I'M CONSIDERING 2 DIFFERENT SAILBOATS....THE CAPE DORY 36 OR THE NIAGRA HINTERHOELLER 35 OR ANOTHER.....PLS PROVIDE YOUR VIEWS.....I NEED THE BOAT TO HAVE BLUEWATER CAPABILITY WHEN I NEED IT TO BUT WILL BE DOING MOSTLY COASTAL CRUISING ALONG THE KEYS AND SAILING THE CARIBBEAN.....NO OCEAN CROSSINGS INTENDED.....WHAT BOAT DO YOU RECOMMEND ??.....THANK YOU !
OPINION : CAPE DORY 36 VS. NIAGRA 35 OR OTHER....IS A FULL KEEL AND SKEG RUDDER THE BEST OPTION ??
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Ok, welcome Sailing Free, first there is no need to use all caps. All caps is generally considered to be yelling or shouting. Not sure that this is way you want to come off.
To your question, both boats are good boats, well built and suitable for coastal sailing. The Niagara 35 probably has a larger interior.
To your question, both boats are good boats, well built and suitable for coastal sailing. The Niagara 35 probably has a larger interior.
No yelling intended....the caps are just there to make it clearer....that whole caps = screaming is more of a gen X gen Y /snowflake thing which I think is pretty stupid.....but no yelling intended
I'm not talking about cosmetic interior factors.....I'm talking about structural factors and quality of build
Sorry, but it's simply a courtesy "thing." "gen" or "snowflake" is almost always projection. Sad...folk. So? Stop yelling. Thx, see how easy it is to keep caps lock off? Your "reason" to turn it on is, well, "snowflakie"...
I'm nowhere near either of those Gens, and it reads like yelling to me! Also, just plain harder to read.
Ahhhh....that's called PROJECTION of Snow-flake-ness onto someone who is 54 years old ( probably old enough to be your father
. ) and NOT a snowflake . ......see how easy that was guy ?? 
Welcome SailingFree, Lets start this discussion again.
RE: St Petersburg and Florida waters in general.......Draft is of importance to me and might be a prime consideration to you for coastal sailing in the Sunshine State. Compare draft of each boat along with other factors you can observe in the boat as you visit. Engine condition, accommodations, ground tackle, sail condition, functioning AC, and many more things must be considered. Enjoy the search.
RE: St Petersburg and Florida waters in general.......Draft is of importance to me and might be a prime consideration to you for coastal sailing in the Sunshine State. Compare draft of each boat along with other factors you can observe in the boat as you visit. Engine condition, accommodations, ground tackle, sail condition, functioning AC, and many more things must be considered. Enjoy the search.
Practical sailor did a review of the Niagara 35 and spoke well of the build quality - Niagara 31/35 - Practical Sailor. I can’t find a similar review from them of the Cape Dory 36. Anecdotally the Cape Dory’s I’ve seen have had more gelcoat cracks than other boats their age.
+1 for 31Seahorse’s point about draft, but the Niagara only draws 2” more than the Cape Dory, so no big distinction there, and either is probably ok at around 5’.
The full keel design is traditionally favored over the fin and spade for cruising, but people have used fin and spade designs in plenty of blue water crossings too, and it’ll probably sail to weather a lot better than the full keel. The Niagara rates about 27 seconds per mile faster than the Cape Dory in PHRF, which is not an insignificant amount.
And PS studies have shown that the readability of all caps is less than properly cased text.
+1 for 31Seahorse’s point about draft, but the Niagara only draws 2” more than the Cape Dory, so no big distinction there, and either is probably ok at around 5’.
The full keel design is traditionally favored over the fin and spade for cruising, but people have used fin and spade designs in plenty of blue water crossings too, and it’ll probably sail to weather a lot better than the full keel. The Niagara rates about 27 seconds per mile faster than the Cape Dory in PHRF, which is not an insignificant amount.
And PS studies have shown that the readability of all caps is less than properly cased text.
You have touched one of the third rails of sailing (anchor choice and guns on boats being the other major third rail discussions). You will get a wide variety of responses, many of which are parroting other armchair sailors or saying their choice of boat is best
My response is there are no such things as bluewater boats, only bluewater crews. I have seen morons sink Westsails within a few miles of harbor and met competent crews that have sailed a Beneteau around the world. There is no specific list of features that make one boat safer than another. Everything on a boat is a compromise and you need to evaluate those compromises for what fits you best.
So why are you limiting your search to these two boats? Is there something about them that appeals to you or did you read about them on a list somewhere.
Good luck and fair winds
My response is there are no such things as bluewater boats, only bluewater crews. I have seen morons sink Westsails within a few miles of harbor and met competent crews that have sailed a Beneteau around the world. There is no specific list of features that make one boat safer than another. Everything on a boat is a compromise and you need to evaluate those compromises for what fits you best.
So why are you limiting your search to these two boats? Is there something about them that appeals to you or did you read about them on a list somewhere.
Good luck and fair winds
Well, you are completely incorrect on this point. Anything written in all caps is more difficult to read. Go do some research on typography and readability.Ahhhh....that's called PROJECTION of Snow-flake-ness onto someone who is 54 years old ( probably old enough to be your father
And the attention you get by using all caps throughout a post is not the kind of attention you wanted. While you claim to be 54, your statements are more reminiscent of the middle school kids I worked with.
If you have a question, ask it politely and with the respect the hundreds of years of experience the folks on this forum have.
The question you asked is also unanswerable in any meaningful way. If you are seeking information, then ask a good question that can be answered and ask it with some respect for the very knowledgeable folks here.
And by the way, if you had a tenth of the experience and knowledge that @Stu Jackson has, you wouldn't need to ask your original question.
Here are a couple of points to consider. Fin keels, with or without wings, leave the prop and rudder more exposed to entanglement with lobster pot lines and the like. Full keels are nearly impossible to back up. If choosing a fin keel with wings look for one where the rudder is not the first thing to strike bottom in too shallow water. Fin keels when anchored can and do wrap the anchor line (if nylon and not all chain) around the keel if a kellet is not deployed. There are also centerboard keels to be considered. You are in a great place to be able to consider all the trade offs and to pick the best boat for your needs. None will be perfect for all conditions. Choose carefully.
I can’t understand comments like the above. Effectively, a boat is a boat is a boat, etc.? It’s nonsense. Take the example of the full-keel boat where the rudder and screw are well protected being incorporated into the design of the keel, versus the fin keel and separate spade-rudder design. Or, a skeg-hung rudder versus one that is fully exposed on the end of the rudder post. Far at sea, on your own, the protected rudders are much less likely to be damaged if the boat collides with debris. Far less likely to snag some floating line, etc. Far less likely for the keel and rudder to be severely damaged with an accidental grounding.
Blue water means sailing the open sea, far from safe harbor; in remote areas. Now-a-days people think to set off the EPIRB, PLB, or SAT phone on becoming disabled or worse. Then, when those classic boats were built, that was much less of an option, if one at all. The boats promised to sail the blue waters w/o the skipper and crew having to think about “rescue.“ If you want to test the bluewater chops of you and your boat, leave your GPS, chartplotter, AIS, EPIRB, SAT phone, cell phone, even weather fax, etc., at home, and set out in your Catalina 27, MacGregor 26, or whatever, for the Horn. Call when you get back. You’re allowed HAM and/or SSB.
BTW: Most boats now and “then” are/were lost due to hard groundings. Clearly, if that was a principal risk sailing in the ‘70’s and early ‘8O’s, then you’d want a boat that could survive it and get underway again, etc.
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The starting question comes up, regularly. Often the OP has already read old cruising books with strong opinions by authors with (sometimes...) actual good experience.
(sigh...)
Those authors sometimes do not acknowledge how much of their survival was due to chance and luck.
Thing is, there are unwarranted assumptions in even the underlying basic details. Construction never seems to get its due. (!!)
For instance, a fair number of skeg rudders have a design weakness in the skeg itself, and some simply break off in big seas. Some spade rudders are poorly designed both with regard to the shaft and support, and/or the inside tube where it is glassed into place. The lower gudgeon on keel-attached rudders is a hidden wear/failure point, and may or may not have been well-designed to start with.
As for pot warps, tucking the prop up behind a keel or inside an aperture does make it more difficult to suck in a line. "Difficult" is not the same as "inconceivable" to borrow a great movie reference. (I have experienced a crab pot line snarl at sea with the prop up close behind a fin keel.)
A fin keel is only as strong as the casting and bolting and inside framing. Build quality and engineering is very very important. That's why the cheaper-end 'party-time interior' production boats are riskier for sustained time at sea.
Note that any boat will depend, to some extent on both luck and planning to avoid dangerous sea states. The built in quality just moves the survivability needle further towards the 'life' side of the dial for us.
Remember, that with luck you can get to Tahiti and be sipping a cold French beer in your cockpit, like that young guy written up in a Cruising World article in the late 70's.... with his Nat. Geographic map for navigation, in his Catalina 27.
Most of us did adventuresome (and sometimes stupid) things when young, and most of us survived to lurk on the internet in our golden years..... except those that died in a rice paddy.... which I avoided with the luck of being assigned somewhere NOT 'in country'.
Luck... is a good thing!
But, please... just stop obsessing about type of keep or rudder. After getting opinions from total strangers on the 'net, start talking to surveyors about boat quality. Pay them for their time and expertise; it's worth your life.
Take notes.
ps: both the Niagara and CD are strong-enough boats, but I prefer the hull-to-deck joint construction on the Hinterhoeller boat. I owned a smaller Niagara for a decade and sailed it hard.
(sigh...)
Those authors sometimes do not acknowledge how much of their survival was due to chance and luck.
Thing is, there are unwarranted assumptions in even the underlying basic details. Construction never seems to get its due. (!!)
For instance, a fair number of skeg rudders have a design weakness in the skeg itself, and some simply break off in big seas. Some spade rudders are poorly designed both with regard to the shaft and support, and/or the inside tube where it is glassed into place. The lower gudgeon on keel-attached rudders is a hidden wear/failure point, and may or may not have been well-designed to start with.
As for pot warps, tucking the prop up behind a keel or inside an aperture does make it more difficult to suck in a line. "Difficult" is not the same as "inconceivable" to borrow a great movie reference. (I have experienced a crab pot line snarl at sea with the prop up close behind a fin keel.)
A fin keel is only as strong as the casting and bolting and inside framing. Build quality and engineering is very very important. That's why the cheaper-end 'party-time interior' production boats are riskier for sustained time at sea.
Note that any boat will depend, to some extent on both luck and planning to avoid dangerous sea states. The built in quality just moves the survivability needle further towards the 'life' side of the dial for us.
Remember, that with luck you can get to Tahiti and be sipping a cold French beer in your cockpit, like that young guy written up in a Cruising World article in the late 70's.... with his Nat. Geographic map for navigation, in his Catalina 27.
Most of us did adventuresome (and sometimes stupid) things when young, and most of us survived to lurk on the internet in our golden years..... except those that died in a rice paddy.... which I avoided with the luck of being assigned somewhere NOT 'in country'.
Luck... is a good thing!
But, please... just stop obsessing about type of keep or rudder. After getting opinions from total strangers on the 'net, start talking to surveyors about boat quality. Pay them for their time and expertise; it's worth your life.
Take notes.
ps: both the Niagara and CD are strong-enough boats, but I prefer the hull-to-deck joint construction on the Hinterhoeller boat. I owned a smaller Niagara for a decade and sailed it hard.
Regarding the all-cap text, I see it differently. Capitalized text is not shouting; it’s EMPHASIS. But, if the whole text is capitalized there is no “emphasis.” So, you’re left with a bunch of text that’s harder to read than it needs to be b/c it’s mono-text. Same as when all is written in lower case. There are reasons for the combination of caps and lowercase in sentences. If you wish someone to read and comprehend your text, then follow the rules of good writing, etc. BTW. Someone attending elementary school in the 1970’s was at the leading edge of some nonsense generational “norms“ such as mentioned above that have since overtaken us. However, not everybody succumbed.
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Design, construction, & wear are three different topics. The full-keel/skeg designs reflect intended use. Construction quality is a subject of price/cost. Wear is a matter of age and use. True, this discussion began with the search for an old boat, perhaps one DESIGNED for bluewater cruising as experienced in past decades. There is a range of qualities of construction. Go for a Pacific SeaCraft, Valliant, Island Packet, or Moody to escape the construction quality variable.
I tend to use the
I also think it's probably better to have a protected rudder with a skeg in front of it and also a protected propeller with a full keel in front in the event you hit some kind of partially submerged object floating in the night sea....it seems that all of the boats on
Bluewaterboats.org have at least displacements in the >= 15,000 pound range and ballasts >= 5,000 pounds for a total weight of at least 20,000 pounds overall...... those are just some factors I look at. What about you ?
I tend to use the Comfort Ratios and Capsize Tendencies of every boat as a partial input in guaging the Bluewater strength of every boat I consider...as found here. These performance ratios are officially published for every sailboat
I also think it's probably better to have a protected rudder with a skeg in front of it and also a protected propeller with a full keel in front in the event you hit some kind of partially submerged object floating in the night sea....it seems that all of the boats on
Bluewaterboats.org have at least displacements in the >= 15,000 pound range and ballasts >= 5,000 pounds for a total weight of at least 20,000 pounds overall...... those are just some factors I look at. What about you ?
Yeah, but the problem with Island Packets and the like is that they're all WAYYYY OVER-PRUCED relative to cheaper options like a 1980s Cape Dory or an Albert or an Endeavour 37, etc.
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