This is the third video in Steve Dashew’s series on his search for the perfect cruising yacht.
Using spectacular video and still photography Steve Dashew explains how yacht design impacts comfort and safety when heading into the waves. Learn the ultimate storm tactic when you’ve run out of other options, and experience the evolution of Dashew’s wave piercing FPB cruising yacht hulls. Steve teaches of a few simple things you can do to significantly improve your sailing performance to windward. If you are dreaming about, planning for, or already crossing oceans you will want to watch this video to the end.
Click here to experience this spectacular video.
Posted by Steve Dashew (January 28, 2020)
January 28th, 2020 at 2:39 pm
I realise you are out of the game. But if one more build occurred, would you design the vessel with a Seakeeper as part of the equation?
January 30th, 2020 at 12:46 am
The efficacy of Seakeeper in our application is an open question and short of actually testing a unit aboard I do not have an answer. I would love to get rid of the stabilizer fins and the drag and vulnerability these represent. However, gyros develop forced based on fighting acceleration/deceleration. If you are traveling in the lee of a reef with a stiff breeze heeling the boat, the gyro will do little to overcome the heel. So one thing I would want are outboard ballast tanks to remove the windage induced heel.
At anchor a gyro should be OK, and in any sea-state where there was sufficient heel back and forth, for example waves on the beam. But waves on the stern or stern quarter are going to require a much larger gyro.
January 28th, 2020 at 10:04 pm
Of the 64,70 or 78 which is best uphill? Also, in the conditions off New Zealand where Cochise surfed up to 22.75 knots, how do you think a 64 would have handled?
January 30th, 2020 at 12:39 am
Hi Joe:
The answer depends on the wave shape, vessel payload, trim angle, angle to the waves, crossing seas and their characteristics, and other variables. I think you can safely say that the two newer shapes, the FPB 78 and 70 are always going to be more comfortable uphill. And that the FPB 64 will be better off in smaller and order shorter period waves than the 83 or 97.
Regarding the FPB 64 in the very confused and steep waves we encountered near the Bay of Islands aboard Cochise, I do not have a firm answer for you. The 64 would have been going a lot slower. Until the last few miles when we were in the worst of the reflected waves, if the bottom was clean, and the autopilot correctly set up, the 64 would have been OK. In close to the slot at the end of the video I am not going to venture an opinion. But I would have avoided learning the answer by routing the FPB 64 through the normal entrance to the Bay of Islands.
January 29th, 2020 at 6:39 pm
Thanks Steve,
for another informative and entertaining video of your travels with a bit of education thrown in.
or was it a teaching video with some dreamy back ground shots?
Scotto
January 31st, 2020 at 2:53 am
On the gyro front, since the gyro cannot generate a fixed force and therefore cannot counteract any form heel persistent heel, from load imbalance, windage, or other., I’d feel more comfortable having the fins/magnus effect rollers/etc. so that I always have the choice to trade drag for correction.
The downside is that at anchor, you either need complicated zero-speed fin mechanisms or flopper-stoppers in cases where the gyro would be great.