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There seems to be a glass ceiling for Pearl - around 6.25 knots. Occaisionally we hit 7 or a little more when "surfing" down a large swell. I've read that hull speed is 5.75 but I've read some posts that say they can cruise at 7 with enough wind. We are still using a hanked on working jib and wondering about installing the roller furl genoa that came with the boat. Would this give us another knot? Here is Pearl in a 15 knot or so breeze outside of Christmas Cove, Maine:
Well...
Intalling the furler is not going to do anything to speed the boat up. Maybe go the other way.
6.25 Kt. is pretty respectable for an Ariel, I think.
I have seen 7 Kt. in a Commander, but not with any regularity. Bear in mind that the Commander is lighter weight than the Ariel by a bit, and that I had emptied the boat of virtually everything unless it really needed to be there. Water, even! That was, of course, max. speed on a beam reach. If you are hitting 6.25 to weather, my hat's off to you and you have no worries about speed!
Dave
Nice Grand Banks beige LPU on those decks!
At the risk of my credibility, I have clocked in at over 8 knots downwind with a good sized swell running and while surfing (AKA wallowing) down the face of a following swell. This is speed over ground as measured by GPS. Sails were a full main and a class jib.
I have clocked at over 7 knots to weather using the same sails, and with the sea at the rail. These are not sustained speeds, but they were sustained long enough for a GPS reading.
With my Nissan 6 running and no sails up in relatively flat seas, I have clocked about 5.7 knots at full throttle on a sustained basis as read from my knot log in terms of speed through the water.