Rant: The fallacy of big boats being safer

[pbryant]

I enjoy inviting beginning sailors to take a sail along the coast on my Ariel. Her simplicity, ruggedness, and forgiving nature is an ideal learning platform. However, I have on several occasions been confronted by the comment: "Oh my God! That boat is too small to sail in the Pacific." Below is an open letter to one such comment. Of course, I'm better off not taking such landlubbers and Bay Sailors aboard, since they invariably spend the entire time barfing over the side in 3 foot swells. But, I thought I might share my comments about the false equation that size equals safety.

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"Thanks for the info on your boat and words of encouragement. I was looking go 34'+. Your boat is a beauty but I've never been in a 25' boat. Ive been on 27' once. It felt small to me and seemed like you can just reach out and touch the water. Kind of scary to be so low and close to water."

It's a common misconception held by non-sailors that the size of a boat somehow affects its safety. The Titanic was a big boat. What sinks boats is not a lack of size, but instead a lack of good seamanship - and poor maintenance. The Bounty, which was a big boat, sank in 2012 because of both a lack of prudent seamanship on the part of the skipper, and poor maintenance. You can read more about that here: http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2014/mab1403.pdf.

As far as the ocean is concerned -- ALL boats are small boats. There have been innumerable cases of people having to abandon their "big safe boat" that foundered in severe weather - in order to survive in their lifeboat - which was a tiny fraction the size. Big boats are more comfortable -- but not safer.

Most of the sailboats in the San Francisco Bay are trapped in the Bay, and can't venture outside the Gate on anything but the most benign of days. They have limited offshore capability because they are fin-keeled, high-sided, under-ballasted boats designed for day sailing and racing around buoys. In ocean conditions, those boats require continuous attention by full crews to keep them from foundering. You reach a point of diminishing returns where you cannot carry enough provisions on board to supply the large crew needed to handle such boats on an ocean crossing. And some modern racing boats have all the offshore capabilities of a fiberglass outhouse. Most of the "big" sailboats in fact never leave the dock. They are platforms for parties.

The ideal boat, if one intends to actually sail it in the ocean, is the smallest boat one can get away with. A smaller boat can be properly handled by its smaller crew, where they can apply their seamanship skills to good effect. If you double the size of a boat, you quadruple the forces of physics on that boat -- while you only increase its hull speed by 41%. You will rapidly reach a point where - in order for the boat to be built as strong as its "little" cousin - it would be so heavy that it would not float. The largest size a fiberglass boat can attain without the designer having to compromise strength is about 30 feet. Beyond that size, one has to switch to a steel hull, exotic materials like carbon fiber, or internal bracing (that's vulnerable to being overstressed) to retain the same strength.

And yes, I can dangle my fingers in the water over the side of my boat. That's called "low freeboard" -- it's a good thing -- it reduces the detrimental effect the wind has on pushing the hull around where I don't want it to go. I have been in gales and sea states that you never want to experience, and I have never had a wave come aboard the boat from the side. It was very uncomfortable for me in those conditions, but the boat sustained no damage whatsoever.

I also have a 32 foot Westsail in Marina del Rey. She is one of the most seaworthy vessels ever constructed, and the interior has the space of a studio apartment. But she's not up to sailing shorthanded off the shore of Northern California. Which is why I keep her in the much milder waters of Los Angeles.

I suggest you read one of the best books on boat design: Seaworthiness, the Forgotten Factor (http://www.amazon.com/Seaworthiness-.../dp/1888671092). Actually, you only have to read the first chapter if you are short on time. The author will clue you in on the design fallacies of modern "day sailer" boats -- 95% of the boats you see in the Bay.

"Length, size or displacement do not equal safety. Seamanship, preparation, forethought and flexibility equal safety."
"Security and comfort do not equal freedom and adventure."

Lin Pardey, http://yachtpals.com/cruising-boat-7079

-Patrick