New Ariel Speed Record !!!

[frank durant]

Ebb...ya gotta love/respect the guy! Alberg was a stubborn man of great pride and morals. This taken off an Alberg site speaking on design......... ."Carl's own assessment agrees:

"Contrasted to the modern IOR boats where you have six gorillas sitting on the weather rail with their feet hanging outside trying to keep the boat upright, my boats are strictly family-cruising boats. In all my designs I go for comfortable accomodations and a boat you can sail upright without scaring the life out of your family or friends. I gave them a good long keel, plenty of displacement and beam, and a fair amount of sail area so they can move."
In 1979, while those modern boats were capsizing and sinking, an Alberg 35 on it's way to England comfortably lay a-hull.

"It was really blowing and though they shortened sails and did everything else they could in order to keep going, they eventually took everything off, went below, battened down the hatches and just ate, drank and played cards. When it had blown over they hoisted sail and continued to England, where they were told they had just sailed through the same gale that had taken 16 lives in the Fastnet race. They had ridden out the storm by just sitting in the cabin while everyone else was capsizing."

"There are still some designers around who whare my ideas about glass boat design. Everyone else is trying to conform to the new rules. My boats are more designed to follow the waves and stay relatively dry and stable."
Carl passed away on August 31, 1986 at his home in Marblehead Massachusetts. His 56 designs resulted in over 10,000 boats.


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[Stephan]

Is this Alberg designs Carl is talking about? I mean, I dearly love them, including my Commander, but I would not consider them 'beamy'. We don't sport a 'full keel' either, since the whole forefoot is cut away and the rudder post comes forward a long way, too. And last not least, our boats are designed to heel quickly in even moderate weather - scaring my friends more than most other boats and making the mixing of drinks below a balancing act!
Before you guys think I'm a traitor, please let me repeat how much I like the design for elegance and seaworthiness. Those advantages bring disadvantages, though, which makes me, for example, consider even a large Alberg 35 or Alberg 37 not perfect for long-time cruising...

[bill@ariel231]

Yup, that's Alberg's quote regarding his fiberglass boat designs (moderate beam & full keel with cutaway forefoot). Remember this was in the context of the 1979 Fastnet disaster where early to mid generation IOR boats with poor righting moments and were not up to the weather encountered on the race..23 of the 306 yachts taking part were sunk or disabled due to high winds and "mountainous seas". Something like 15 fatalities occured. This event lead to a rethinking of the stability requirements and safety gear required or offshore racing. I've sailed and broached in later generation IOR boats that learned from this race and some of the larger capedorys that share our hullform. Both types can be fairly stable and capable of recovering on their own if the designer had stability in mind from the beginning. That said, there is weather out there that will crush any sailboat.

There are just a couple boats I'd trade up to: CapeDory 33, Hinckley Pilot lead the full keel list. First Generation Swan 37 and if money were no object, the new NYYC Club Swan 42 lead the fin keel list.

[Stephan]

Yeah Bill,

I read John Rousmaniere's book "Fastnet Force 10" about this- a great read.
You quote "moderate beam" which sounds more like it than Frank's quote "plenty ** beam". I guess the boats in 1979 were so extreme that Carl's designs were comparatively beamy, and even a half WL length keel is certainly different from a short, deep fin.
I'm regularly racing on an Alberg 30, and we DO need the rail meat to stop from heeling excessively. I understand that eventually she stiffens and has tremendous safety by guaranteeing to right herself if capsized easier than beamier, lighter boats. However, to go on long trips with a constant heel of 20-25 degrees gets old fast, at least for me! It's great fun to dip the rail, granted, but it interferes with food and drink prep!
I myself was dead set on buying a larger Alberg 35 or 37 eventually for long distance cruising, but after reading a lot of posts on Sailnet I developed some doubts. There's even complaining about the motion comfort of those boats being rather poor on those forums. Jeff H is one of the most articulate of the critics there.

[bill@ariel231]

I understand the Alberg 30 is more tender than other Alberg models. from what i've read, the boat was designed for lead ballast but the builder chose iron for cost. I had a lot of time on a Cape Dory 33 and loved to to death. the only thing i wished it had was a better traveller system. The other boat I've spent time racing is an old Frers 40. Both boats tend to drive with the rail down in 25+ knots of wind. The Cape Dory was the quieter of the two driving into a sea. The Frers and most other canoe body boats i've driven tend to pound going to windward in a sea. Looks like we get to choose between sea kindliness (with a predictable and constant heel) vs. pounding and big shock loads. either way the mixed drinks will get spilled.

[Stephan]

Cape Dory 33? Good advice - I just checked a few of them on Yachtworld. They do look nice, you are right! Unmistakable Alberg designs. Not exactly cheap, but maybe worth it if they are strong and livable.

The traveller in the companionway sucks, indeed. Maybe it can be moved back into the center of the cockpit?

Anybody else here who has experience sailing on those, especially cruising?

[bill@ariel231]

The early CD 33's had the traveler on the bridge deck (I liked that location, it was the traveler hardware that was sub-standard). later models moved the traveler to the coach roof. My gripe with the coach roof placement is the traveler then needs a winch and the curved shape made sheeting to windward really tough, but there i go again, forgetting it is a cruising boat.

[Bill]

I believe it's been said that "gentlemen don't sail to weather . . "

[Scott Galloway]

If you look at the performance indicators for Peason built boats, the Ariel has a whopping 43% ballast to displacement ratio. This compares favorably to the Triton with 45% but somewhat higher than the 37% for the 30foot Shaw designed full keel Pearson Coaster. I don't have the ballast to weight for the Alberg 30.

Similarly the Displacement to Length ratios are:

Ariel: 409
Triton: 415
Coaster: 334
The Alberg 30 clocks in at: 395
The Coaster has a longer LWL than the Alberg 30. (23.53 ft. compared to 21.67 ft.)The Coaster has a greater displacement than the Alberg 30 (9776 lb. to 9,000 lb)

Also interesting - the Capsize Screening Formulas results are:

Ariel: 178
Triton: 165
Coaster: 176
The Alberg 30 clocks in at: 168

It is very interesting to compare the performance indicators for the above designs to Pearson's later boats.

And what's wrong with sailing around at 30+ degrees of heel with all the sails up in 20 knots of wind? The Ariel handles it well, goes to weather at greater that hull speed in such conditions, and doesn't seem to mind having the rail down, and will sail that way for hours with self steering gears, which leaves the single handed skipper free to make lunch. Now I am probably not going to cook a pot of beans at that angle of heel, but then again, we don't have much of a galley in the first place, do we?

I am still looking for an old seaswing stove that will run on Sterno. Anybody have one for sale?

[ebb]

Scott,
Nice proportions to the Coaster. You can see the forefoot is being radically carved away - toward the future. Could say the Ariel, which has the front cut away also, has it done in a much softer way. It is in the "S" curve that beauty lives! Looking at the more shallow draft Wanderer the cutaway seems not as radical, more like the A/C.

What I call lines are hard to locate for these boats. Even an amatuer like me can compare boats with them. The differences are small, yet some boats have it and some don't. It would take a practiced eye to see the differences using only lines drawings. Certainly these gentleman designed very similar boats.

I have wished at times that the Ariel was a 30 footer (we'd have a true galley AND a place for the head!) A 30' Ariel would probably have a slightly wider beam than the Alberg 30, or the Coaster/Wanderer. When I win the lottery I'll commission a full scale-up to 30/32' of the Ariel hull and deck. Same lines. And I'd put back the curvey sheer Alberg had in those lines!!! And she'd be rigged as a cutter.

The Ariel, once called a "Midget Ocean Racer" doesn't have a category for company, so it always seems to find itself with longer and heavier boats. It doesn't fit in the 'pocket cruiser' group. How about Ariel as a POUCH CRUISER?

The 'capsize screening' formula seems similar between the boats you mention.
The numbers are three digit, so they relate somewhat, as the spread is small. If the capsize screen numbers were from 1 to 10, say, I would be more impressed with them.

By the way, in examining the lines for Alberg's design #33, (Pg 144 in the Ariel/Commander Manual) Alberg, or perhaps a later draftsman, has notated under the bow:
LOA 25'7"
LWL 18'6"
BEAM 8'0"
DRAFT 3'8"
D/L = 354 (Did we catch the Great Draughtsman with a little too much Aquavit?)
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Capsize Screening Formula
According to Ted Brewer the CSF is "determined by dividing the maximum beam by the cube root of the displacement in cubic feet."
"The boat is acceptable if the result is 2.0 or less, but of course, the lower the better. For example, a 12 meter yacht of 60,000 libs displacement and 12 foot beam will have a CSF number of 1.23, so would be considered very safe from capsize. A contempory light displacement yacht, such as a Beneteau 311 (7716lbs, 10'7" beam) has a CSF number of 2.14. Based on the formula, while a fine coastal cruiser, such a yacht may not be the best choice for ocean passages." Ted Brewer
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Let's put this into the formula.
Let's agree that the displacement of the Ariel is 5200#.
1 cubic foot of saltwater = 64#.
5200# divided by 64# = 81.26 cubic feet.
The cube root of 81.26 = 4.33137.(Thanks: google!)
8 (the maximum beam of the Ariel in feet) divided by 4.33137 =

1.85.

Don't forget to bring a deck of playing cards!
(by the way if we were grossly overloaded at 6000# our CSF would be even better at 1.76. When does 'vanishing stability' come into play?)