Lots of good points here, too much for me to reply to it all. But I'll stick a couple of thoughts up. The Flanders, cruising on Egret. Statistics are tricky, pay attention when someone starts posting numbers. 2639 days is indeed 7+ years, but I don't believe they didn't stop (tie up, anchor, etc.) at least a few times for food and fuel. Thus they could not have spent 2600 days at sea. If we believe 41,000 miles and the 5.8 knot average, we get roughly 7069 hours on the engine. This might be 294 full (24 hour) days at sea, or 589 half-days at sea. Probably it's somewhere in between, say 450 partial days underway at sea. Ken mentions he "can't imagine a passagemaker that doesn't have a wing engine or twin engines." How about one with sails and a single engine? Hannu mentions many points, they come across as statements of facts when they are really opinion. Regarding motion and comfort. I disagree that draft in itself is a key component of the relative comfort of a particular vessel. I would say that a vital component of seagoing comfort is displacement (weight), of which draft can be a result. The relative comfort and motion of any vessel at sea is an extremely complex problem. Today we are still some distance from developing useful computer models that deal realistically with all the variables. A couple of the really important factors are a vessel's weight and her waterplane. Waterplane is a cut through the ship at her waterline, this area (in square ft) and it's distribution, will give some hint of how a vessel might react to a given wave. Of course in a sea the waterplane is highly dynamic, changing size and shape constantly. Some years ago Yacht Designer Ted Brewer published what he called a tongue-in-cheek "Motion Comfort Ratio". This relates the vessel size and weight and assigns a numeral, roughly from 5 up into the 70's, higher being representative of more comfortable boats. You can find this ratio with google. Brewer called it tongue-in-cheek because it is only a rough indication of relative comfort, he well knew there would be exceptions and that there are many more factors involved. Running though some available numbers I find Idlewild and Windhorse rate an identical 50 on the motion comfort scale. A Nordhavn 55 is 72, an N40 is 58, a Diesel Duck 462 is 67.8, and my own PL46+ (at half load) is 40. Regarding the motion of Idlewild, I would submit her crew were inexperienced and had never been to sea on any other boat. Her voyage was a stunt, far from a typical pleasure cruise. Their course across the southern ocean was an extreme one, no other typical passagemakers are going that way, of course the motion was uncomfortable. The photo of a rolling N40 that keeps popping up. The actual roll angle is difficult to ascertain, but in the picture I doubt it's more than 25 degrees. This is not in itself dangerous, but I suspect the quickness of that rolling was what scared people. Motion is magnified by distance above the waterline, and a great deal of the N40 is quite high. Again this points out the complexity of motion at sea, the perception of the observers is a huge factor in determining the comfort of a particular ship. The Dashew's state Windhorse is far more comfortable that their previous sailing vessels, much (perhaps all) of this has to do with the oversize active stabilizers. Yet they have harness built in to strap themselves down when the going gets rough, some would look on this with horror. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of image001.gif]

----- Original Message ---- From: Tad Roberts <tadroberts@shaw.ca> To: passagemaking-under-power@lists.samurai.com Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2008 11:52:00 AM Subject: [PUP] PPM- Stability & Comfort >Ken mentions he "can't imagine a passagemaker that doesn't have a wing >engine or twin engines." How about one with sails and a single engine? That is what I have, a single engine and one large headsail. It is a "get someplace" system. Obviously doesn't work if my engine dies while entering a breakwater. Also I need at least 20 knots or more of wind to make at least three knots. I am limited in direction to about 30 deg. either way off the wind. And last, I still have to pull a large prop through the water if the engine dies - but that is the same thing with twins or a wing engine should the main die. Is it a perfect system? No, but it didn't cost much either, so it works for me. BUT, I can put that headsail up on the right heading and it is a thrilling ride. I can back off on the rpm's by 300 or 400 and still maintain my desired speed. Or I can go surfing, adding a knot or two to my SOG depending on wind speed and direction. I do not have stabilizers of any kind (except the headsail which helps a bit, but not enough for me to fool with it for that purpose only). I prefer to change course for a while to deal with uncomfortable seas on longer passages. I have lots of range (3,500 nm at 7+ knots til empty, or I could slow down), so changing course is not a problem. One member of PUP who crewed with me for over 1000 miles, said my boat had a "Buick Roadmaster" type of ride - soft and loping. I think that pretty well describes it. I have a beam of 13'-8" (carried well into the waterline) and a draft of 4'-3". I have sit down room on all four sides of the single engine with as many as 6 people in there at one time all sitting down. Patrick Willard 40PH ALOHA La Paz, MX