The Sailfar.Net Philosophy: Since this is a "Small Boat site"...

[Sonnie]

That is one heck of a story! What kind of boat were you in? Good to hear that they towed the boat - I don't think that is typical of most navies...

Cheers!

[AdriftAtSea]

CgoingGal-

That sounds like it must have been very frustrating to have to abandon your Andunge for no real good reason.  You're attitude towards the Navy is very forgiving, considering that it could have lost you your boat.  Nice to know that the Mexican Navy is both courteous and professional, if a bit overprotective.

Thanks for the story.

[Pixie Dust]

Cgoinggal, I read your entry regarding leaving your boat with a tear in the eye.  You said it beautifully

Sailing and boats go beyond the material and into the soul like nothing else I have experienced.  It is a hard and unnatural thing indeed to watch even a little boat go off to face the sea and it's ill fate alone.

I can only imagine how you must have felt, but so happy that it all turned out well. 

I have some friends currently sailing in Mexico and they were traveling in tandom with another vessel headed for Guatamala.  The other vessel hit a reef 60 NM off shore and he lost his boat.  The govt told him to leave the country and his boat behind or pay a huge fine.  I do not have details and received this info 3rd person, so I cannot speak to specifics.  I can't imagine losing my floating soul mate.  Thanks for sharing the story. 

[Auspicious]

I crossed the Atlantic on a 40 footer in three legs -- one each with 5, 4, and 3 crew (including me). 3 was the right number.

I'm not big. 5'10" and 170 pounds. My girlfriend is 5'7" and 135. I wouldn't hesitate to make a passage with just the two of us up to a week. It would be nice to have  a 3rd aboard for longer than that.

My boat has a conventional main with lazy jacks and a RF headsail. I can fly my asym off the bowsprit or pole (I don't use the pole singlehanded).

I think the original post is making sailing distances out to be much harder than it is.

Don't do dumb things. Sail fast. That's it.

dave

[carsail1260]

We have been suffering from 7'itis recently.  We can't seem to carry everything we want on our Cape Dory 25D! But, as I am sitting here  on the hook at  Egmont Key listening to the thunderstorm that will soon be on top of us, I remember some of the great things about sailing small.  If we drag anchor, I can reset it in minutes. If I need to motor into the wind, it will be wet, but very do-able. If we get drug to shallow water, when the storm passes we can push or kedge her off. Bigger doesn't mean safer or easier! My boat was built to be an offshore cruiser.  She has always done what we have asked of her like the lady that she is.  While alot of folks think they are buying safety by getting a bigger boat,  fear is expensive.  Bigger, Better, More...these can soon become your Master. I think we'll try and ditch the stuff & keep it small! Sail Small, Sail Far!!

See you out there!

[Frank]

   Ya gotta remember that the stuff you put aboard is in direct relation to size. Bigger boat = more stuff. Each year we look around at the end of a season and take off what was not used.Try that....it will surprize ya. The benefits of 'small' far outway the extra space.Friends on Manjack cay in the Abacos told Judy and I that we are the only couple that keeps showing up on smaller and smaller boats. We make that a conscious choice...less stress,more sailing,easier to do EVERYTHING.  You have a very fine vessel...sounds like ya just got to 'house clean'    ;)

[AdriftAtSea]

Bigger boats also have bigger stuff to break and replace...and that takes bigger boat bucks... ;)

[CapnK]

Carsail - although to me your point didn't need making (I've already felt the same way for quite a while, as you could guess... ;D), it was underscored by some work I did on a 51' Skye (like a Swan) over the past few weeks.

One of the projects I had to do was to strip the old sails and bend on the new ones - a new main, and a new 150 roller-snarling genny.

The sails came with their invoice, there was nothing fancy about them, just cruising-grade sails - but the cost to the owner - almost $10,000 for the set! :o Stripping the old sails off and bending the new set on took me almost 2 days, mostly working alone. I had to get help carrying the sails out to the boat, they were so large and heavy. That the roller snarling system had problems (as is common), multiple hoists and drops of the genny to get things set properly took a lot of time. Striking the old genny in *maybe* 5 kts of wind on the beam took plenty of effort - had it been a storm at sea, I would probably have just let the darn thing blow out. ;)

That's just the tip of a 7 week iceberg of dealing with that big ole boat. It was a nice boat, looked good, done well inside, plenty of room and all that - but to have to deal with that thing on a regular basis, living aboard and cruising? NO THANKS!!! lol

Gimme my little boat, with it's walk-in-closet-sized cabin, and sails that cost a couple tenths of those on the big boat. And as a personal request - hanks on the foresail, please! :D

[rtbates]

We have been suffering from 7'itis recently.  We can't seem to carry everything we want on our Cape Dory 25D! But, as I am sitting here  on the hook at  Egmont Key listening to the thunderstorm that will soon be on top of us, I remember some of the great things about sailing small.  If we drag anchor, I can reset it in minutes. If I need to motor into the wind, it will be wet, but very do-able. If we get drug to shallow water, when the storm passes we can push or kedge her off. Bigger doesn't mean safer or easier! My boat was built to be an offshore cruiser.  She has always done what we have asked of her like the lady that she is.  While alot of folks think they are buying safety by getting a bigger boat,  fear is expensive.  Bigger, Better, More...these can soon become your Master. I think we'll try and ditch the stuff & keep it small! Sail Small, Sail Far!!

See you out there!

We too have a 25D and are actively trying to come up with viable storage methods. Things like gear hammocks(which we have) or turning the entire port settee into storage(we haven't). We currently use the entire quarter berth for storage.

What what you come up with? 

[cubemonkey]

We've been thinking and talking about the same topic all summer, on our new-to-us Aphrodite 101. Yesterday we humped all the stuff off the boat in preparation for winter storage. We were able to get everything off in 4 cartloads, and it all fit into my Mazda 626. That felt good to me. We did eventually wind up with 2 of a lot of stuff (or more), honey, maple syrup, peanut butter, etc. 'Cause we would forget whether it was onboard or not and bring another for the next trip. But I think we got ourselves into a pretty good system, with some permanent residents (the pots, sliverware, cups, flashlights, VHF, dry staples, etc) and most everything else coming back and forth (clothes, sleeping bags, charts, perishables). I was pretty pleased with how everything worked out.

We returned Monday night from our final cruise of the season. A short trip from Boston to Martha's Vineyard and back. Cold at night, two beautiful days in the second half. The first two days were wet and cold. This trip puts us over 1000 miles this season, so we're pretty happy that we got a lot of time on the water. If you want to follow our summer adventures, Norm and I have been keeping a blog at www.averisera.com. I think we call the summer of '07 a success!

-elizabeth

[Norm]

Hello all:
To add a bit to cubemonkey's notes... Charles Dewell wrote a good sailing book (Kawabunga) about a Pacific voyage in a boat not too different from a CD25D.  Some how he solved the storage problem.  Maybe worth a read.

One thing I envy about the CD25D is the shallow draft.  You have so many more anchorages available that those of us with six feet to probe the bottom with.

On our cruises, we find that we bring too much.  We don't wear all the clothes.  We don't eat all the food.  A recent trip had us doing laundry and shopping often.  It was pleasant to have a shore chore.  I think that is the nature of coastal cruising.  We depart on the sailing adventure all wound up in "land mode" and then unwind into "boat mode."

I am familair with the CD25D model.  They weigh about a thousand pounds less than our Averisera and have the same beam.  We have two quarter berths that are solely storage.  On a semi-amusing note: we find the sturdy plastic kitty litter buckets with lids to be superb moevable lockers, galley stools, and cockpit tables.  Our head is also forward and the v-berth (suitable for children... perhaps...) is given over to our clothing bags and sails.  No Rf for us so we pack away two spinnakers, a 3/4 oz and 1.5 oz, and two jibs, a 77% and 102% in with the clothes.

We wonder, is Averisera big enough?  We find bigger boats have more "air" space below but not much more storage.  Anyone else observing the same thing?

yep... we are squeezed tight but we are out there and the folks in hotels look enviously at us.  Is looking un-envyingly at them a luxury of sailing small boats?

Regards, Norman

[KenR]

We went on a crewed charter in St Vincent for 25th wedding anniversary. 64' schooner that was beautiful in every respect. www.metanicharters.com

However, after one week I realized that a boat that size was not for us. My wife was standing by to administer CPR each time we raised sails and I can not imagine having to contend with an 8' draft. Conversations with the captain/owner revealed just how expensive it is to maintain a boat of that size ( $4700 just to replace chain rode).

Yes there was a lot of space, and it was all full.

Ken

[CharlieJ]

Since Monday of last week, Laura and I have sailed three times on BIG boats. Twice aboard an Irwin 46 Ketch and once aboard a true double circumnavigator- a custom 54 foot sloop. Both boats would be great- out on the open ocean. Both boats would be terrible to try to cruise in on a coastal basis. The ketch has dock lines of 1 inch nylon and the jib sheets are also 1 inch. The 54 footer has primary sheet winches that are #65 three speeds. Laura comfortably sat on top of one as a stool. The halyard winches are 3 sizes larger than our sheet winches. You know how much those suckers COST????



And yeah- the deck chairs stayed in use- and the winds were 18 to 20.

I'd hate to try to handle either vessel in a blow

Way too much boat for a couple of people who really prefer to sail places, like us. Besides, both boats were wheel steered, and Laura hated that. ;D

[AdriftAtSea]

darn... I hate to think how much Laura's stool cost... ;)  There are so many reasons that I prefer our smaller craft.  Expense of maintenance and gear is only one of them... how many harbors are not available to those large boats, with their deep drafts??  I often go places larger boats wouldn't dare venture because I can.  Having a board up draft of 15" makes a lot more water accessible to me. 

[Frank]

Charlie..great pics ;). It is SO easy to do a 'case in favour of small craft'. $$ to buy,$$ to maintain, $$ for slip fees,launch etc. But even with $$ totally out of the discussion..I wouldn't want anything bigger than about 28ft. It is the simple fact of "less stress". Anchoring is easy,docking is easy,sail changes and reefing is much easier,poking around an anchorage looking for a good spot is easier(less draft).Hauling anchor and raising sail for an afternoon out is easier.It goes on and on. A 42fter would be a very tuff sell with me.Now a fully restored Triton.................. ;)

[CharlieJ]

Hi Frank- Yep- we have the jib here from the Irwin 46, for Laura to do some repair on the protective strip on the edge. She cannot carry the sail. It's a pretty healthy load for me in fact.

Which is something else people tend to forget.

In fact, she couldn't reach the head of the main on that boat to tie the sail cover on- had to stand on the halyard winches. The woman who lives aboard says she uses a small stool  to put the cover on.

[CapnK]

I worked on a 51' Skye earlier this year, and part of that job was to replace both the main and the roller furling genny (a 120% IIRC) with new sails the owner had shipped in via UPS. Both boxes incurred the 'over 70 pounds' extra charge, and, like the Irwin lady CJ mentions, I had to climb up the base of the mast to be able to bend on the main (getting the slides into the spar slot, reaching the head cringle, etc...).

When I removed the old, damaged genny, there was a very light breeze blowing from the aft quarter, maybe 3-5kts. Even in so little wind, it was all I could do to control the sail as I lowered it. Heavens forbid that you'd have to do that at sea, in a blow, in the confusion that exhaustion engenders.  ::)

[Captain Smollett]

I'd like to add another take on this.  I think to a point this idea of purchasing a 'big boat' for ocean sailing is somewhat like tilting at windmills.

I mean, don't they ALL look small on the open ocean?

;D ;D

[CharlieJ]

Even the USS Saratoga. Even THAT feels tiny when it really begins to blow- and when solid water came rolling down the flight deck after we stuck the bow under ( the bow sits 90 feet above the water) it REALLY felt little.

[s/v Faith]

How much do you feel the current economic reality might be impacting people's view?