>>The other thing that Hannu Venermo got wrong was that Idlewild was >>comfortable. > >Not at all, Georg. Gosh, Hannu, you're so caught up in the theory of it all that you're prepared to ignore the reality of the discomfort level experienced by the crew of Idlewild. Ben Gray, the owner of Idlewild, reported from Australia that the boat regularly rolled 20 to 40 degrees, sometime hitting 60 degrees and more. "It took us 29 days to make it from South Africa to Australia," Gray told the Edmonton (Alberta) Journal. "Because of the rolling, we were only able to cook on 18 of those days." Food was eaten cold, often right out of the can. Is that a comfortable way to make long passages at sea? When I interviewed Gray aboard Idlewild at the conclusion of his record-setting circumnavigation, he told me the boat rolled "something awful" before paravanes were fitted in Australia. Call Idlewild anything you want but don't call her a comfortable boat at sea. --Georgs -- Georgs Kolesnikovs Your host at Trawlers & Trawlering, formerly Trawler World, since 1997 Site see: <http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com>

I may have this all wrong, but it would seem that there is a breakdown in communications on this thread. What Hannu said is that the main comfort factor is weight and depth of draft, not length and beam. What Georg is saying is that the Idlewild, long, with a narrow beam and a shallow draft rolled a lot and was quite uncomfortable until they added stabilizers. While Hannu doesn't like stabilizers much, he seems to be talking about a different kind of boat than the Idlewild. Just a thought from the outside. Jonathan