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Why Nobody Wants Heavy Bluewater Sailboats Anymore — Transcript

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0:00In the spring of 1974,
0:02Westsail was taking orders for a
0:04finished Westsail 32 at about $40,000 a
0:09boat.
0:10This October, the 12 listed for sale
0:13have a median asking price of 30,000.
0:1652 years later, the price went down.
0:21In the 1970s, that boat's 19 and 1/2 lbs
0:25were the whole sales pitch.
0:27Today, the yards that built their names
0:30on heavy cruisers draw wider boats, and
0:33in the biggest ocean rally there is, a
0:35third of the fleet are multi-hulls.
0:39Most people blame fashion or price. The
0:42change that did the most damage never
0:44happened in a boatyard. By the end, you
0:47will know what it was, and the one sum
0:49that tells you whether a heavy boat
0:51still fits the ocean you plan to cross.
0:56The promise of weight was simple, and in
0:58June 1973, it reached a national
1:01audience.
1:03Time magazine ran a story on the
1:05cruising life called The Good Life
1:07Afloat. And as Cruising World tells it,
1:10the Westsail 32 was the boat at the
1:13center of it.
1:15The hull came down a long family line.
1:18Colin Archer's Norwegian rescue boats,
1:20then William Atkins Eric, then a
1:23fiberglass version refined by William
1:25Crealock.
1:27That same Atkin design, the Eric, is
1:29what Robin Knox-Johnston's Suhaili was
1:32built from.
1:33In April 1969, he sailed Suhaili into
1:36Falmouth after 312 days at sea, the
1:40first person to sail alone and non-stop
1:44around the world.
1:45A heavy double-ender had just done the
1:47hardest thing in sailing. And for a
1:49generation of sailors, that settled what
1:52an ocean boat should look like.
1:55About 830 were built, and about half of
1:58them left the factory as kits, a hull
2:01with the ballast in and the deck bonded
2:03on for the owner to finish.
2:06Even Playboy wrote about it in 1976,
2:09describing a sturdy little boat whose
2:11wide, stubby hull held all of a sailor's
2:14wanderlust.
2:16Westsail's production manager, Bud
2:19Taplin,
2:20later wrote that the yard could laminate
2:23a hull and deck, fit the ballast,
2:25bulkheads, and rudder, and have a kit
2:28ready to ship in less than a week.
2:31Hundreds of people built their own way
2:34out.
2:35What were they buying?
2:37Weight, mostly.
2:39To see how much, you need the one number
2:41designers use to compare boats of
2:44different sizes.
2:45It is called the displacement-to-length
2:48ratio.
2:50It takes the boat's weight in long tons
2:53and divides it by the cube of its
2:55waterline length in hundreds of feet.
2:58In plain words, it tells you how much
3:01boat sits on every foot of waterline.
3:05Sailboat data, the specification
3:07database most buyers check, puts the
3:10dividing lines like this.
3:12Below 200 is light.
3:14From 275 to 350 is heavy.
3:19And anything above 350, the database
3:22calls ultra heavy.
3:24The Westsail 32 scores about 419,
3:29ultra heavy by a distance.
3:31And it was not alone.
3:33In 1976, a Taiwanese yard, Ta Yang,
3:37started building a double-ended cutter
3:39drawn by Robert Perry, the Tayana 37.
3:4322 and 1/2 thousand pounds on a 31-ft
3:46waterline gives it a ratio of about 337.
3:51It was commissioned by Will Ecker, a
3:53partner in Flying Dutchman Yachts,
3:55together with C.T. Chen of Ta Yang. And
3:58the first ones were called the Ta Chiao
4:0037.
4:02Close to 600 were built and Sailboat
4:04Data calls it one of the most successful
4:06boats of its type.
4:09The Hans Christian 38T, built in Taiwan
4:12from 1976 to 1989, weighed 26 and 1/2
4:16thousand pounds and Sailboat Data
4:18estimates that around 210 Hans Christian
4:2138s were built across its three
4:23versions.
4:25These were the boats people pictured
4:27when somebody said the word "blue
4:29water".
4:30So, what did all that weight buy?
4:33Two things a sailor setting off across
4:35an ocean in the 1970s wanted badly: slow
4:39motion,
4:40range.
4:41First, motion.
4:43The designer, Ted Brewer, built a
4:45measure for it, the comfort ratio, on a
4:47simple idea. The faster a boat moves,
4:50the more it upsets the people inside it.
4:53Weight slows the motion down, and so
4:56does a narrower beam.
4:58On the scale Sailboat Data publishes for
5:00Brewer's ratio, 30 to 40 is a moderate
5:03blue water boat, and 40 to 50 is a heavy
5:06blue water boat.
5:08The Tayana 37 scores about 41.
5:11The Westsail 32, nearly 43.
5:15Perry even saw the Tayana slight
5:17tenderness as an asset.
5:19According to Practical Sailor, he
5:21believed it took the snap out of her
5:22roll and made her a more comfortable
5:24sailboat. Slow motion is what lets a
5:28tired crew eat, sleep, and think on day
5:3212 of a passage.
5:35Second, range.
5:37The Tayana 37 was delivered with tanks
5:41for 100 gallons of water and 90 gallons
5:44of diesel.
5:45Fill them, and you add about 1,500 lb,
5:49under 7% of what the boat already
5:52weighs.
5:53A deep, heavy hull was drawn around that
5:57kind of load from the start, with room
5:59for it low down under the cabin sole.
6:03Then, in August 1979,
6:06the case for weight got its hardest
6:09evidence.
6:10On the 14th of August, a storm caught
6:13the Fastnet race fleet in the Western
6:15Approaches.
6:17Of 303 starters, 24 boats were
6:21abandoned, five sank, and 15 of the
6:24sailors racing died.
6:27It was one of the deadliest disasters in
6:29ocean racing history.
6:31Afterwards, the Technical Committee of
6:33the Cruising Club of America studied the
6:36race fleet's data, and out of that work
6:38came a simple screen any buyer could
6:41work out from a brochure.
6:43The capsize screening formula.
6:46It compares beam with weight because
6:48excess beam makes a capsize more likely,
6:51and weight makes it less likely. Wide
6:54and light scores badly. Narrow and heavy
6:58scores well.
6:59For a generation of cruising buyers,
7:01that seemed to settle the argument.
7:04All of it rested on one assumption, and
7:07it shaped every one of these boats.
7:09The ocean would send whatever it sent,
7:12and the boat would have to take it.
7:14That was the promise of weight.
7:17The question this whole video turns on
7:19is what broke it.
7:21And the first crack came from the man
7:23who drew the Tayana, 3 years before he
7:26drew the Tayana.
7:28Even the builders walked away from
7:30weight. And one of the first to do it
7:32was Perry himself.
7:34In 1973, his Valiant 40 put a fin keel
7:38and a rudder on a skeg under a canoe
7:41stern cruising hull.
7:43It brought ideas from racing design into
7:45an ocean cruiser at a time when ocean
7:48cruising meant heavy, traditional boats.
7:51And it is widely credited with creating
7:53a whole new category, the performance
7:55cruiser.
7:56Its ratio is about 267,
7:59moderate, not heavy, and it became one
8:02of the most respected blue water boats
8:04of its era.
8:05From the dock, with its pointed stern,
8:08it looked like one of the heavy
8:09double-enders around it. Underneath, it
8:12was something else.
8:14So, the same designer drew the boat that
8:16started the move away from heavy. And 3
8:18years later, one of the most successful
8:20heavy cruisers ever built.
8:23For a while, the ocean market had room
8:25for both answers.
8:27Then, watch what happened at a yard
8:29whose whole name is built on blue-water
8:32boats.
8:34Hallberg-Rassy
8:36built the 42 from 1980 to 1991.
8:40252
8:42of them.
8:4311 and 1/2 tons on a 10 and 1/2 m
8:46waterline.
8:47Its ratio is about 277.
8:50Heavy, but only just.
8:53In 2016,
8:55the same yard launched the
8:57Hallberg-Rassy 44. Drawn by German
9:00Frers.
9:02Here is the surprising part.
9:04It weighs more in plain numbers. 13.3
9:09tons.
9:10But, it spreads them over a waterline of
9:1212.9 m. And its ratio comes out at about
9:16173.
9:18By the same scale, that is light.
9:22That is the first thing to understand
9:24about this whole shift. Modern boats did
9:27not just lose pounds. They gained
9:30waterline.
9:31The 44's waterline runs about 94% of its
9:35whole length.
9:36On the old 42, it was about 81%.
9:40Every pound is now spread over more
9:42length. So, the boat sits on the water
9:44differently and moves differently.
9:47Now, look at the mass-market version of
9:49the same idea.
9:51Jeanneau's Sun Odyssey 410, drawn by
9:54Marc Lombard and launched in 2018 with a
9:57bulb keel and twin rudders, weighs 7,900
10:01kilos, about 17,400
10:03lbs on a waterline of 38.4 ft.
10:07Put it next to the Tayana 37.
10:10The Jeanneau carries about 5,000 lb less
10:13on 7 ft more waterline.
10:15Its ratio is about 137.
10:18The Tayana's is two and a half times
10:21that.
10:22And the paperwork stopped telling the
10:24two apart.
10:25Since 1998, new boats sold in the
10:28European Union have carried a design
10:30category. And the top one, category A,
10:33is the ocean category.
10:35It covers winds that may exceed force
10:37eight and significant waves of 4 m and
10:40above, excluding abnormal conditions
10:42such as storms and hurricanes.
10:45The Hallberg-Rassy 388, launched in 2017
10:48with a ratio of about 205, is certified
10:51category A for six people.
10:54So, to a buyer reading the paperwork, a
10:56light modern 40-footer and a heavy 1970s
11:00cutter are both ocean boats.
11:02The certificate sets a floor, and both
11:05boats stand on it.
11:07Line up the boats in this video by the
11:09year each design first appeared, and the
11:11line only goes one way,
11:14down design after design.
11:17And the old yards?
11:18Westerly went into bankruptcy
11:20proceedings in early 1977
11:24and closed for good in 1981.
11:28And that was a business failure more
11:30than a design one.
11:32Its own production manager later wrote
11:34that in 1974,
11:36the finished boats coming off the line
11:38had been sold months earlier for less
11:41than they now cost to build.
11:44The Hallberg-Rassy 38T was last built in
11:471989.
11:49The Valiant 40 carried on in small
11:52semi-custom numbers until 1992,
11:55when it gave way to a new design.
11:58So, the builders moved.
12:01But builders follow orders.
12:03And there is one more number on these
12:05spec sheets that shows exactly what the
12:07buyers traded away.
12:09It comes back before the end. First, the
12:13one place where people buy boats for no
12:15other reason than to cross an ocean.
12:18Where the ocean buyers went is easy to
12:21see in a single fleet.
12:23Every November, the Atlantic Rally for
12:26Cruisers leaves Las Palmas de Gran
12:28Canaria for Saint Lucia,
12:302,700
12:32nautical miles.
12:34It leaves in late November as the
12:36Atlantic hurricane season comes to an
12:38end.
12:39The first one, in 1986, drew 204 entries
12:44from 24 countries.
12:46By early 2025, its organizer, World
12:49Cruising Club, counted 7,890
12:53yachts across 40 years.
12:56That is 40 years of ocean sailors voting
12:59with their money.
13:01And the numbers have held up. The
13:02organizers say more than 220 boats a
13:05year still cross the Atlantic with their
13:07two ARC rallies.
13:09In February 2025, the organizers summed
13:12up how that vote has changed.
13:15In the last 10 years, the number of
13:16multihulls has doubled to a third of the
13:19fleet. The boats have got younger.
13:21Around one in five had been launched in
13:23the previous 12 months.
13:25And the average length has grown only
13:27slightly to 14.9 m.
13:31The 40th edition, in November 2025, sent
13:34145 boats across from 74 different
13:37designs and builders, launched as long
13:40ago as 1972
13:42and as recently as 2024, with crews from
13:4545 nations. Read those numbers
13:48carefully.
13:49The boats did not get dramatically
13:51bigger. They got newer, and a third of
13:53them are multihulls.
13:55The money went to new boats and to
13:57multihulls.
13:59And it is not hard to see why a buyer
14:01who wants to cross an ocean ends up on a
14:03catamaran instead of a heavy monohull.
14:06A catamaran barely heals, so the coffee
14:09stays on the table.
14:10Its living space sits in two hulls and a
14:13a bridge deck, not down in a narrow deep
14:16hull.
14:17It offers what a heavy mono hull
14:19offered, a stable platform and room for
14:21stores in a completely different way.
14:24It gets its stability from width, not
14:27weight.
14:28Meanwhile, the heavy mono hulls went
14:30somewhere else, into the used market.
14:34This month, the seven Tayana 37s listed
14:37for sale have a median asking price of
14:41$45,000.
14:43Those are asking prices, not sale
14:45prices, and they range from a few
14:48thousand dollars for a project to just
14:51under a hundred thousand for the best.
14:54That is what 22,000 pounds of ocean
14:57cruiser asks today.
15:00>> [snorts]
15:00>> And the asking price is only where it
15:03starts.
15:04The same data sites, West Sail Guide,
15:07puts project boats under $15,000
15:11with 40 to 60,000 dollars of deferred
15:14work waiting inside them.
15:16And cruise ready boats at 40 to 60,000
15:19with fully refitted examples described
15:22as rare.
15:24Cheap to buy is not cheap to own.
15:28A buyer who simply wants to go sailing
15:30next season sees the price and then sees
15:33the work.
15:34And here is a detail that says a lot.
15:37>> [snorts]
15:38>> The smallest boat in the 2025 ARC was a
15:41Contessa 32.
15:43A design from 1971 that won boat of the
15:46show in London in 1973,
15:50and of which Jeremy Rogers yard built
15:52more than 700.
15:54Its ratio is about 307.
15:57Heavy by the same scale.
16:00Heavy boats still cross. They are simply
16:02no longer what the fleet is made of.
16:05So far, this looks like fashion.
16:08It is not.
16:09Weight has a real cost, and it is paid
16:12in more than one currency.
16:15The price of every pound is paid first
16:17in wind.
16:19To move weight, you need sail. And the
16:21measure for that is the sail area to
16:23displacement ratio.
16:25Sailboat data reads below 16 as
16:28underpowered, 16 to 20 as reasonably
16:32good performance, and above 20 as
16:35relatively high performance.
16:37The Tayana 37 sits at about 17. The
16:41Jeanneau 410 about 21.
16:44The lighter boat asks for less wind to
16:46get going. And on a passage, light wind
16:49is where the hours disappear.
16:52Practical Sailor's review of the Tayana
16:5437 is honest about it.
16:57The early boats, it says, were laid up
16:59with a notably heavy solid glass hull. A
17:02point of pride for many owners that
17:05costs the boat a bit of light air
17:07quickness.
17:08And under power, with all that wetted
17:10surface and weight, the magazine calls
17:12her performance sedate rather than
17:15sprightly.
17:16Owners were proud of the weight and paid
17:19for it in wind.
17:21Then there is the waterline itself.
17:23The theoretical top speed of a
17:25displacement hull, its hull speed, rises
17:28with the square root of the waterline.
17:301.34 times the square root of the
17:33waterline length in feet.
17:35For the Tayana's 31 feet, that is about
17:387 and 1/2 knots.
17:40For the Jeanneau's 38.4,
17:43about 8.3.
17:45Almost a knot more before anyone trims a
17:48sail.
17:50And hull speed is a soft limit.
17:52A light hull running down a trade wind
17:55sea can surf past it.
17:57A heavy one, with far more weight to get
18:00moving, does it far less easily.
18:03Now turn knots into days, because days
18:07are the real currency on an ocean.
18:10Yachting World puts the typical arc
18:12crossing at 18 to 21 days for most
18:15boats, and closer to a month for the
18:18smallest.
18:19Take the 2,700
18:22and do the division yourself.
18:24A boat that averages 130 mi a day needs
18:27almost 21 days. One that averages 160
18:32needs about 17.
18:34That is 4 days less of food, water,
18:37night watches, and exposure. About a
18:40fifth of the whole crossing.
18:434 days is not a detail.
18:45It is 4 more days when something can
18:47break. 4 more days of fresh food going
18:50off. 4 more days for a crew of two to
18:53get tired.
18:55And a slower boat does not just take
18:57longer. It is out there longer for
19:00everything the ocean decides to do.
19:03And then there is the buyer standing on
19:06the dock at a boat show.
19:08The Jeanneau is about a foot and a half
19:10wider than the Tayana. And that beam is
19:12carried well aft.
19:14Walk below on one than the other and the
19:17difference in space is obvious within
19:19seconds.
19:20At the dock, width wins.
19:24And there is a third currency, the one
19:26buyers see first, money.
19:29Heavy boats are still built by hand and
19:31in small numbers.
19:33After a bankruptcy in 2007, Pacific
19:36Seacraft's molds were moved from
19:38California to North Carolina and the
19:40yard still builds the Crealock designed
19:42Pacific Seacraft 37, hand laminated with
19:46a ratio of about 334.
19:49On one boat listing site this year, a
19:51new 2025 Pacific Seacraft 37 was priced
19:55at more than twice the asking price of a
19:58new 2025 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 410.
20:02A heavy 37-footer at more than double
20:05the price of a light 41-footer.
20:08Weight takes material and hand-built
20:11weight takes hours.
20:13A buyer pays for both.
20:15So far, weight has only cost wind, days,
20:19space, and money.
20:21But in October 1991,
20:23a small heavy cutter did something no
20:25spec sheet can price. And it did it with
20:28nobody aboard. What weight still buys is
20:32easiest to see in the storm Sebastian
20:35Junger made famous.
20:37The one that also took the fishing boat
20:40Andrea Gail and her crew of six.
20:43In late October 1991,
20:46a Westsail 32 called Satori was caught
20:51off the American East Coast by the storm
20:53that became known as the perfect storm
20:56on its way to Bermuda with three people
20:59aboard.
21:00On the 30th of October in 30-ft seas
21:03with gusts of 55 knots, the Coast Guard
21:07lifted the crew off by helicopter with
21:10the cutter Tamaroa on scene.
21:12The boat was left to the storm.
21:15Days later, a search plane spotted
21:18Satori on the beach at Assateague State
21:20Park in Maryland. Its skipper, Ray
21:23Leonard, recorded that the boat
21:25sustained no damage in the storm after
21:28the crew left. The damage it had came
21:31from the beaching.
21:32Satori was recovered and later sailed on
21:35to Florida.
21:37The crew could not stay. The boat came
21:39through without them.
21:41That is the case for weight and it is a
21:44real one.
21:45Range is the second part of it. Remember
21:48the Tayana's 90 gallons of diesel?
21:50The Jeanneau 410 was delivered with 53.
21:54The heavy boat carries about 70% more
21:56fuel and on a long windless stretch,
21:59fuel is what decides whether you motor
22:01out of a calm or sit in it.
22:04Now the number from earlier, the one
22:06that shows what buyers traded away, the
22:08comfort ratio.
22:10The Tayana 37 sits at about 41 in the
22:14heavy blue water band. The Jeanneau 410
22:17comes out at about 22, which on the same
22:20published scale is a coastal cruiser.
22:23The ratio is meant for comparing boats
22:25of similar size and type, and these two
22:27are.
22:28Even the Hallberg-Rassy 44, built by a
22:31yard that sells ocean boats, comes out
22:33at about 31, a moderate blue water boat.
22:37The newer boats traded a slow, gentle
22:39motion for speed and space.
22:42Then there is the screen that came out
22:44of the Fastnet. Sailboat data calls a
22:47boat better suited to ocean passages at
22:492.0 or less.
22:51The Tayana 37 scores about 1.6.
22:55The Jeanneau 410 scores about 2.02,
22:58just over the line.
23:00The screen is crude, only beam against
23:02weight, but it points the same way as
23:05the comfort ratio.
23:07And there is one ocean race that writes
23:08the old style straight into its rules
23:11because it sets out to recreate the 1968
23:14race Knox-Johnston won.
23:16The Golden Globe Race requires a
23:18production boat designed before 1988, 32
23:21to 36 ft long, with a full-length keel
23:24and the rudder hung on its trailing
23:26edge, and at least 20 built from the
23:28same mold.
23:29The first modern edition in 2018 was won
23:32by Jean-Luc Van Den Heede at 73 in a
23:35Rustler 36 after about 212 days. 16
23:40sailors started the second from Les
23:43Sables-d'Olonne on the 4th of September
23:462022.
23:48Kirsten Neuschäfer won
23:50alone in a Cape George 36 called
23:54Minnehaha,
23:56a long-keeled cutter of about 23,000 lb
24:00with a comfort ratio close to 48.
24:04On the way, she diverted to pick a
24:06fellow competitor, Tapio Lehtinen, out
24:10of his life raft after his boat sank off
24:13South Africa. She was at sea for about
24:16235
24:18days and became the first woman to win a
24:20solo round-the-world race.
24:23A third edition is at sea right now.
24:27So, none of this fashion.
24:29Weight still does exactly what it always
24:32did.
24:33What changed is how often a buyer
24:36expects to need it.
24:37And the reason for that has nothing to
24:39do with boats at all.
24:42What actually changed is the weather.
24:45Not the weather itself, but what you can
24:47know about it before it arrives.
24:50In 2019, three scientists, Richard
24:53Alley, Kerry Emanuel, and Fuching Zhang,
24:56laid it out in the journal Science.
24:59Today's 5-day forecast is as accurate as
25:01a 1-day forecast was in 1980.
25:05>> [snorts]
25:05>> A second study that year, led by Zhang
25:07at Penn State, found that reliable
25:09forecasts of daily weather in the
25:11mid-latitudes now reach about 9 to 10
25:14days ahead.
25:16The reasons are not glamorous.
25:18Better monitoring and sensing, and far
25:20better computers and software.
25:23The science paper adds that a 72-hour
25:26hurricane track forecast today is more
25:28accurate than a 24-hour one was 40 years
25:31ago.
25:33And a review in Nature 4 years earlier
25:35put the pace plainly.
25:37Forecast skill had been improving by
25:39about a day every decade for 40 years.
25:43Think about what that meant for a
25:45Westsail owner in the 1970s.
25:47A crossing was planned around the season
25:49and the pilot chart. The forecasts were
25:52far shorter and far less reliable than
25:54today's.
25:55And once the coast dropped away, the
25:57boat took whatever came.
26:00The weight was not a style. It was the
26:02plan for the storm nobody could see
26:05coming.
26:06And today, the forecast is not left at
26:08the dock.
26:10Cruising World reported this year that
26:12when one fleet of the World Arc, the
26:14organizers rally around the world, left
26:16St. Lucia in 2023, only two of its 20
26:20boats had Starlink.
26:21Six months later, only two did not.
26:25One skipper in the same story traced the
26:27change through his own crossings. A
26:29radio direction finder, then an SSB
26:31radio with a modem on the 2003 ARC, and
26:34now Starlink. And the magazine described
26:38this year's ARC Plus fleet as averaging
26:4148 ft, more than a third multihulls,
26:45with most boats carrying satellite
26:48communications, autopilots, solar
26:50panels, and lithium batteries.
26:53The forecast now arrives mid-ocean every
26:57day.
26:58The files that carry it are small. Wind
27:01and pressure forecasts in a format
27:04called GRIB, gridded binary, a standard
27:07of the World Meteorological
27:09Organization, compact enough to pull
27:12down over a satellite link in the middle
27:15of the Atlantic.
27:16That is what changed the job of a
27:19bluewater boat.
27:20It used to be built to endure the
27:22weather it could not avoid.
27:25Now, most of that weather can be seen
27:27days ahead, and the boat's job is to act
27:30on what it sees.
27:31Leave a day early, wait a day, slide
27:34south of a system,
27:36run ahead of it.
27:38On an Atlantic crossing, that can mean
27:40diving south to find the trade winds
27:42sooner, or holding the direct route
27:44because the forecast shows them already
27:46filled in.
27:48And for that job, the tools are the ones
27:50the light boats sell.
27:52Speed, so a forecast becomes an escape
27:55route. A long waterline, so every day
27:58covers more miles.
28:00Fewer days at sea, so fewer of them fall
28:03beyond the forecast's reach.
28:06And here is the detail that ties it all
28:08together.
28:10The Golden Globe Race, the one race that
28:12still requires the old long-keeled
28:14boats,
28:15also bans the modern forecast.
28:18Its sailors navigate by sextant and
28:21paper charts. No GPS, no satellite
28:24communications, no computer weather
28:26routing.
28:27Their weather comes over HF radio as
28:30text forecasts and weather fax chart,
28:33the way it did decades ago.
28:35The race that recreates the world before
28:37modern forecasts is the race that
28:39requires heavy boats. That is not a
28:42coincidence.
28:44So, here is the answer to the question
28:46from the start. Nobody wants heavy blue
28:49water sailboats anymore because most
28:52ocean sailing now happens inside a
28:54forecast and inside a forecast, speed
28:57and space beat weight.
28:59The change that did the most damage was
29:01not a new hull or a new material. It was
29:04a weather model and a satellite antenna
29:07on the stern rail.
29:08Now, the sum because the answer is not
29:11the same for everyone.
29:13Take the longest leg you actually plan
29:15to sail.
29:17Divide it by your boat's realistic daily
29:19run, not its best one.
29:21That gives you days at sea.
29:23Then, subtract nine, the edge of a
29:26useful forecast.
29:28What is left is the number of days of
29:30weather nobody could show you on the
29:31morning you left.
29:33A run between Caribbean islands, a week
29:36in the Mediterranean, a coastal passage,
29:39that comes out at zero. Newport to
29:42Bermuda, about 635
29:45miles is under five days at 140 miles a
29:50day, also zero.
29:53An ARC crossing at 140 miles a day is
29:57about 19 days. So, about 10 of them lie
30:02beyond the forecast you left with.
30:04Galapagos to the Marquesas, about 3,000
30:08miles at 130 a day, is about 23 days. 14
30:14of them beyond the forecast.
30:16If your answer is zero or close to it,
30:19you are buying a boat for the window.
30:22Weight is insurance you will rarely
30:25claim and you will pay for it every day
30:28in wind, in days, and in space.
30:33If your answer runs into double figures
30:36or your route goes where no routing
30:39helps you dodge high latitudes, long
30:42Pacific legs, the wrong season,
30:45then weight is not nostalgia. It is
30:48exactly what you are paying for.
30:51And today's asking prices are on your
30:53side.
30:54Just check the two numbers from this
30:56video on the exact boat you are looking
30:59at, not the brand. A comfort ratio in
31:02the heavy blue water band, 40 or more,
31:05and a capsize screen comfortably under
31:07two.
31:08The ocean did not get smaller. The
31:11forecast got longer.
31:14Do the sum before you choose your
31:16weight.
31:17Subscribe for more, and tell me in the
31:19comments what your sum came out at.

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