Desirable and Undesirable Characteristics of Offshore Yachts
- Thread starter Jud - s/v Sputnik
- Start date
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
And we do.
And have.
And have.
The problem is, everyone's experience is limited. Nearly all recreational sailors have sailed particular kinds of boats in particular kinds of weather and had particular kinds of successes and failures with it. The sea in a storm is quite chaotic, and yacht design practice is nearly as chaotic. The sort of repeatable, carefully controlled multivariate experiment that advances knowledge quickly cannot and will not be done, except around the edges (like the tank rollover tests at Southhampton). You would need to drop 10 carefully varied designs in into the middle of a storm with measured and characterized waves and instrument the result, then do that 10 times in 10 different weather conditions.
Because of this, all the knowledge is anecdotal, with all the unreliability that implies. With boat design changing more rapidly than in the past, the problem gets worse as the anecdotes from 1962 and now even 2002 are dated.
I tried to do a simple thing, measure the roll excursions on my powerboat. It proved impossible to do: where was the NST standard ferry boat wake, encountered at exactly the same angle and speed, in a standard background sea state?
The modern solution to the problem may be crowd sourced mega-information. This is beginning to happen on bottom surveys, and could happen in time with storm management. Using data on pitch, yaw, and roll along with wind and sea height, recorded every second, and uploaded when you get to port. The human factor would be hard to capture - lbs or expectorated vomit/hour? Drownings/mile/year?
There are very detailed bathymetric charts being created by recorded and uploaded files from structured sonar being carried by many thousands of users. We need to do the same thing to solve some of the longstanding arguments in sailing. Satellite tracking has done this to some extent for claims of speed. We need it applied to the other questions. My question on roll excursions would be easily answered if 10 sisterships recorded data even for a few months. It used to be you wanted to do a few careful measurements because you could only analyze so much data and the quality needed to be high. This has changed - you can now deal with nearly unlimited measurements, and extract very high quality conclusions from poor data provided you have enough of it.
Because of this, all the knowledge is anecdotal, with all the unreliability that implies. With boat design changing more rapidly than in the past, the problem gets worse as the anecdotes from 1962 and now even 2002 are dated.
I tried to do a simple thing, measure the roll excursions on my powerboat. It proved impossible to do: where was the NST standard ferry boat wake, encountered at exactly the same angle and speed, in a standard background sea state?
The modern solution to the problem may be crowd sourced mega-information. This is beginning to happen on bottom surveys, and could happen in time with storm management. Using data on pitch, yaw, and roll along with wind and sea height, recorded every second, and uploaded when you get to port. The human factor would be hard to capture - lbs or expectorated vomit/hour? Drownings/mile/year?
There are very detailed bathymetric charts being created by recorded and uploaded files from structured sonar being carried by many thousands of users. We need to do the same thing to solve some of the longstanding arguments in sailing. Satellite tracking has done this to some extent for claims of speed. We need it applied to the other questions. My question on roll excursions would be easily answered if 10 sisterships recorded data even for a few months. It used to be you wanted to do a few careful measurements because you could only analyze so much data and the quality needed to be high. This has changed - you can now deal with nearly unlimited measurements, and extract very high quality conclusions from poor data provided you have enough of it.
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
I remember pushing the boat as hard as possible in horrendous weather and loving the speed and excitement
Fixing all the shit we broke - well that can start to add up
That is no sustainable all the way around the world.
Cruisin Loser
Super Anarchist
Yeah, that's fun with a race crew aboard. With wife and kids?I remember pushing the boat as hard as possible in horrendous weather and loving the speed and excitement
Fixing all the shit we broke - well that can start to add up
My whole goal in sailing with the wife is gale avoidance, because I like sailing with her. If every trip turns into a sufferfest because of my stupidity, pretty soon I'll be sailing alone. Not long after that, I won't have a boat anymore.
We've withdrawn from this year's Marion-Bermuda due to the covid regs. I'm still pretty shocked that I actually pulled the plug, because these races are a pretty big deal to me and the crew.
OTOH, our first grandchild is due May 6th. I don't remember children being this expensive even before they're born. You could buy a really nice 35'er with what my wife has spent on this grandbaby, so far.
KC375
Super Anarchist
Are you a member of the Académie Française? French is a codified language.Then they were wrong.
Hove to is a very specific thing, not an opinion.
English is defined by usage not codification. That is a reality I sometimes rail against – how can you have more than two alternatives, moot is not mute, impact is not a verb etc etc – but when I do I am wrong because when a meaningful share of English speakers use these words differently from how I think they should be...their usage becomes the definition and my opinion becomes the ranting of fuddy-duddy...
(FWIW...my usage corresponds to your diagram)
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El Borracho
Barkeeper’s Friend
I'd add that everyones definition of unseaworthy is different. The scientist would need to nail that down first. Looks like sailing in a gale without damage is no longer on the list of necessary attributes for boats, equipment or crew. I suppose with routing, waiting and rescue technology being what they are that is not unreasonable. But what would those popular old designers say about that? I've plenty experience with poorly chosen boats. From big cats that cannot be turned around without danger of flipping...for a quick rescue perhaps. To over-burdened cruisers that couldn't tack (here's looking at you Mr. Peterson) in a blow: "We always use the engine for tacking."
TwoLegged
Super Anarchist
- 5,894
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Evans, my sentence after the one you quoited begins "The quality of the info on forums is variable". I was using restrained understatement, and maybe I should have been more direct and noted that web forums often contain a lot of crap.
But frankly, anyone trying to work though all this needs decent analytical skills. The last 60 years of GRP boatbuilding has seen huge change hull design, rigs, other gear, and so many usage cases, that a lot of filtering is needed. And as DDW rightly notes, the datasets are poor.
estarzinger
Super Anarchist
- 7,776
- 1,210
Sorry
Yes, and even that is probably again a restrained understatement. I have less confidence than DDW that in my lifetime we will get very much useful from 'mega datasets' in sailing. I am a mathematician by education and a business operations guy by experience and I have seen problems where large data and increased computing power cracked difficult problem* . . but by and large with most issues there is still a lot of art and judgment necessary.
* way way back when I was doing some consulting with frito lay when we realized that we had reached a 'tipping point' where we finally had enough computing power and accurate enough maps/road data that we could practically solve the 'traveling salesman' problem for their delivery trucks. Was a nice moment - but they have been few and far between when you find something like that.
For storm tactics and weather routing and many other issues we HAVE learned enough that there would be value in someone analytical laying it out to replace the practices from the 20-year old bibles. It would not be 'scientific' in the way DDW would like, but it would represent 'best current judgement' based on a ton of new/better information than we had back then.
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So what was Jud's question here again? I have completely lost track.
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Jud - s/v Sputnik
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #110
I’ve got to break out my dremel tool now to open up the slot in the front of my boom for the new mainsail clew slug - which I didn’t open up *quite* wide enough the other day. An undesirable characteristic And I just managed to reassemble my Profurl furler and bet the sail back on - after disassembling it a few days ago to get access to the turnbuckle to tension it, per suggestion from sailmaker who wasn’t satisfied with rig tension for sail measuring. It’s already 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and I’ve gotten almost nothing done yet - so, so much left to do today...
I will be back to the table here with vigour in a short while
And I just managed to reassemble my Profurl furler and bet the sail back on - after disassembling it a few days ago to get access to the turnbuckle to tension it, per suggestion from sailmaker who wasn’t satisfied with rig tension for sail measuring. It’s already 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and I’ve gotten almost nothing done yet - so, so much left to do today...I will be back to the table here with vigour in a short while
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
My wife loves to hear all the stories like the one about the time the battery cracked in a hurricane and the acid ate our canned food. She has NO interest in actually having that happen to her!
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El Borracho
Barkeeper’s Friend
You are going to make a mess using that plastic glass, @Jud - s/v Sputnik. Better just drink that most excellent internet opinion fluid from the bottle. As Borracho would.
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Jud's question was whether he should read Rousmaniere's book, and as so many things in sailing, even this has proven to be controversial.
We are still some distance from having enough instrumentation on sailboats to extract meaningful information about a lot of things, and will never answer all the questions with data. But getting closer. On the powerboat, I have pitch/roll/yaw sensors, and have just added a data recorder that will record that and almost every other bit of data on the N2K bus continuously (rudder angle, wind speed and direction, heading, SOG, COG, BS, etc). Such a recorder was prohibitively expensive only 5 years ago, now <$250. I'll be adding that to the sailboat shortly. My monthly espresso budget is more.
Of course, having the answers and applying the answers are two different things. Long ago Nautor/Swan funded a university experiment instrumenting a boat and published the results. Among the results were that rudder loads and keel loads were higher than everyone had assumed. Since then countless rudders and keels have failed as neither ABYC or ABS recommendations changed. In that context, collecting data and generating conclusions is a fool's errand, since the work will be ignored.
We are still some distance from having enough instrumentation on sailboats to extract meaningful information about a lot of things, and will never answer all the questions with data. But getting closer. On the powerboat, I have pitch/roll/yaw sensors, and have just added a data recorder that will record that and almost every other bit of data on the N2K bus continuously (rudder angle, wind speed and direction, heading, SOG, COG, BS, etc). Such a recorder was prohibitively expensive only 5 years ago, now <$250. I'll be adding that to the sailboat shortly. My monthly espresso budget is more.
Of course, having the answers and applying the answers are two different things. Long ago Nautor/Swan funded a university experiment instrumenting a boat and published the results. Among the results were that rudder loads and keel loads were higher than everyone had assumed. Since then countless rudders and keels have failed as neither ABYC or ABS recommendations changed. In that context, collecting data and generating conclusions is a fool's errand, since the work will be ignored.
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
You know who to get the best advice from? Delivery skippers.
It isn't their boat, they aren't in love with her and blind to her flaws. They have to get the boat from A to B despite the weather or the owner would be making the trip, so they bang through uncomfortable weather instead of waiting a few weeks for the perfect reach in 15 knots. They sail a variety of boats, not just one.
* pet rant, total n00b sails around the world in a Catalina 30 with orange sails or an old wood schooner or whatever and then becomes an expert in everything and decides his way is the only way to do it. He has never tried anything else
It isn't their boat, they aren't in love with her and blind to her flaws. They have to get the boat from A to B despite the weather or the owner would be making the trip, so they bang through uncomfortable weather instead of waiting a few weeks for the perfect reach in 15 knots. They sail a variety of boats, not just one.
* pet rant, total n00b sails around the world in a Catalina 30 with orange sails or an old wood schooner or whatever and then becomes an expert in everything and decides his way is the only way to do it. He has never tried anything else
Ish, if that was the net benefit of the degree then I am going to argue with the term total.
Elegua
Generalissimo
I'm sure it has helped immeasurably in some way. Probably.It's probably a gross misstatement.Ish, if that was the net benefit of the degree then I am going to argue with the term total.
