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Guest
Guest
Steve Fossett's cat achieved 36 knots during his recent round Britain trip, yet my family cruising cat struggles to get much more than 8 knots - a ratio of over 4 to 1. My family car will do 120 mph whilst a formula 1 car might reach 230 mph - a ratio of 2 to 1. My motor bike will do 160 mph whilst a racer might again achieve 200 mph - say 1.25 to 1.
If the performance of the competitive racer reflects the current technological limit, then production sailboats are much lower down the scale of what could be, than cars or bikes. I suspect that a boat designer would blame the conservative boat buyer - certainly my experience on this forum and down at my club would support this view.
But why? Who wants to sail at 7 knots (the effective max of many 30 footers) when they could be sailing at 12? We would not be happy to buy the 70 mph top speed and technology of the Morris Minor, but that's what we seem to be doing in boats.
If the performance of the competitive racer reflects the current technological limit, then production sailboats are much lower down the scale of what could be, than cars or bikes. I suspect that a boat designer would blame the conservative boat buyer - certainly my experience on this forum and down at my club would support this view.
But why? Who wants to sail at 7 knots (the effective max of many 30 footers) when they could be sailing at 12? We would not be happy to buy the 70 mph top speed and technology of the Morris Minor, but that's what we seem to be doing in boats.