Likewise...interesting how owners of large boats don't seem to know some basics of seaworthiness, materials stress & engineering, etc. I guess if you have enough money it doesn't matter? ;-) What I notice as a kayaker, in that same context (Salish sea), is that people in big boats there (sail or power) actually don't make those kind of remarks about my 17.5 ft sea kayak when I am paddling it around. But I know they will make them when I get my 17 ft Montgomery up there and cruise around. Somehow a 45 lb 17.5 ft sea kayak with 23" beam is not remarkable as to safety in those waters, but a 1500 lb 17 ft sailboat with 7.3 ft beam is...? Maybe they just assume all kayakers are crazy, but not all pocket cruiser owners? ;-) I still recall reading Thor Heyerdahl's book "Fatu-Hiva" wherein he, a landlubber Norwegian attempting to live off the jungle on a somewhat remote island in Polynesia as a young man, had his realization that small craft may actually "fit" the swells of the sea better in some ways than big huge boats. Which led him to realize that gee, maybe humans before ocean liners really did get around the planet via the seas, and his subsequent experiments in testing that out. Of course we know the Polynesians were all over the Pacific for thousands of years in relatively small voyaging canoes. Not to mention the Vikings, in nastier and much colder weather and water, raiding around northern Europe back in the day in open square rigged wrinke-boats. The original row-sail cruisers? :-) cheers, John On 8/13/19 2:14 PM, casioqv@usermail.com wrote:
I get a kick out of BeneHunterLina sailors reactions when they hear I have a 15 foot boat and advise me to stay in the marina if there's any wind. I respond that the M15 is really too small, I might have to go up to a big 17 footer if I ever sail around the world.
The ratio of low working stress to materials strength on an M15 cannot be achieved in even the toughest of large boats. In that sense smaller boats are fundamentally more structurally seaworthy, albeit less comfortable in rough weather. The most seaworthy "boat" imaginable is a wine cork.
For example, the standing rigging on an M15 is 1/8" 1x19 wire which in 316 stainless, has a breaking strength of about 1780lbs or about 2.4x the boats displacement. Take a famously seaworthy overbuilt bluewater boat like the WestSail 32, which has 9/32" rigging with a breaking strength of 9360lbs in 316, or about 0.48x the displacement. Which boat is stressing the shrouds closer to failure in a storm? Also, which boat is more likely to have rigging that isn't corroded to a fraction of it's design strength, the one that costs $150 to re-rig or the one that costs $10,000?
Sincerely, Tyler
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-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com