race or are particularly interested in sailing fast. Most don't / aren't but, if this is your priority, they are fine boats. In terms of accommodation they are often little better than their slower, older siblings and poor load carriers.
Of course many 1) boats above are alleged to be "fast" but are more often just big. With a 40 ft boat you will overtake an impressive number of older boats, it is as well to notice the LOA of those boats. These bloated designs are actually not nippy even by their own confined standards. If manufacturers know you can have a best seller simply by providing more space it is not surprising you end up with large areas of space surrounded by GRP. I suspect that older design briefs started with sailing needs and worked forward from that.
A lot of what has been described as steady improvement in design are in fact not much more than Sticking Plaster to cover up shortcomings:
Stability problems - make the keel deeper, put a T shape on the end - both a disaster lurking for the average boater
Can't hoist the huge main? - add power winches
Sail handling difficulties - In mast furling
Anchor problems - add a bow sprit ( Hang on I thought the plumb bow was meant to help with mooring costs?)
Handling embarrassments - bow thruster, even better stern thruster
No stowage - put the stuff in a stern "cabin"
Rounding up in 20 kts - twin rudders
Much of this stuff actually hindering speed, whilst adding complication, weight and jeopardy which a cruising boat would be better without.
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dunedin
Well-Known Member
Yawn. Repetitive, unsubstantiated opinion (prejudice?)
Certainly my 201x design & build boat is better engineered than my previous 199x design & build boat.
flaming
Well-Known Member
Ah excellent, it's been at least a week since the last "old vs new" dust up!
And to be fair, your post is considerably more reasonable than some!
However, what I think you are perhaps guilty of is looking at individual features of new boats and seeing them as individual choices that could be bolted on to any boat, rather than looking at the way the whole design has changed. And you get a lot of slack from me for doing this, as I read article after article in the yachting press that is guilty of exactly the same.
First off, some cold hard facts. In moderate and fresh conditions, the newer generations of wide, snub nosed, big bottomed, cruisers are faster than their predecessors. That isn't opinion, it isn't debatable, it's simply true. As a prime example, when Sunsail recently replaced their F40s, which were actually relatively slim, fine bowed, boats with the chunky monkey SO410s they now have, they had a period where they ran corporate racing in a mixed fleet. The SOs were faster upwind and down as soon as the wind was over about 8 knots. Much to the surprise of the skippers.
So not racing boats, cruising boats. And the reason is pretty simple. It's form stability of the wider hull, and the fact that when they heel they actually don't increase wetted surface area, sometimes even reduce it as they sit on the full length chine, unlike older designs which generally increase wetted surface area when heeled.
Twin rudders are not then put on that sort of boat "because it broaches out" but simply because they are designed to have the center of the hull out of the water when heeled. See this pic from the YM test for example.
So it's not "sticking plaster" to correct broaching it's a fundamental change in the design concept. If you change the design in this way, to make full use in the advances in hull design (which by the way, give great interior volume for cruising) then you need to change other things to match.
And by the way, this type of hull is actually NOT the sort that is getting deep heavy T keels in cruising use. They don't need them.
And then, you arrive at a boat that is actually quite different from the boats of even fairly recent past. And then you hit problem number 2. The fact that the majority of the journalists doing the tests don't take the time to look at the boat, understand how it might differ, and how that means you should adapt your sailing style. They just jump on and try and sail it in the same old way. And when you try and sail a wider, comparatively lighter, boat in the same way upwind as you sailed something with a slim bow, why are you surprised that the results aren't the same?
But adapt your sailing when there is some chop. Come off the breeze by a few degrees, add some twist to the sail plan, allow the boat to sit on its chine and then see what it can do. I've seen so many boat tests where they describe slamming, and then I look at a pic of the test and just think "well, it will do if you sail it like that".
And this is when we're talking about boats whose design brief is "coastal cruising".
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Always been the case. Our older SO36.2 sails better upright, as do many boats of similar design, but we see a lot of folks with way too much sail up going slower than us heavily reefed. I'm sure it feels exciting, but if it's slower and less comfortable, and more importantly if you're complaining about the boat then I agree that a change in style is needed. Or buy an older boat that suits your sailing style. Older, prettier boats got faster as they heeled so it used to make sense to be less comfortable.
flaming
Well-Known Member
Modern boats with a chine need some heel. Less than the old IOR influenced boats for sure, but the other point is that when you stick them on the chine like that, they get a lot more resistant to more heel.
So actually a lot more forgiving upwind, as you firstly have a point where each degree of extra heel suddenly requires a lot more force, and also your rudder is now vertical.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
ours is between those two eras. I like to think of it as "classic AWB" 
doris
Well-Known Member
It's only numbers on a page I was told. So I went and spent a load, bloody marvellous
doris
Well-Known Member
My last portly cruiser, a 2014 AWB had a half length chine and sailed stunningly well compared to the previous round hull versions.
Nowhere near my latest not-so-pocket go faster cruiser but at the end of the noughties there was a major step up in design and WTF would want the previous stuff unless there was no choice.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
As there had been previously. It's a continuous change for the better, with different manufacturers changing at different times. HR, for instance, are just now adopting what BenJenBav were doing 20 years ago.
I don't think anyone does by choice if they're well informed and want the better option. It's not always about better though as budget and taste come into the picture too. Still a lot of folk around here dreaming of old curvy yachts with manky bilges and single bunks, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I must admit I'm not keen on the newer designs with relatively square sterns (and the loss of the sugar scoop is a tragedy!), which is lucky because I don't have the budget for one anyway!
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
doug748
Well-Known Member
Ah excellent, it's been at least a week since the last "old vs new" dust up!
And to be fair, your post is considerably more reasonable than some!
.......
.............
Thanks, a nice change from being called names whenever this topic is recycled
BTW. The trap door in the back of that boat is another example of dodgy design ideas. Heavy, vulnerable, expensive and less useful than a sugar scoop but does give more room in the cockpit at a boat show.
What does bug me is the word fast being used as if it is interchangeable with better. Modern or new is often used in the same manner. A lot of people want a docile boat, one that wont be over pressed almost regardless of conditions.
Spoke too soon, let the abuse start:
".....don't think anyone does by choice if they're well informed and want the better option........ Still a lot of folk around here dreaming of old curvy yachts with manky bilges and single bunks"
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flaming
Well-Known Member
Thanks, a nice change from being called names whenever this topic is recycled
BTW. The trap door in the back of that boat is another example of dodgy design ideas. Heavy, vulnerable, expensive and less useful than a sugar scoop but does give more room in the cockpit at a boat show.
What does bug me is the word fast being used as if it is interchangeable with better. Modern or new is often used in the same manner. A lot of people want a docile boat, one that wont be over pressed almost regardless of conditions.
Spoke too soon, let the abuse start:
".....don't think anyone does by choice if they're well informed and want the better option........ Still a lot of folk around here dreaming of old curvy yachts with manky bilges and single bunks"
.
See, I haven't ever said that "fast" is interchangeable with "better". I was merely countering your post where you said they were slower for their size. Which they aren't.
Agree entirely that people have differing priorities when it comes to boats. I just think that there is this dominant narrative amongst large sections of the sailing press and "experienced sailors" that the modern boats are solely about interior volume and boat show sales to reluctant sailors, and that the compromise is that they are rubbish sailing boats. Which I don't think is true. The funny thing about these hull shapes is how much more forgiving they are. My own boat's hull shape is nothing like as extreme as that, and in cruising mode it's a complete pussycat. Which is quite different from the early 2000s C/R that we used to sail. Leave your reefing a bit late in that boat and you really knew about it.
Also agree that the trap door is crap design. I'm in no way saying that every detail of every modern boat is perfect. And for the record, I wouldn't buy that SO41, even if I could afford it.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I can't work out why you cut out the part where I said essentially the same as you just did.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I think we all know you think that though
Someone has to want faster, and racers are probably a large part of the market for new yachts as they often have the budget for their more active hobby. Cruising is more passive so it's harder to justify a change if the current boat is capable and comfortable. Racers sell their boats eventually though, which provides cruisers with a cheaper place to buy.potentillaCO32
Well-Known Member
Indeed it is all about taste and dreams. As the sometime importer of a range of cruiser/racers quite a few years ago I have been fortunate enought to have sailed on many modern boats in many nice places and love them. There are much easier, and quicker to sail, in most conditions, than old manky boats. The fact that so many awbs start the ARC and cross the atlantic each year is testament to their seaworthiness.
Going back to taste, my own boat is a manky 70s contessa 32 but i would not swap her for anything.
Going back to taste, my own boat is a manky 70s contessa 32 but i would not swap her for anything.