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Comment by asimpletune | Hacker News Reader

If you are looking to actually sail, like ocean cross, I highly recommend getting the smallest boat that fits your other requirements. This is counter-intuitive, and a lot of information out there is from people who either want to sell boats or don't know what they're talking about. The reason why I recommend this is that a small boat is much safer, because they're much cheaper to rig well and have back systems for everything. I.e. the the difference between a 31' and 45' will not make one bit of difference to the sea, however the 31' will be like 4-8x cheaper to supply. Boat costs scale geometrically, not linearly.

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> I.e. the the difference between a 31' and 45' will not make one bit of difference to the sea, however the 31' will be like 4-8x cheaper to supply.

Not wrong from a financial point of view, but the it should be noted that (generally speaking) a boat's maximum speed is proportional to its length:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_speed

You can cross oceans in a small boat, but you will probably do it much slower than a longer boat. There is some probability that something will go wrong every day you're out on the water, so the longer it takes the higher the chances that something bad will happen (never mind all the extra provisioning needed for those days). Also, the longer you're out, the more likely the weather will shift to something you won't like and you won't be able to avoid it because of your slow(er) speed.

Just another factor to consider.

Proportional to the square root of the length, unless it’s a planing catamaran.

It's mad how much faster catamarans can be than monohulls. When I was a student me and some friends got together and bought a used Dart 16 with the spinnaker kit, it was the fastest thing there by a huge margin (albiet because most of the boats were the usual student fare, Fireflies, Laser 2s, GP14s). We played a fun game called 'cat and mouse' which was basically British bulldog but on dinghies, the club boats had to avoid getting caught by the much faster catamaran but it was a fair game because the cat was hopeless upwind and the slower club boats could point far further and escape.

The most fun I ever had on that boat was at Bala Lake in north Wales, honestly one of the most underrated dinghy sailing places on the planet in my opinion.

We've been doing 50+ days passages across the Pacific on a 33 footer, while keeping in touch with other boats doing the same transits, in the same season with similar problem. But from our experience, when shit hits the fan, I rather be on a small boat with sails I can pull down with my bare hands.

bigger boats - bigger problems.

If I was going alone I would definitely seek a smaller boat, I spent quite a bit of time on a Moody 34 as a kid and that would make a great liveaboard for a single person or a couple I think. I'm going to be living with friends from my old uni's sailing club so the extra space might justify the extra cost, although as you say the tradeoff between space and safety is a vital one and it won't be a decision taken lightly. Serious ocean crossings won't be on the table initially too which will help, we'll mainly be sticking to our native Britain at first and then venturing into longer passages once we're confident in the boat. Obviously it'll depend on what's on the market when I'm ready to buy too, but I'm in no hurry and can wait for the right one to come along.

I disagree. The difference between 31’ and 45’ is huge. 45’ will give you a much more comfortable ride and is safer in rough weather. Of course with both you want a blue ocean capable sailboat and not a coastal cruiser.

> 45’ will give you a much more comfortable ride and is safer in rough weather.

There are lots of arguments about this. The 45' will have everything scaled up, so sail handling is more difficult. Assistive devices, like roller furling, while a lot better than they used to be are still finicky. Ground tackle, especially, is so much larger and heavier that without mechanized assistance, you'd better be in really great shape.

Also, don't forget, all marinas rent slips by the foot. The cost difference is quite a bit between 31' and 45'.

If you go single handed, it's hard to beat something like a Pearson Triton 28'. It's really old, but it's stupidly solidly built. The sea keeping abilities of these smaller cruisers are underappreciated. Whatever one goes with, figure out how well you can heave-to in it. Lin and Larry Pardey discuss this at length in "Storm Tactics." They describe weathering shocking storms while heaving-to, and watching their sideways wake break up dangerous waves. I have no idea whether newer boats are still built to perform with this formerly common tactic.

> There are lots of arguments about this. The 45' will have everything scaled up, so sail handling is more difficult. Assistive devices, like roller furling, while a lot better than they used to be are still finicky. Ground tackle, especially, is so much larger and heavier that without mechanized assistance, you'd better be in really great shape.

Finicky? I wouldn't say so, maybe in the past, but they've had a lot of time to improve now. Sure, they're more likely to break or foul than a system that simply isn't there, but they are also considered by some, as with a number of other modern sailing aids, to be pretty significant safety enhancements.

Things that mean you don't have to go on deck in a heavy sea, things that save energy. It's a lot harder to get washed overboard when rolling in a headsail from the cockpit, and you're going to save a lot of energy over spending time getting up to the bow and working there.

Plus, I'd say the chance of getting whipped in the face by a stray block on a line is less in the cockpit too, and less dangerous if it happens.

John Kretchmer (https://johnkretschmersailing.com/) in one of his books said (to paraphrase, I forget his words exactly) that he thinks a working autopilot is the biggest safety enhancement you can make to your boat. It lets you save energy. Go down below, make some food or a cup of tea, keep warm. It allows you to save energy and make better decisions.

> Ground tackle, especially, is so much larger and heavier that without mechanized assistance, you'd better be in really great shape.

So… get a windlass!

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