# Convert a Racer



## Bryan Donovan (Jul 11, 2019)

Is converting a Racer for a Spartan Liveaboard a thing? They seem very utilitarian like a jeep which I like. Saw a 1977 42' Farr which someone did convert for "Day Sailing and Weekend Overnighting" but has anyone taking it a bit further?

How crazy is this idea?


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

I considered doing this when I bought my current Farr 11.6. The answer really depends on the specific design in question. In the mid-1970's most of Farr's designs were IOR race boats. My sense is that these were more well-rounded and forgiving designs than many of the IOR boats of that era, and would have been well engineered. They would probably be fractionally rigged and more likely than not have a very small spar section that depended on running backstays and maybe checkstays. They would have a lot of room down below but it would be nearly bereft of furnishings and headroom for most of the length of the boat. The cockpit would be huge and the area forward of the cockpit short in length. If you wanted to adapt it to be a live aboard cruising boat, you would probably want to shorten the cockpit and extend the cabin trunk. 

If you are looking at "Farr n Away" that looks like a nicely modified Farr 2 tonner. My guess is that is design number 67 and those were a good design for that era. It looks like a previous owner has expanded the useful living space below with very large coaming bumps. In thus case they are not especially attractive. Many of Farr's race boats of that era were cold-molded (wood) and so need to be carefully surveyed by someone who really knows epoxy saturated wooden boats. The teak decks look like they are near the end of their useful lifespan and would be a deal killer for me.

In my case, after a lot of soul searching and very carefully considering doing this (as in measuring the boat, drafting a layout, calculating costs and my time) on a number of specific boats, (Tripp 38, Tripp 41, Tanton 1 tonner, Soverel 39, Farr Garrett 41, J-41) I ultimately decided that it would be cheaper and easier, and that I would end up with a nicer boat to own, which would be easier to sell, if I simply found a performance cruiser. That is what I ended up doing. 18 years later, I have no doubts that in my case it was the right decision. 

Jeff


----------



## outbound (Dec 3, 2012)

There was a Ostar racer that sat on the hard in Stonington Connecticut. Every year would check it out when we went by cruising. Finally spoke to the yard manager. He told me was sailed there by a Brit and left. A bit of a yard bill was owned. Asked for contact information. After yard cleared it with owner got it and called. It was an S & S design built by south hants England.
Survey showed no mechanical nor structural defects. Suit of sails were perfect. Only use was that one race. Had two pipe berths but full head and galley. Low balled the owner and bought it. 
Was friendly with a shipwright and boat builder at the time. He helped lay out an interior and even drew “cut here” lines on the benzeel I bought. Still took incredible amount of time. Subbed out canvas, cushions and the like. After a year with all the rough in turned it over to the shipwright/builder. Got it back and was sailing her in 2 years from purchase. It was a great boat. Easy to single, fast and sturdy. Ended up selling for more money then I put in when I moved on but believe that was from sweetheart deal friend gave me and ridiculously low purchase price. 
Would say unless you are very skilled the wood work for an interior is difficult for an amateur to lay out. The cuts are virtually all curves. You probably get the main structural bulkhead for the shrouds but little else. Understanding the ergonomics is not obvious either. Worthwhile to get a pro involved to help. I had a leg up as there was a nautor Swan to work from. Could just modify interior from that boat. 
Second it’s very time consuming and you need to be very attentive. Otherwise you waste materials which is hugely expensive. Not something you can reasonably do after work hours. So would have a fallback before starting. Either a shipwright or someone with those skills who can help or take over if you become overwhelmed.


----------



## Bryan Donovan (Jul 11, 2019)

Yep, that is the one I was looking at.

sailboatlistings.com/view/74794

But, I also saw a couple others and was wondering about. I gave myself a year to research and make a decision. So far just beginning, again for the second time and threw out all my old ideas to try to look fresh. I assume there is a spectrum of Racer/cruisers to evaluate like this one.

sailboatlistings.com/view/34369

The Farr appealed to me because it was Spartan and not a lot on the inside that would be worn out and needing care. Like I said, like my 77 Jeep. But as mentioned, I would need to learn about the hull construction back then. Also researching IOR race boats, I am guessing I need to understand more about the stability as well?

Thank you for the replies.


----------



## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

This seems like an awful lot of work. On the other hand you can do the fitting to have exactly what you want given the restriction of the hull form. Be careful to compute the added weight of the build out properly... it will impact trim and performance. You might need a naval architect to help with that.


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Bryan Donovan said:


> But as mentioned, I would need to learn about the hull construction back then. Also researching IOR race boats, I am guessing I need to understand more about the stability as well?


Below is a very long article that I wrote for another purpose but it includes a lot of discussion on IOR hull forms and rigs. Its also a little out of date since the IMS rule dies about a decade ago due to complexities in scoring a race.

But first, I will note that Bruce Farr was a kid in his mid- 20's when he designed this boat. He had been a wonder, taking the racing world by storm with what were truly innovative race boats that were fast and easier to handle than the standard IOR racers of the day. But this was still a period when race boats needed huge crews and counted heavily on that crew weight out on the rail for stability. The standard IOR 2 tonner was a physically demanding boat to sail even with a big crew. Farr's designs were typically a little less demanding. Typical IOR boats tended to be short on stability and squirrely to steer. Farr had come out of racing dinghies and so his designs tended to be have a little more form stability and more predictable steering. They still were typically sailed by big crews.

"IOR vs IMS type forms
If you ever needed to cite an example that demonstrated how unintended consequences can have a disastrous impact, at first glance the IOR rating rule would seemingly be a good case study. In modern times there is a tendency to revile the IOR rule and its adverse impact on yacht design during the period that it existed, but like so many things in sailing, that hindsight view tends to be an over-simplification. To understand the IOR rating rule it is important to first understand what rating rules are, and to look back at the events that resulted in the IOR rule.

Rating Rules- Their purpose and Origin:

Almost from the beginning of yacht racing, there has been an effort to develop a way of comparing in a fair and equitable manner the relative performance of vessels of differing designs. Since the factors that control the speed of a vessel are extremely difficult to quantify, over time a wide range of simplified rating and handicapping rules have been crafted and used. It is important to understand that there are essentially three ways that boats are rated relative each other.

The first simply looks at the past performance of individual vessels and based in their observed speeds and tries to assign a rating that corrects for their relative performance. This is often referred to as a 'handicap' rating system. In the U.S. a good example of a handicap rating system would be PHRF.

The second method of rating boats would be a measurement type rating system. Under a measurement type rating system a discrete number of measurements are taken and these measurements are fed into a formula that attempts to predict the relative performance of the vessel.

Measurements can include (both on deck or at the waterline or at some point in between) lengths , beam, draft, sail area, displacement, girths and a wide range of other increasingly esoteric measurement points. The rules typically stipulate where on the vessel and its gear that these measurements are taken and will often stipulate the state of loading, etc. as well. The Universal, International, MORC, CCA, and IOR rules are prime examples of measurement type rating rules.

The short comings of a simplified measurement rule typically result from the fact that there will always be a limited number of measurements taken and these measurements are taken at known points. Therefore, it becomes possible to distort the boat so that these measurements produce a boat that will appear to be slower under the rule in question than it is in real life. Designers have consistently quickly learned precisely how to distort their design to beat the rule. Generally, speaking these distortions mean that boats actually are slower in real life sailing, but they still are not as slow as the rule thinks they are. And because the hull and rig have been distorted to cheat the rule, often ease of handling, seaworthiness, motion comfort and other desirable sailing characteristics are compromised as well. This becomes even more the case where the rating formulas have been skewed in an effort to respond to some particular goal of the rule writers.

The third rating method is a comparatively modern extension of the basic principles behind the measurement rule. Starting in the 1970's, with the advent of the then available and somewhat primitive computers of the era, yacht design theorists began to quantify the speed generating factors of rig, weight, and hull data at a comparative fine level so that they could relatively accurately predict the performance of a given vessel, in a given loading, wind speed, with a given sail inventory. These computer programs were generically referred to as a VPP (velocity prediction programs). With better computers, these early VPP's became easier to share, and operate, and it wasn't long before the idea occurred to a group at MIT that a high enough quality VPP could be adapted to rate vessels fairly. And since individual designs do better or worse depending on the specific conditions on race day that they are sailing in, these early VPP based rules also included mechanisms to adjust the boat's rating to the wind speed on the course and the sailing points of the race. This early VPP based rating approach eventually became the MHS, which later evolved into the IMS rule.

In theory this should have been the major break through that allowed boats of any type to race against each other. But of course, like any other rating method, designers eventually learned to 'game the system' and ended up producing IMS type form boats. The good news about VPP derived boats is that Designers quickly began to develop boats which were well rounded designs and which were designed to be fast relative to their lengths on almost any point of sail. The theory is that a fast boat can sail a little further in order to reach portions of the race course that then allows them to take tactical advantage of better wind or current.

Type Forms are hull shapes and rigs that are optimized to a specific racing rule. The IOR produced very specific hull and rig characteristics. It was hoped that IMS would fairly rate boats without a specific Hull Type Form being developed. That didn't happen. While there are notable differences between IMS designs, for the most part, IMS boats are just as Hull Type Formed as MORC and IOR boats. On the other hand, just about any boat can be rated under the IMS rule and can race to one degree of success or another.

Initially, the IMS actually produced really good sailing boats. Designers began paying attention to motion, since a boat with an uncomfortable motion for humans, also had a motion that disrupted the flow of air over the sails, and water over the keel. The IMS originally included minimum accommodation standards so these were comparatively comfortable boats down below (for a race boat). Sail plans and deck layouts were optimized for efficiency and ease of handling. Without the artificial incentives of a measurement rule, masthead rigs and large overlapping head sails became somewhat obsolete.

But like any other rule, there were short comings to the IMS as well. Some were intentional. The IMS almost from its inception was intended to allow and encourage dual purpose boats, racer-cruisers, or cruiser-racers to race against each other. But with the demise of the IOR rule, racers began complaining that the IMS had also killed grand prix level racing. Eventually the IMS developed a parallel rule that encouraged the development of grand prix level race boats, and with that the rule seemed to go into decline as racer-cruisers were no longer able to compete with these purpose built race boats.

The other issues that lead to the decline of the IMS rule was that it was wildly expensive to digitize a boat at the fine level that was required to produce a meaningful VPP and managing races where the Race Committee had to choose the rating based on wind speed and direction, made race management a nightmare.

This led to an effort to produce simplified rating rules such as the ORC, and IRC, which is where we are today. Unfortunately these simplified rules represent a giant step backward in terms of the designers learning how the rule works in great detail, and producing rule beating designs which are not necessarily better sailing boats and certainly are not dual purpose boats.

IOR vs IMS hull type forms

This brings us back to the original topic of this article, IOR vs IMS type forms. There are substantive differences between the IOR and IMS type forms. The IOR hull form tended to have a deeper canoe body, more of a raked stem and reversed transom, a wider entry angle, more flare, a narrower run, longer shallower keel forms for the same draft, and a very distinct section that resulted from the measurement points used in IOR.

The IOR rule was actually a series of rules, each intended to correct the excesses of the one before it, so this distinct hull form was less pronounced in early and last IOR boats. The earliest of the IOR rules was the IOR-1 rule, which produced the best all around sea-boats of the IOR era. But these boats tended to have massive tumblehome (a product of the measurement points and methods). This tumble home resulted in boats with a lack of reserve stability. Almost any design has a point at which the stability of the boat drops off suddenly. This is a product of the geometry of the topsides and deck and usually occurs near the point at which the deck enters the water. In the case of these early IOR-1 boats, this point occurred earlier as there was no flare to continue to build stability. While it can be argued that the loss of stability occurred progressively rather than suddenly, it was easier to get lulled into trouble since there was no sense that you were on the edge as there was with later designs.

To correct this, the IOR adopted a different set of measurement points and formulas and almost instantly the IOR-1 boats were obsolete as race boats, and the heavy distortions of IOR-1 also meant they were also pretty mediocre cruising designs.

From IOR-2 onward, IOR boars had a very distinctive hull form, marked by a unique three-plane sectional shape. This section had a relative flat area on the bottom that radiused into relatively flat sections on either side that sloped up toward the waterline. These are then radiused into a hard turn of the bilge at or above the water line that proceed to fair into fairly straight flared topside. This profile tends to have mediocre initial form stability but quickly develops more stability as the hull turns in the bilge at the water line become immersed.

This shape was solely IOR rule driven because of the IOR location for measurement points and the big penalty for initial stability. It was not fast and as a type did a lot to foster the common impression that that all light boats automatically have unbearably quick motions regarding motion in a seaway, particularly as described by C.A. Marchaj in his book "Seaworthiness". I just had the chance to review this book again and the critical research was clearly performed on IOR type forms.

IOR Boat knockdown by jeff_halp, on Flickr

An IOR-III hull form in extremis

Mojo wipe out by jeff_halp, on Flickr

An IMS hull form. In comparing the two note the differences with the IMS boat having the elliptical sections, more form stability and more powerful stern sections, and its center of buoyancy located further aft to improve the boat's motion characteristics and tracking.

In many ways the IMS Hull form addresses the criticism of the IOR hull form and the concerns raised by the Fastnet Tragedy. The IMS type form, by contrast to the IOR, has a shallower canoe body and a much rounder underbody. The shallower canoe body gives greater form stability while the rounded sections give a bit less. The combination results in a similar, but perhaps a bit greater initial form stability. But because the hull form does not have the hard bilges, the hull does not have the acceleration as it flops toward the turn of the bilge or the snap de-acceleration as the reserve buoyancy of the second turn of the bilge kicks in. (The IOR's hard bilge was also a contributor to the IOR boat's ability to produce spectacular wipe outs and death rolls.)

Another distinguishing feature of the IMS type form is the keel and it relation to the shallow canoe body. IMS boats have very high aspect ratio foils. This can occur because the span between the shallow canoe body and the slightly greater draft is longer than can be achieved in other hull types. Normally this would result in two problems, lack of stability from the minimal amount of volume in the keel foil and lack of directional stability from the short foil chord length.

The stability problem has been addressed with creatively shaped bulbs that are also intended to reduce drag due to tip vortex generation. The added weight of the bulb keel also increased the limit of positive stability and with it the chance of quicker capsize recovery. These bulbs result in tremendous stability but as a side effect they also greatly improve seaworthiness and the comfort of the boats in a seaway. The long foil span has a dramatic dynamic dampening effect on the roll rate and angle. The bulb also increases the boat's roll inertia and thereby helps decrease the roll rate as well.

Directional stability is handled in a different manner that would be traditional. In the case of the IMS boat, the long water line and exceedingly fair hull result in relatively straight waterlines, (even when heeled a bit). The directional stability of this hull type form comes almost exclusively from the canoe body. This actually works reasonably well. One issue with the IMS Hull form is the heavy dependence of dynamic loadings. At very slow speed the keel and rudder foils are next to useless, but as soon as there is a little way on they become very powerful and efficient. At even low speed they make very little leeway and are very maneuverable with very light helm loads. This makes the IMS hull type very suitable to vane type self steering or electronic autopilots with low battery usage.

To some extent the lessons of the IMS hull form has filtered into production boats. Recent hull designs by major manufacturers such as Beneteau, Catalina, Hunter, Dehler and Sabre to mention a few clearly reflect some aspects of the IMS and Open Class Hull type form. I consider this trend to be generally good, but I believe that to really work a boat with the IMS hull type needs to take advantage of modern materials engineering and be light. As the bow becomes blunter, the foils shortened, and the canoe body deeper, the hull type form looses its advantage and can quickly become a far less successful vessel. Also, without intending to start a verbal food fight, some of these manufacturers are not doing the careful engineering that is necessary to safely achieve the light weights necessary. The grand prix versions of IMS boats feel amazingly rigid. These wannabe's do not.

IOR vs IMS typeform rigs:

One of the most distinctive features of the IOR rig is the proportion between the size of its headsails and mainsail. By the early 20th century it was understood that the majority of the drive came from the leading edge of the sail. Other areas of the sail (leech), added some drive, but that these areas also added disproportionately to the drag of the sail. It was also understood that as a headsail overlapped with a mainsail, at some point, the impact of the overlap decreased the efficiency of both sails.

In an effort develop a rating rule which compensated for the performance implications of luff length relative to sail area, and the impact of overlapping headsails, in rating rules in the early 20th century began rating headsails based on the boat's 100% foretriangle, ignoring the amount of overlap in the equation. The IOR over compensated for this problem more extremely than most prior rules. The modern spinnaker further added to this perfect storm, by further incentivizing huge foretriangles since the size of the spinnaker was proportionate of the size of the foretriangle and a bigger foretriangle mean a much bigger spinnaker.

Adding to this problem was the fact that the IOR rule over-penalized standing sail area 100%foretriangle plus mainsail. Since mainsails were penalized strictly based on their sail area, mainsails became tiny, high aspect ratio sails. This tendency towards small mainsails is in stark contrast with the most efficient rigs in terms of sail area to drive, and in terms of ease of handling.

And since there as such a penalty on standing sail area, IOR typeform rigs start out under-canvassed but came to depend on huge headsails to compensate for the lack of sail area. Rather quickly this led to the development of modern multi-speed geared winches and crewmen who had been former football linebackers. But it also led to the need for very large sail inventories.

This need for large sail inventories came to be primarily as a result of the relationship of sail carrying capacity of IOR boats to their small standing sail plans. Because IOR boats tended to lack stability, which of course translated to a lack of sail carrying capacity, they were not able to stand up to a lot of sail area in a breeze, but because their rig proportions were inherently inefficient they needed a lot of sail area to sail in light air. As a result, it was critical to have a large enough sail for the windspeed, yet not so large a sail that the boat was overpowered. Even small IOR boats carried numerous genoas and spinnakers and a whole arsenal of specialized sails like bloopers, spinnaker staysails, reachers, and drifters. These were not easy boats to sail at speed, especially in the light to moderate end of the wind speed range.

By contrast, the IMS rig tends to be a fractional rig with a much greater standing sail area. Improvements in stability coupled with the greater efficiency of the low stretch sail materials, and advanced sail shaping controls, permit these boats to sail with less dependence on large over-lapping headsails and consequently smaller sail inventories. Since the low drag and high stability that is typical with IMS hull forms allows big gains when sailing hot angles vs dead downwind, IMS boats tend to have rigs optimized for deep reaching rather than running dead downwind. As a result, IMS rigs tend to employ asymmetrical spinnakers in all but the heaviest winds. "


----------



## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

Jeff_H said:


> ... this article


is Fantastic!! Thank you Jeff. The only thing would would make it better would be some line drawings with examples of the different rules.


----------



## Bryan Donovan (Jul 11, 2019)

Jeff_H said:


> Below is a very long article that I wrote for another purpose but it includes a lot of discussion on IOR hull forms and rigs. Its also a little out of date since the IMS rule dies about a decade ago due to complexities in scoring a race.
> 
> But first, I will note that Bruce Farr was a kid in his mid- 20's when he designed this boat. He had been a wonder, taking the racing world by storm with what were truly innovative race boats that were fast and easier to handle than the standard IOR racers of the day. But this was still a period when race boats needed huge crews and counted heavily on that crew weight out on the rail for stability. The standard IOR 2 tonner was a physically demanding boat to sail even with a big crew. Farr's designs were typically a little less demanding. Typical IOR boats tended to be short on stability and squirrely to steer. Farr had come out of racing dinghies and so his designs tended to be have a little more form stability and more predictable steering. They still were typically sailed by big crews.


Thanks!

One of my bigger concerns was that even though I could have a boat suited to my liking, it might not be worth it if it is too much work to sail. (Two handed or single handed)


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

I believe that "Farr n Away" is a fractional Rig. Fractional rigs are easier to sail short-handed. Farr's web page says this about the original rig design:
"The original brief called for a competitive IOR boat with a comfortable cruising interior. Deck layout was to be both useful for cruising and effective for racing. The rig was 3/4 with twin spreaders and runners and featured side stays and spreaders swept slightly aft to preserve the rig in the event of running backstays being released accidentally."

"MONIQUE, built to Design No. 67 won the overall points score at the 1978 Pan Am Clipper Cup, and is still being campaigned with success in her home port of San Francisco, CA. Several boats have been built to this design in Australia and Hong Kong"

Based on that description, this should be moderately easy boat to short-hand for a boat this size. Its also a 12,500 lb boat, which is roughly the normal displacement for a 36 footer of that era. Displacement more than length controls how easy a boat is to handle except that as a boat gets shorter for its displacement it also gets harder to handle.

For what it's worth, I typically race my 38 foot Farr single-handed. She is 3 feet shorter, a couple thousand pounds lighter, and more forgiving than a Farr 2-tonner. Then again I am a few weeks shy of 69 years old which is a great equalizer.

Synergy under Spinnaker Approaching Bridge by jeff_halp, on Flickr

Synergy Sailnet cruise beat from stern by jeff_halp, on Flickr

The one thing that they screwed up on "Farr n Away" is that the moved the traveler to the cabin top. That is a huge mistake on these boats. This boat, like my boat has a very large mainsail. The main sheet needs to attach near the end of the boom or you can't control twist, and angle of attack properly. Those adjustments are critical to being able to handle these boats in a big breeze. Between the backstay adjuster, traveler and mainsheet you can surgically depower these boats and with their easily driven hulls they can be good heavy air boats. You can also have a small AP #3 made with a very large wind range that will allow you to sail well short-handed.

In this picture it is gusting into the high teens and I am carrying the full sail plan, but with the sails bladed out. (It was blowing almost to 20 knots on the day in which the spinnaker picture above was taken as well but its probably down around 12-15 when the photo was taken.) 
6336 Synergy stern Desktop B by jeff_halp, on Flickr

Jeff


----------



## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

Thanks for this. Shiva is a 7/8 fractional single swept back spreaders. I love the small head sail and the easy to reef and depower main. Her LWL is 29'+ and displacement is 16K#. She boat does not like light winds but once it gets to 10 she gets happy and purrs at 15 and up 20 off the wind with full sail. Above that I need to reef. I don't sail the boat with more than 15° of heel. Just a little weather helm but she can sail a close reach without a helmsman when properly tirmmed. Love the fractional rig and the boat is easy to sail. Deep fin with full skeg. On passages to/from Bermuda from LIS it's 4 1/2 day... so the boat is happy in the ocean!


----------



## zzmeyer (Aug 31, 2014)

I would suggest re reading the post by Jeff H. Spot on. I primarily raced IOR boats decades ago and while you could reduce sail area to make it more cruiser friendly they were, in general, purposely designed to be squirrelly for a rating advantage. Particularly downwind it was very difficult in a sea to keep them sailing flat.


----------



## Bryan Donovan (Jul 11, 2019)

Thanks all!

I didn't preference by background to the question so apologize for that. I am not an experienced sailor. I took sailing lessons on a 37 foot, steel hull, center cockpit back in the 90s and didn't do much after that. I think another question I would have had on another thread was is a boat like the Farr mentioned forgiving enough to let someone with lack my lack of experience to grow into to? Given that I do everything I can prior, retaking lessons on other boats...

As for the conversion, I could have been more specific. I was thinking it had a head, a berth, stove, and a sink. My conversion would have likely consisted of some extra batteries, a dodger and bimini, some sort of salon table and a flat-screen TV. That is about as far as I was going.

It was really nice to get this level of feedback so quick on my first day and the first question on sailnet.

Thanks again and I will keep taking input.


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Bryan Donovan said:


> I didn't preference by background to the question so apologize for that. I am not an experienced sailor. I took sailing lessons on a 37 foot, steel hull, center cockpit back in the 90s and didn't do much after that. I think another question I would have had on another thread was is a boat like the Farr mentioned forgiving enough to let someone with lack my lack of experience to grow into to? Given that I do everything I can prior, retaking lessons on other boats....


I did not realize that you are relatively new to sailing. That somewhat shines a different light on this. I will start with the specifics of the Farr 2 tonner. I would suggest that the best way to metaphorically think of the Farr 2-tonner is to think of a 1970's era grand prix Formula 1 race car. Although slower, harder to drive and more dangerous to drive at speed than a modern Formula 1 car, none the less, in the right hands, it is still capable of being driven at very high speeds with a lot more safety than your average daily driver. And no matter how capable the Formula 1 car is at speed, it would make a really poor Drivers Education vehicle.

The Farr 2-tonner is somewhat the same way. At one time, this particular boat was racing at the very pinnacle of world class racing and winning major international events. It has a lot of tools that allow it to sail fast and well in light weather or heavy conditions. That comes with a price. Boats like these requires a higher level of skill to safely sail in a broad range of conditions. The skills required would include an intimate knowledge of sail trim and boat handling. In reality looking at the spectrum of sailors who are out there, including many if not most very experienced sailors, it is pretty rare to find that understanding of sail handling outside of experienced racers.

The point being, these old grand prix racers are a very poor choice for a beginning sailor. But beyond the technical issues with an old grand prix race boat. Plus this is a big boat. I am a technical adviser to a couple who do Youtube Videos. At one point they introduced me a couple who just started sailing and bought their first boat. They proudly told me that the bought a new 52 foot serious cruiser and that they planned learn to sail to sail it over the summer and then sail it around the world and wanted to know what my thoughts were. I suggested they buy a cheap small boat to learn to sail on, and sail the living daylights out of that boat for a year, before doing anything major with the big boat. That they will learn much quicker sailing a small boat and much more safely. And then I went on to say that even if they had to donate it or even just give it away, they would save a lot of money and time vs using the big boat as a learning platform.

They replied that they thought that big boats are safer than small boats, and my response was, 'No matter what kind of boat you are on, things will go wrong while you are learning to sail. With a small boat you can often man-handle your way out of trouble but on a big boat, serious and expensive damage is more likely to occur. And way more important than that, the kinds of minor errors that are likely to simply beat someone up on a small boat, is way more likely to maim or kill you on big boat. "

Now then, you are not proposing something that is as irrational as those folks, and it sounds like you have more reasonable expectations for the learning cycle and long term sailing agenda. As sailors there is no one right level of knowledge that everyone ascribes to. Minimally, I suggest that to safely operate a boat, a skipper needs to understand very basic sail trim and boat handling, very basic engine trouble shooting, the rules of the road, basic piloting and navigation, basic first aid, and maybe how to use a vhf radio. There are sailors who have crossed oceans with little more than that.

But for others of us, there is a desire to truly understand all of these areas, and a lot more topics, at a very high level of proficiency. They spend years building skills so that they become natural to who they are.

Most sailors are arrayed on a spectrum between those two extremes, and there is nothing inherently wrong with aspiring to any level of knowledge with that range as long as you understand the limits of what you know and do not purposely put yourself and your crew in harms way by doing things that are way of above your skill level. These comments are in no way meant to put you or any new sailor down. Everyone of us had to start somewhere at the beginning.

So considering where you say you are, you would be well served to read everything that you can get your hands on, watch YouTube explanations of the various aspects of learning to sail, come to places like this with questions that help you better understand those things which may seem counter-intuitive, and get and sail the living daylights out of a small enough boat that you can quickly develop the skills to safely manage a bigger boat. While you may be able to learn the very most basics of sailing on a 37 foot steel hulled center cockpit cruising boat, it would take a lifetime to learn to sail well on a platform like that. You would be way ahead starting with a 23 to 27 foot, well used, light to moderate weight, fin keel, spade rudder, sloop rigged production boat. Around here you can get serviceable boats fitting that description for free or almost free. You will need to put some sweat equity into them and store them, but its a great way to start if your goal is to learn quickly.

If your goal is to live aboard, then I suggest that you start with two boats, one to live on and one to learn on. In the long run that will turn out to be the least expensive way to go.

Those are my thoughts for the morning, but for nowI need to get back to work,

Jeff


----------



## outbound (Dec 3, 2012)

We bought a psc34 for the sole goal of teaching my wife to sail and the basic skills needed to cruise. Only held to on it while the Outbound was spec’d and built. Best decision ever. She still misses that boat. Jeff as usual gives good advice. I put in a fair amount of sweat equity and some boat units to redo electronics. Still came out nearly even. So don’t fret the money. In the long run it is worthwhile and not expensive.


----------



## jeremiahblatz3 (Jul 3, 2018)

I have no experience with this, but these folks are living on a racing tri: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBgq4-qZn5FEfrli2SmX7w


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

jeremiahblatz3 said:


> I have no experience with this, but these folks are living on a racing tri: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBgq4-qZn5FEfrli2SmX7w


I suggest in this case it is not so much about whether the original poster can live on a race boat, but whether he can learn to sail on a large and sophisticated racer.

The choice to buy an old race boat to live on or go cruising isn't all that unusual since you can often buy an obsolete race boat very cheaply. They often come with a lot of sails and really good electronics and hardware. But they also come with Spartan interiors, small engines, minimal ground tackle and ground tackle handling gear. They may offer very sophisticated engineering but may be a little fragile compared to a dedicated cruising boat.

Depending on the period when they were built, race boats can either be harder or easier to handle short handed, but as a broad generality, they require more skill to sail.
Respectfully

Jeff


----------



## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

When folks ask what boat they should buy for a liveaboard, in my opinion, it should be the most comfortable home they can find. Most of us sail perhaps 10% of the time, so the rest of one's needs would be subordinate to that.
Though the idea of redesigning and rebuilding an interior, as many have already posted, is very attractive, it would be a terribly expensive project even if one was doing it themselves.
As a racer, my first big boat was a Phil Rhodes TransPac racer and though a fast and efficient sailboat, it was ludicrous as a cruising boat with 22 bags of sails and a reasonably spartan interior.
After our trip to Hawaii from SF in 1970, we literally traded it straight across to another young couple for a very comfortable, though slower, true 'gold plater' gaff ketch launched in 1909, which we cruised through the SoPac for 5.5 years. We never regretted it.


----------



## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

Comfort to a cruising boat is soooooooooooooooo important... underway, in bad weather, at anchor and that includes ventilation as well as motion and being dry when sailing. This means a comfortable head, and good working galley as well as a salon to hang out down below, eat, and a comfortable cockpit where several can stretch out and lie down. You want good visibility in / from the cockpit as well as protection from wind, sun, rain and spray. Berths need to be comfy for sleeping as well as getting in, out as well as putting on the bed clothes. All lines should be reachable without having to climb around the cockpit because most cruisers are essentially single handing. AP is mission critical for a cruising boat.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

No idea what "AP" means.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

It's _much_ easier to learn on a smaller boat. The smaller the boat, the faster it responds to change, and the faster the feedback loop. Pull a line, something changes. Learning happens.

On another topic, I've heard that boats like Dragons and now Farrs have controls and options that mere non-racers don't understand, and that advanced knowledge is necessary to sail them well or even sail them safely.

Those types of statements interests me.

What controls? What options? What does a Dragon or a Farr do that a cruiser doesn't? How can they kill you without warning?


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Jammer Six said:


> No idea what "AP" means.


AP in Sander0 post probably means Auto Pilot. In my discussion of the fractionally rigged race boat I may have used the term'AP #3'. The AP there referred to All Purpose. The idea is that a #3 is usually the smallest Genoa on a boat that size. It is normally a flat cut sail meant for heavy winds.

An AP #3 is cut fuller like the leading edge of a #1 Genoa and with a hollow cut luff designed for a lot of headstay sag in light winds. If it's a laminated sail it will be loaded with high modulus fiber to minimize stretch as the breeze increases. And as the breeze increases greater headstay tension is applied to straighten the headstay and flatten the sail into a heavy weather sail.

Most sails are optimized for a 7-10 knot wind range. Below or above that range the sail works but not all that well. An AP sail might work well across a 15-20 knot wind range.

AP #3's only work acceptably on boats with SA/D in the 22 plus range that have efficient backstay adjusters.

Jeff


----------



## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Jammer Six said:


> On another topic, I've heard that boats like Dragons and now Farrs have controls and options that mere non-racers don't understand, and that advanced knowledge is necessary to sail them well or even sail them safely. Those types of statements interests me.
> 
> What controls? What options? What does a Dragon or a Farr do that a cruiser doesn't? How can they kill you without warning?


I will start by prefacing my answer by addressing the two boat examples (Dragon and Farr) mentioned. I respectfully suggest that using these two terms would not be the right way to approach this question. When I sailed on Dragons, they were advanced for their day, but these were pretty primitive race boats boats in terms of sail handling gear as compared to more modern standards. They were tender and fragile and while they were early adopters of many of the hardware details that came into being in the 1970's and 1980's but Dragons did not really have the tools that distinguish later racing boats.

Farr (Bruce Farr and his company Farr Yacht Design) were yacht designers and should not be viewed as designing any one particular boat type. Over its history, Bruce Farr and Farr Yacht Design designed a broad range of boats from very successful grand prix race boats, to successful round the world racers, to production racer cruisers, to dedicated performance cruisers. What distinguished their work from other designers is that for any or the particular type of boat they designed, their designs tended to focus more on speed than a similar boat type in that same era.

So while many designers might have looked for a rating advantage by gaming the rule and producing a slower boat that out sailed it's rating, Farr's office tended to produce designs that took a small rating hit but which were effectively much faster and out sailing its rating by simply being fast. This extra speed was generally produced by Farr's office designing boats that had a lighter weight, more stability, larger sail plans, better sail shaping abilities, better motion, and lower drag than their peers.

But beyond the added speed, another thing that distinguished the designs from Farr Yacht Design was exceptionally high quality engineering. At a time when race boats tended to be fragile and tricky to sail, the boats that came out of Farr Yacht Design tended to be much lighter than similarly purposed boats of that same era but they were engineered from the start to be quite rugged as well. By and large any weight savings came from items that did not add to the structure of the boat. Part of that engineering was applied to ergonomics. Farr's boats tended to have really efficient hardware layouts and sail handling gear located where they can be more easily attended to by the crew.

The last piece of what distinguished Farr's designs was that their boats were particularly forgiving and easy boats to handle for their size, purpose, and era.

But your question (


Jammer Six said:


> "boats like Dragons and now Farrs have controls and options that mere non-racers don't understand, and that advanced knowledge is necessary to sail them well or even sail them safely. What controls? What options? What does a Dragon or a Farr do that a cruiser doesn't? How can they kill you without warning?


) is much broader than the boats designed by Farr.

More properly your question applies to race boats and higher performance cruisers in general rather than from one specific designer.

I apologize that this was longer preface than I had planned, but to finally address your question, if there is one single sail shape altering tool that modern (1970's on) performance boats have that typical cruisers do not have, it is a bendable mast and an efficient backstay adjuster. That one single paired sail shaping system allows a very quick depowering of both sails simultaneously. That means quickly achieving less heel and less weather helm in a gust and quickly powering up again in a lull. It means a much wider wind range for any particular sail. It means less wear and tear on the helmsman and crew. It means more speed. But to work the crew need to understand sail trim and how to use mast bend properly.

The other tools that performance boats have that are abnormal on cruisers might include full width travelers in the cockpit that are at or near the end of the boom allowing better control of twist upwind. Another tool, towable jib sheet leads which allow quick fine tuning of the jib so that the upper sail can be fine tuned to reduce heel/weather helm, or increase pointing ability. Often performance boats have much higher SA/D's which allow them to actually use smaller. more efficient headsails that are easier to handle. Performance boats often use higher modulus line and sail cloth. Typically they have less displacement for their length, and more efficient keels and rudders which translates to much less drag, allowing them to get by with a smaller sail plan in heavy air making them easier to handle in a breeze.

But all of that comes at price. and some with a greater risk. Boats like the 2 tonner that started this thread, have running backstays and checkstays. An accidental jibe against a tensioned runner/checkstay can bring down a rig. Not all performance boats have running backstays and checkstays and frankly they are almost non-existent on the most modern boats, but older race boats had them and needed them.

Travelers in the cockpit have the risk that during an accidental jibe, the mainsheet can catch someone and can injure (or kill) someone sitting in the cockpit or do damage to equipment caught by the sheet during a jibe. Towable jib cars are a real convenience, but if you are 'playing' your jib sheet lead, you need to be aware of where they are and where then should be to have the best performance from a speed, pointing and heel/weather helm perspective.

The higher SA/D's mean that the boat potentially has bigger sails than a similar boat with a smaller SA/D. To use that sail area effectively and safely, the crew needs to understand how to quickly and surgically depower the rig rather than have to reef or make a sail change. It may also mean that an owner needs to understand sail making enough to have sails made that take advantage of that extra sail area and the ability to depower rather than reef.

High modulus sail cloth and line means less stretch and smaller, lighter components. But the smaller diameter lines are more dangerous to handle under load and the sails and line need to be protected from chafe.

The last point in answering your question is that these more efficient keels and rudders come at a price. They tend to be deeper draft. They tend to need water moving over them to prevent leeway so pinching does not work as well. The rudders can aerate and loose steering causing the boat to round up in a knockdown. They tend not to 'track' as well so the crew needs to have the skills necessary to balance the keel and sail plan so that the boat can self-steer. Because of that, crew needs to be able to drive the boat a little harder and yet sail at a flatter heel angle so that there is less likelihood of a round-up in a big gust.

As far as these boats "killing" its crew, if that refers to my comment above, its more about the size of the boat we were discussing than the type of boat. No matter whether the boat is an 8 Ton 42 foot race boat or an 8 ton 37 foot cruiser, the sail handling loads increase with displacement, and the ability to 'manhandle' the boat decreases. As these forces increase, the crew needs to be more skilled to keep from seriously injuring themselves, the boat, or other boats. My point was not about this Farr or any other race boat as much as it was that the kinds of screw-ups that result in minor injuries or inconsequential boat damage on a smaller boat, can more easily maim or kill someone or do wildly expensive damage on a heavier boat. If for that reason alone, it does not make sense for a new sailor to try to learn to sail on a bigger boat. But in my mind an almost equally compelling reason that a new sailor should try to learn on a smaller boat is the one you gave earlier, that the feedback loop is more pronounced and so the length of the learning process becomes greatly shortened.

Lunch done, back to work......

Respectfully,

Jeff


----------



## Bryan Donovan (Jul 11, 2019)

Sorry for the slow reply, Drill weekends disrupt life a bit.

My intentions where more of the two boat solution. The second boat being the Harbor Island Yacht club lesson and rentals. Eventually getting someone experienced to take me out on mine and staying in San Diego Harbor for a long time. I am old and have to maintain a day job for several more years. No intentions of jumping out on the ocean and sailing around the world anytime soon.

And, I did start looking at smaller, though larger enough to call a live aboard (30Ft) boats. Might work out better anyways. I would still use my quasi two boat solution above.


Thank you Jeff (and all)


----------

