Suppose you have a satellite phone and excellent GPS— is it reasonable to avoid large bad storms and big ships in a sailboat? Let’s say you are pretty good at sailing. Would you need something bigger than 20’ to confidently avoid danger beyond your keel dappling around on the open ocean. (and you can provision and stay out of port for a month no problem.) No time tables but several places you want to get to eventually.
(it seems possible to me but ima harbor and sound baby)
@futurebird I have sailed across the Atlantic in a 32’ boat with 3 other people. It was fine, even though we did get some stormy weather. It was a Westsail 32, the same type that was abandoned, but stranded more or less unharmed after the perfect storm.
Several of the people I met in the Azores had slightly smaller boats, but personally I would not go with anything smaller. Partly because longer boats have higher top speed. For that reason I would consider a catamaran or trimaran if I were to do it again.
There are other reasons for size. If you get caught up in weather, you do feel very small. Likewise when a huge container ship comes at you at 25 kt, and you’re not sure they see you.
But most important is that the boat is built for the big seas, and that you have all the relevant equipment.
@futurebird blue sky sailing is a thing. They are people that purpose plan passages and the like on weather forecasts to not have to deal with rough seas or storms as much as they can.
From my understanding if you are planning on extended open ocean you probably want a 40’ minimum but that is from looking into buying a boat during covid and living about full time. 40’ looked most manageable for me as a solo sailer and gave enough room to not have to live full spartan.
@futurebird I've only sailed recreationally and my longest offshore sail was only around 40 nautical miles, so I'll defer to more experienced sailors here, but...
People have crossed oceans in boats that small, but it's pretty crazy and I wouldn't do it. I would want something quite a bit bigger than 20' for a lot of reasons, but moderately skilled sailors cross oceans in modest sized (e.g., 35-45') cruising sailboats pretty routinely. A bigger boat gets you faster hull speed, which means a bit more wiggle room for getting out of the way of storms and a faster trip overall, plus more room for more sailors and provisions, and a more comfortable and safer ride.
Weather routing is key. You need to have decent forecasting to avoid larger storms, and you want to be mindful of seasons for the regions you're sailing in (avoid hurricane season). There are a variety of services that provide offshore weather info, ranging from shortwave radio to satellite. A modest sailboat will only get you about 100 nautical miles a day for planning purposes, so it is imperative that you stay on top of the weather so you stay well clear of where the bad weather is going to be.
Maintaining a proper watch at all times is required for safety and legal reasons. I've heard of some solo sailors cheating by letting themselves nap for 15 minutes at a time using a wind up kitchen timer. That's about as long as you can risk things given the fact that a large ship running at top speed can go from just over the horizon to a collision in about that amount of time.
You generally do an offshore trip with multiple sailors trading watches every few hours. Electronic systems like AIS and radar can help, but a lot of it is basically by sight.
I believe NYC has a pretty active sailing scene if you're interested in learning more.
I've spent two weeks out in long island sound on a tiny tiny sailboat... more of two kayaks tied together with a sheet between them. It was the best time ever and I didn't want to come back. But that's a sound, it's safe and we could always go to land if we needed to.
@futurebird It depends to some degree on the architecture of the boat, the geography of the part of the world where you plan to hang out, and the set of countries whose ports you can safely use as harbours, but 20 feet is probably not enough if where you're trying to hide from storms is the ocean at large and you plan to do it on a long, multi-year, basis.
There's a now confirmed to happen but poorly undersood mechanism that can cause occasional extreme waves, which could probably sink a 20-feet sailboat, and since the mechanism is not yet properly understood, there's currently no reliable way to avoid them.
If the body of water where you're hiding from storms is sufficiently small, as in, a lake (and preferrably, a smaller large than the Great Lakes) or a river or a canal system or a bay, that could protect you from extreme waves, but it could also complicate navigating to a place away from reliably prognosticated extreme wind events, when those happen, if your part of the world has them.
@riley@futurebird Rogue waves often rip pilots from the cockpit if they sneak up on you. Many ocean cruisers will tether in even in good conditions because of that. Larger boats can smooth out chop, but an ocean going sailboat is well ballasted. Everything in the Golden Globe is 50% ballast or close to it, and heavily built. Art of Hookie was one popular sailing blog... https://www.sailingreport.org/category/sailing-blog/art-of-hookie/ The Falmouth Cutter that traipsed around the world not even trying to avoid storms is 22'...
@riley@futurebird but thoroughly seaworthy. Much larger ships are often heavily laden and have a much higher center of gravity than a sailboat where the bulk of her weight is (by design) in a keel sticking far underwater, to balance rig and sails in heavy weather. A good sailboat can be knocked down and completely awash, and pop back up. It's harder to do that to a large ship, but the outcome can be worse.
@riley@futurebird For the original question, that's what newer, faster, larger, but lightly (and often badly) constructed sailboats try to do... avoid storm season, and then monitor the weather (sailors basically use "weather" to mean "heavy weather"... if it isn't a blow, then it's fair). A whole bunch of services exist for this, some quite old... WeatherFax, shortwave broadcasts (small boats often carry shortwave), pulling imagery directly from NOAA sats: https://github.com/martinber/noaa-apt ...
@riley@futurebird Even if you're doing sat phone, you're probably pulling the same GRIB sheets, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRIB , that people request over packet shortwave. It's useful and a compact data format that can cover a large area. Sat data is expensive and shortwave is slow and shared. As usual, sorry for the long reply.
@scrottie@riley@futurebird Back when my recreational reading centered around sailing disaster stories, I read a couple accounts where the ability of the sailboat to pop back up was sort of the problem. Sailboats capsized & righted, rolled completely over, or- in one case/ “end-for-ended,” rolling bow over stern rather than side-over-side.
The sailors didn’t die, and their boat was afloat and upright; but the boat was usually pretty badly damaged.
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I'm a sailor with a lot of hours at it, but it's not ocean sailing. I think that I would want to try sailing various sizes of boats on the ocean before I made a choice. Personally, I wouldn't even consider anything below thirty feet.
@johnb48 I’m going to crew on some Halifax yachts first. As a tutor that’s easy— but what to do with my husband? maybe he could write press releases on a boat for some reason.
@futurebird It would depend on how the wind is blowing and how big the storm. As for ships, whoever is most manoeuvrable is the one who is obligated to move. This wouldn't be a trip you just decide to take without a lot of prep, including how to handle the boat. A friend of my fellow has spent a lot of time sailing on Lake Ontario, felt a well-seasoned sailor. He decided to do a solo trip to the Bahamas. He stuck to the rivers until Miami, and he ran into a LOT of unexpected...
@futurebird It's not directly compareable, but Roz Savage rowed across the major oceans solo. I gotta imagine that a row boat (even a highly customized one) would be less than 20'.
@futurebird
There are lots of people who have done ocean passages in very small boats. 20ft is a VERY VERY small boat. In all honesty, it will be no cheaper in a boat that size compared to 30+ feet, but much riskier, much more uncomfortable, and much slower.
@futurebird "avoid large big storms", is a nice goal. I grew up on the Gulf, among people who messed around in boats, everywhere from hobby to lifetime job (my dad among them, and my cousins, and my dad's high school friends) and sometimes you miss that goal. But generally they survive to tell stories about the experience.
@futurebird
I can't speak to the smallest size of boat that's considered seaworthy. However I can speak about weather forecasting. Most of the time you can plan a route that will avoid the worst weather. There are companies that provide that service. I don't know what areas you plan to sail, but for small private leisure boats I would think there are broad no go areas if you want to stay safe, or simply not miserable. Like North Atlantic in winter (among others).
I've never been in close proximity with such large ships, but I can imagine the serious danger of a close encounter with a huge moving mass of steel.
One could be forgiven for not understanding what could prevent somebody from detecting these big ships, when they're noticeable in the distance. The situation I can imagine is that the book talks about avoiding them in extreme weather conditions when the large ships are not visible from a safe distance.
They look like gentle giants somewhere in the distance, until they are suddenly close and fast and hurtling towards you, much faster than you. Scales are deceiving unless you have enough experience.
At least that's my (limited) experience.
Btw. ships are not the only thing to avoid. Much worse are lost containers, floating almost completely submerged, invisible to radar. Really good reason to keep watch, especially near shipping lanes.
@futurebird
I once went on a sailing trip through the C&D canal with my brother and dad. I saw my first and only container ship from the water during that trip, and the scale truly caught me off guard @neckspike@fivetonsflax