Boat design vs actual use?

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Bruce B

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As I read the thread of Dauntless's ocean crossing, I wonder just how many powerboats are really used as they are designed.
I can say that coming from the sailing world, the answer is "few..."
Take a stroll up and down the docks of any marina and you will find "off shore capable" sailboats that have literally never been out of sight of land.

For the record, I have no problem with how any person derives pleasure from any boat.
If you want to own a globe crossing yacht and use it as a comfy place to nap on Sunday afternoon, more power to you!

Being less familiar with the powerboat/trawler side of the equation I'm not sure what the norm is. I could easily have found myself attracted to a big sport fish, given the means to pay for fuel and never fished. They are simply beautiful things to look at!

So, is this offshore capable mindset prevailant here too? I see lots of full displacement vs semi displacement discussions happening on this forum and I wonder the same thing. How many people simply like the boat and then rationalize the design?

When we decided to move to power, we listed the ways we wanted to use the boat and tried to find designs that would allow us to fulfill them. Then we got aboard boats and imagined what life would be like...
Next we refined a list of features we liked/admired/wanted including a flybridge (mandatory), maximum length overall (a hard line in the sand as there are limits to the size boat we can keep in our slip), colors (surprisingly high on our list) and build quality a few amongst the many.

We have a lot of time on the water, almost all of it sailing. Ocean crossings, offshore racing and coastal cruising yet we both understand that this decision is a bit of a leap of faith.

We will use the boat. Will we love it? Will it be well suited to our likes? Time will tell but I am guessing that we will love the boat, we always do...

I am still curious, do we as power boaters (still strange referring to myself that way...) follow a similar pattern that I have observed of sailors? Do we use our boats as designed or do we live a little closer to fantasy?

Bruce
 
Bruce B,
An answer to your question may emerge if you were to imagine what boats people would own if the boats diapeared after a year. Kind of a Cinderella scenario.

Many people own boats with capabilities they imagine that they need. Like walk-around decks, twin engines or perhaps extra power, bigger anchors, excessive electronics ect ect. Many or most trawlers reflect percieved needs of this nature.

Good question Bruce. Most of the answers I suspect will be centered around insecurity, percieved needs re the "what if scenairo" and the lust to have all the right stuff. Many don't really care if an anchor will hold in a hurrycane but they want to be seen with the right stuff. A cmbination of the appearence of being a wise old salt and being affluent.
 
Bruce B
Boat design vs actual use?
As I read the thread of Dauntless's ocean crossing, I wonder just how many powerboats are really used as they are designed.
I can say that coming from the sailing world, the answer is "few..."
Take a stroll up and down the docks of any marina and you will find "off shore capable" sailboats that have literally never been out of sight of land.



The tennis coach at high school said to me "in your case, remember it's as important to look the part"

Hope this is not too cryptic a response to the question posed.

Obviously he saw I had very little talent in the game.:rofl:
 
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Lots of ego driven choices being made. I see many big 4x4 trucks with absolutely no scratches or mud on them getting nursed over little bumps at the ends of driveways. Why should boating be any different?
 
Thought provoking, Bruce. My boat is designed for coastal cruising, and except for the occasional jaunt to the Bahamas, I'm sure that I'll be using the boat for the purpose it was designed for. Asking myself, if I was able to pursue the whimsical ownership of a much more capable, bluewater boat, would I have one? ....probably. Would it 's greater capability change my cruising plans, ...probably to the extent that I would enjoy the choice of going "outside" more often, but I doubt that I would undertake any ocean crossings. So, in summary, having more money would probably just make my boat selection a lot less disciplined and practical than it is now.

Cardude and I text each other all the time about this. We keep looking at boats that aren't nearly as practical for our usage as though we might one day adopt the cruising style to fit the boat instead of the other way around.

There's something magical (not to mention egotistical) about the supreme safety of truly weathertight, blue-water capable vessels that seduce one into believing its durable assets must surely make it a "better boat", even in other applications.
 
Might I throw in the notion that the most "non purpose used" vessels I see are sailboats motoring and darn proud of it.

Followed in order by "why have a boat at all" judging by the low hour vessels and dock sitters that frequent marinas. Of course these vessels do represent buying opportunities for us dreamers.
 
For me I would say that the question is where u want to put ur money. If expect to spend most of your time at the dock or doing coastal cruising, buying a passage maker would be putting your money in something useless. You will pay for feature you will never need while you could have saved it or put it in some other features for better confort or whatever you need.
Beyond that I guess that for some it is more a question of prestige to own something capable of more than being capable of. Same principle apply to many thing outside boating.
Personnally I would select my boat for what I really want to do with it not what it could do if...
 
A few years ago, when we were preparing to cruise full-time, we were looking for the "right boat" after selling house, car, older trawler, etc. I was convinced a Nordhavn was it, but the Admiral didn't care for the layout. We went aboard a PDQ powercat and she said "I could live aboard this boat!" That was all it took - bought the PDQ and proceeded to cruise the East Coast, Bahamas, Gulf, New England, Great Lakes, etc. for the next three years. It ended up being the perfect boat for what we wanted to do and I don't know how many times I was grateful we never bought the Nordhavn.

In retrospect, I was drawn to the Nordhavn for what it REPRESENTS as much as for WHAT IT IS. I knew it was unlikely that we would ever be passagemaking, but having that capability in reserve was intriguing.

Now that the PDQ is sold, and we're land-based back on the West Coast, the decision-making criteria for boat selection has changed. I think the Nordic Tug 32 we just bought will be fine, especially with the capability of having it trailered to any new, distant cruising areas.

That said, I don't think less of anyone who buys, or even just lusts after, that long-range passagemaker. If you don't have a dream, you can't make a dream come true...

DVD
 
As my current boat is about my 13th, before making the purchase decision I had a lot of experience in identifying my needs and the respective deficiencies of my various boats. Fundamentally, I wanted to be able to travel a long way, safely and reliably, to catch fish. My last boat was a big sportfisher that carried 1,000 gallons of fuel. That really didn't give me the range I needed.

I came close to ordering a Nordhavn, but realized it didn't fit the fishing part of the mission very well so ended up getting the Mikelson I have now. It has fantastic range (1200 nm, with genset running 24/7, uphill, using less than half of its 2300 gallon fuel capacity), and is very fishable.
 
Bruce, I think that you and your wife have the advantage of years of experience. I think the choice you have made will be a good one since your anticipated use of the boat is well informed. For many, they don't really know how they will use the boat until they get it.

I opted for a coastal cruiser because I know that is all I will be doing. The only big water my boat will see are the Staits of Juan de Fuca and Georgia. My sailboat was/is a coastal cruiser as well.

That being said, if money had not been an issue, I would have preferred a boat that was more blue water capable. A stabilized FD hull would be nice at times. However, the added cost for an extremely small increase in utility makes no sense. There is also the issue of creature comforts. There were some really nice KK 42s around, but the interior layout and berths weren't going to be as comfortable for us.
 
I've seen two posts here that mention "ego" and "prestige". I would really like to think that is not the case. I have met allot of large boat owners and have not met any that in my opinion bought a particular boat to fill their ego or to show off, IE prestige.

I think that probably many "passagemaker capable" boats are purchased and never actually get to cross oceans. I think that many boats are purchased and don't get used like they were designed to be used, or used much at all.

I don't think it's an Ego thing, I really think that it's dreams that the owner had that never came true.

The reasons are many. Some are financial, the owner has to work to pay for the dream boat so he has little time to use it. Some are spouse related, not all spouces really want to cruise long distances or for long periods of time. Some are as simple as changing priorities.

The saddest ones I've seen is where the clock runs out on the owner. They end up working too late in life and do not have the health to fulfill their dreams.
 
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Dave,
"A stabilized FD hull would be nice at times" ..........
Yes there's more that's NOT on Willy than is because it would only be "nice at times". Stabilzers, genset, dinghy davits ect ect ... and then there's the wallet.
 
healhustler said:
There's something magical (not to mention egotistical) about the supreme safety of truly weathertight, blue-water capable vessels that seduce one into believing its durable assets must surely make it a "better boat", even in other applications.
Click to expand...

Envy showing?

Take out what you put in parentheses and you're pretty close. Of the dozens of blue water boat owners I know their propensity for being egotistical seems no higher than the general population.
 
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Interesting question posed, and interesting responses.


When we bought Beachcomber we were looking for smaller boats but boats that were capable of a trip around the coast of WA ad boats we could spend lengthy amounts of time on.


We found this boat in MI and it was (a) a freshwater boat with (b) low hours and (c) I was able to buy it for a song because of the depression/recession the country was heading into. We originally had no intention of getting a boat this large, but this one would MORE than do what we wanted at LESS than what we had figured we'd spend.


Do I now use it for what it was designed? No. Is it a dock queen? Not hardly.
 
I don't think it is a secret that a lot of boat ownership is about emotion dreams and imagery rather than utilitarian use. Certainly the people who build and advertise production boats know and use that knowledge to considerable effect. In general there is no problem with this. It is very hard to get a perspective boat buyer to make an accurate assessment of what they need and match a boat to its actual use. I know this first hand due to the custom one off we had built. I tried very hard to match the boat to our use and needs. Maybe I scored 90-95% not 100% even while giving it my best effort. I can easily imagine that a person not making a strong effort in that department may only score 60-75% resulting is a significant mismatch between boat and use pattern. I don't think it bothers most owners and they still enjoy owning their boats.
 
Of course there's ego involved or else there would be more boats with "fine work boat" interior fit & finish rather than "elegant yacht" opulence.

Our boat suffers from 1980's era teak drilled & screwed into otherwise perfectly good fiberglass decks. Why? Because that's what the market (ego driven image of what a proper boat should look like) demanded, rather than what made sense.
 
sunchaser said:
Envy showing?

Take out what you put in parentheses and you're pretty close. Of the dozens or blue water boats and owners I know their propensity for being egotistical seems no higher than the general population.
Click to expand...

Yeah, probably true....envy showing. But aside from that, most of my boating life has been lived in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale area, and now in Sarasota. There are some serious cruisers here with practical vessels, but there are a great number of first time boat owners with more money to spend on image than need. We're pretty famous for ego boats here, ya know.
 
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Nomad Willy said:
Dave,
"A stabilized FD hull would be nice at times" ..........
Yes there's more that's NOT on Willy than is because it would only be "nice at times". Stabilzers, genset, dinghy davits ect ect ... and then there's the wallet.
Click to expand...

That is so true.
 
There are a few "I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those xxxxxxxxx" boaters here....they posted exactly that..

Evendors though they probably wI'll never need the full capabilities of their boat or alost aNY othe for that matter.

Not sure thats ego...but it is prestige.

No wrose than those of us that struggle to keep a nice looking boat, not bristol but neat and relatively clean, when boat-a-wrecks cruise more miles a year than most here.
 
We really liked the living accommodations on the KK42 and no, we won't be crossing oceans. We like the fuel efficiency, from the environmental standpoint, and the comfort during adverse weather conditions. And...we use it for what we intended.

Jim
 
If one's goal is to be an ostentatious / conspicuous consumer, a boat doesn't seem to be a very good avenue. Unlike a fancy car or big house, etc., few people see a boat, and fewer still have any idea of the cost.
 
MYTraveler said:
If one's goal is to be an ostentatious / conspicuous consumer, a boat doesn't seem to be a very good avenue. Unlike a fancy car or big house, etc., few people see a boat, and fewer still have any idea of the cost.
Click to expand...

Depends which yacht club you belong to.

Some around me if you say Bayliner or Sea Ray instead of Hinckley, or even powerboat instead of sail......well...you get my picture.

There are people who buy homes in towns and lease them out to caterers and event planners for most of the year, just to say they have a home there.

When money is no object, practicality just seems to be an afterthought.
 
Bruce B said:
So, is this offshore capable mindset prevailant here too? I see lots of full displacement vs semi displacement discussions happening on this forum and I wonder the same thing. How many people simply like the boat and then rationalize the design?

I am still curious, do we as power boaters (still strange referring to myself that way...) follow a similar pattern that I have observed of sailors? Do we use our boats as designed or do we live a little closer to fantasy?
Click to expand...


Can't speak for a group, but in our case we developed a list of features -- over the course of our original shopping, later modified by what we learned from the first two boats -- based on the way we like to use the boat, and then went shopping for a boat with those features. Got pretty much what we wanted. The fact it's a "sportfish" (well, really a "convertible") had no bearing on our selection -- and fishing capability wasn't one of our target features anyway.

I/we don't have much intention to go way offshore (boring), aside from some relatively easy island hopping from time to time. Yet another reason why the boat we've got suits us pretty well.

"Shopping" doesn't have to end, of course. We've identified a few more features we wouldn't mind having if a "lottery boat" hoves into view. We'll cross that bridge when (if) we come to it. It'd probably come sooner if I ever remember to play...

-Chris
 
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In our case, we went looking for a boat that could do coastal and cruising to the Caribbean islands. We looked at a lot of boats and I feel our current boat is right for what we expect to do with it - basically "extended" coastal cruising. I understand and have seen a lot of folks who buy in to the "look" of something bigger or better than what they really will use, (like the big 4x4's one sees on the street all the time) but we just don't care about that. For example, would I like speed? Sure I would. Cruising at 25knots would be awesome, but in reality, I wouldn't be willing to pay for the fuel required. I had to be honest with myself about things like that. Cruising at 10k will have to do. Our current boat works for what we expect to do with it - so we're happy with it. If that changes in the future, maybe we'll have to buy something different.

Ken
 
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psneeld said:
When money is no object, practicality just seems to be an afterthought.
Click to expand...

I know a lot of truly wealthy people. Most earned their money, a few inherited it. For those that earned their money, it is not "no object" or an afterthought, although it may be for some of those who inherited it.
 
PHP:
MYTraveler said:
I know a lot of truly wealthy people. Most earned their money, a few inherited it. For those that earned their money, it is not "no object" or an afterthought, although it may be for some of those who inherited it.
Click to expand...
It spans the spectrum where I am from...the Northeast...

For some who earned it...they can be even worse about it....
 
As noted, whatever makes people happy, and it's all good.

We have a planing hull boat, shallow draft, and roll around like a cork out there when it's snotty. But, having the extra speed is nice so we can make good time weather permitting.

We just got back from a few day trip up the coast. We left Sunday am after a red flag the previous day and hit some solid swell and wind, for our boat at least. Both of my kids had bowls in their laps, with my wife and I dumping it over the side.

But when we got to our destination, all was good. The trip back today was beautiful, and we came across a large pack of whales, tail slapping. I don't think they were greys because they were not in the straight line migration route, so probably humpbacks or possibly Blues.

When I retire, I want to crew for dauntless.
 
Interesting topic! We are coastal cruisers, are not wealthy, have our feet firmly planted on the ground and our choice of boat shows that. It also did not meet our needs so we modified it to suit us and our cruising style. I would say we use Ebbtide in the manner for which she was designed.
 
JDCAVE said:
We really liked the living accommodations on the KK42 and no, we won't be crossing oceans. We like the fuel efficiency, from the environmental standpoint, and the comfort during adverse weather conditions. And...we use it for what we intended.

Jim
Click to expand...

My boat can handle more severe weather than I can. However, I would bet that your KK can handle really bad seas much better than my SD hull can. That is a great feature for you to have since your KK42 meets your other needs as well.
 
I was looking for a boat with all the features mine has. Intend to do the Loop, maybe the Bahamas and a bunch of coastal cruising. Looked long and hard without success. Fortunately the boat found me. Only time will tell, but I think it's capabilities match pretty well with my intentions.

Ted
 
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