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Old 07-01-2014, 09:19 AM   #12
Delfin
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Join Date: Jan 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
Not sure what your boating background is.....

but yes I would say it's common.

A lot of people think by getting into larger, heavier boats that they will provide a magic carpet ride that just isn't true.

Anything bigger than 2 feet and just the right wavelength (like a passing motoryacht wake) taken abeam or on the corner will rock the crap out of many "trawler like", motor cruisers ...probably most boats under 50 feet or so. Add another foot or two to the wave and make it the right length...and then they will rock too.
Ditto.

At the recent Trawler Fest in Anacortes, the owner/builder of a 65 Bruce Roberts steel trawler who elected not to put stabilizers in said that in crossing Rosario Strait in a beam sea he was worried about capsizing due to excessive roll. While his concerns are probably overblown, he did have quite a lot of experience, so perhaps it was just testimony to the fact that all boats of most any size that lack a mast to dampen roll, or stabilizers to reduce it will roll like the dickens in certain conditions. If your vessel is unhappy in a beam sea, and most boats are, then try to avoid them. I know that sounds simplistic, but if you read the books written by Eric and Margaret Hiscock, who sailed the world for 50 years, they claim they never saw winds greater than 35 knots during the whole time. They did it by not crossing oceans except at the optimum time to make the calmest passage possible.
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