Well now,

[doug748]

This one is worth a look given the poor stability of some of these vessels:

Just as well buy a Folkboat

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[dunedin]

Have you ever seen film of the old square riggers round the horn, decks entirely awash.

There isn’t generally an issue of “poor stability” of these vessels. And Maltese Falcon has been sailing like that for more than a decade. They will know their stability curve - and most importantly downflooding angles. Hopefully all side hatches and ports are sealed shut when racing - just like the hatches you see with “keep closed at sea” signs on a ferry.

More commercial ships have sunk due to severe weather than superyachts.

 

[doug748]

Have you ever seen film of the old square riggers round the horn, decks entirely awash.

There isn’t generally an issue of “poor stability” of these vessels. And Maltese Falcon has been sailing like that for more than a decade. They will know their stability curve - and most importantly downflooding angles. Hopefully all side hatches and ports are sealed shut when racing - just like the hatches you see with “keep closed at sea” signs on a ferry.

More commercial ships have sunk due to severe weather than superyachts.

Nothing to see here, then.

Almost unsinkable.

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[Tranona]

This one is worth a look given the poor stability of some of these vessels:

Just as well buy a Folkboat

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What is so unusual about that? Does not mean it is about to sink.

"She is a wet boat with low freeboard, but drives to windward well even when the decks are heavy with green water" The boat - Sadler 25 quote from an article in PBO Dec 2003 on buying and renovating a boat for a "Round Britain".

So as with the Folkboat and many other boats of different sizes going right up to "superyachts" decks under water when going to windward hard is not necessarily an indicator of poor stability

 

[dunedin]

….

So as with the Folkboat and many other boats of different sizes going right up to "superyachts" decks under water when going to windward hard is not necessarily an indicator of poor stability

Yes, and the videos of older superyachts like the J Class are scary - water all over the side decks and, when racing in the med, often crew up to their waists in the water with no lifelines round the decks.

 

[Tranona]

I had some involvement in Lionheart, the 1980 Americas Cup challenger. Some of my colleagues were crew on the delivery trip back from Sweden. I missed out because I was not well, but when I heard their accounts I was glad I did. Even with cut down sails she spent most of the time with decks awash.

 

[doug748]

I guess the difference is the J class has 50 tons of lead on her keel and will pop up, the other is approaching the point at which it will pop down,

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[justanothersailboat]

There are many kinds of boat where getting the leeward side deck wet is ok, and I would be wary if an allegedly "racing" boat was not able to cope with it. Even if not every hull could be expected to be at its best there.

When the windward side deck is wet, and that water sluices downhill into the cockpit into my boots, that's when I start to wonder if things are getting a little soggy.

 

[dunedin]

There are many kinds of boat where getting the leeward side deck wet is ok, and I would be wary if an allegedly "racing" boat was not able to cope with it. Even if not every hull could be expected to be at its best there.

When the windward side deck is wet, and that water sluices downhill into the cockpit into my boots, that's when I start to wonder if things are getting a little soggy.

Do you own a Contessa

 

[justanothersailboat]

no

 

[PeterV]

Sir Winston Churchill and Malcolm Miller both had doors either side of the deckhouse as the leeward ones were unusable at sea. Crossing the Atlantic in SWC in 1976 the leeward deck was underwater for about 6 days.

 

[capnsensible]

I wonder if, with the advent of the marina caravan, people don't know how hard yachts can be sailed?

 

[awol]

I wonder if, with the advent of the marina caravan, people don't know how hard yachts can be sailed?

The "marina caravan" will have rounded up and possibly inadvertently tacked long before the side decks get wet.

 

[lustyd]

I wonder if, with the advent of the marina caravan, people don't know how hard yachts can be sailed?

To be fair though, a lot of modern designs don't need to be "sailed hard" since the waterline length doesn't lengthen and they have more stability so actually perform the same with reefing as they do over-canvassed. We kept up with a 46 footer for a couple of hours this year when they had full sail up and had water over the toerail and we on a 36 footer had two reefs and didn't spill the tea. Perhaps their day was more exciting, but it was to no benefit at all.

 

[boomerangben]

Judging a vessels stability by YouTube? This is utter bollix. Would you let your surveyor work from home?

 

[Daydream believer]

Sir Winston Churchill and Malcolm Miller both had doors either side of the deckhouse as the leeward ones were unusable at sea. Crossing the Atlantic in SWC in 1976 the leeward deck was underwater for about 6 days.

I suppose the thing a new crew must look for when going aboard such vessels is whether the doors have been antifouled.
Or a mark on the cabin roof, with something like " Average height of water during N sea crossing Aug 1908"

 

[MisterBaxter]

Isn't this more to do with the relationship between beam and freeboard than with stability? A yacht with low freeboard for her beam will dip the leeward deck at an angle of heel that would leave a yacht with more freeboard high and dry, as it were.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I wonder if, with the advent of the marina caravan, people don't know how hard yachts can be sailed?

If there’s no reward for caning a boat, why would you? Your AWB doesn’t respond well, generally, even though they’ll stand it without breaking. Whereas a long keel craft, from Folkboat to Vintage 8 metre just gets more exciting. I’ll leave it to the forum’s imagination what it’s like to take a DF920 to the edge. Suffice to say we do it at every opportunity.

 

[Stemar]

I’ll leave it to the forum’s imagination what it’s like to take a DF920 to the edge.

Call me a coward, but the word I'd use is scary.

Flying an amas strikes me as being something to avoid unless you're an out-and-out racing crew and the helm has F1 driver reactions. Coco de Mer was having great fun in the RTI before last, until, all of a sudden, they weren't, I know she is (was?) a cat, but that's the one I remember. IIRC, there was more than one tri that did the same thing.

 

[doug748]

Judging a vessels stability by YouTube? This is utter bollix. Would you let your surveyor work from home?

The point of the original video is in response to recent events, not to establish anything about stability. The stability of these boats is already known
Large yachts, it seems, take their stability cues from ship practice rather than small sailing boats. Who realised this, I didn't

We are told that the figures for the recently sunk Bayesian included a downflooding angle as little as 45% and an angle of vanishing stability, on the day, of 75 deg. In stark terms this means the opposite of fail safe, the boat is already flooding, before the boat approaches the point of going over.

The boat pictured in post 1 is from the same yard and built to similar standards. The water is within c 1 metre of entering the boat.

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