Hello HAS member: I am the Hunter Distributor for New Zealand. I am looking to open a dialogue with some members of the Hunter Sailing Association to discuss cruising/offshore aspects of buying a Hunter. I have several clients this end of the world that are thinking of buying – particularly a 44DS- and would like to know what kind of passages you have experience of in a larger size Hunter. How does the boat handle- How many miles per day average- Any comments that you can relate? Direct email is great: Ted@marinepromo.co.nz Thanks Ted
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Ted, this is a good board to ask such questions.
At the same time I need to warn you that the information content of the answers obtained from the "Hunter Sailing Association" members tends to be directly proportional to the information content of the original question. As your question is a wide open one; most likely the answers will be equally wide open. Since you are a pro, however, you will need to know much more about the ups and downs of the history of larger Hunters venturing offshore over the past 15 years or so than you can possibly hope to get here and now from a few responders like me. Especially, if you are talking about recommending to your customers whether or not to try their hand at bluewater sailing around New Zealand. If I were in your place I would want to make a VERY DETAILED study of the pros and cons indeed before sending any customers very far offshore in those waters and latitudes. So, without trying to sound like I am giving you the runaround I humbly recommend that you carefully search the archives of this board plus those of usenet groups like rec.boats.cruising or uk.rec.sailing. I happen to have been sailing a larger Hunter ("Rivendel II", Hunter Legend 43, hull #1) in the North and South Pacific for several years (see attached link with an overview of Rivendel's cruising log) but have been careful not to stray unnecessarily outside of the Tropics, while avoiding the cyclone season. This included a carefully considered decision not to plan any passages to New Zealand unless there would be an overriding reason to do so (e.g. a major repair). The details of those types of discussions, as well as the stories of some larger Hunters that came to grief outside the Tropics in recent years, can be found in the archives here. After reading these stories I hope you will not conclude that larger Hunters cannot safely make passages outside the Tropics (they CAN), while at the same time realizing that the amount of preparation of vessel and crew needed to do so might sometimes border on the impractical.... Have fun! Flying Dutchman
At the same time I need to warn you that the information content of the answers obtained from the "Hunter Sailing Association" members tends to be directly proportional to the information content of the original question. As your question is a wide open one; most likely the answers will be equally wide open. Since you are a pro, however, you will need to know much more about the ups and downs of the history of larger Hunters venturing offshore over the past 15 years or so than you can possibly hope to get here and now from a few responders like me. Especially, if you are talking about recommending to your customers whether or not to try their hand at bluewater sailing around New Zealand. If I were in your place I would want to make a VERY DETAILED study of the pros and cons indeed before sending any customers very far offshore in those waters and latitudes. So, without trying to sound like I am giving you the runaround I humbly recommend that you carefully search the archives of this board plus those of usenet groups like rec.boats.cruising or uk.rec.sailing. I happen to have been sailing a larger Hunter ("Rivendel II", Hunter Legend 43, hull #1) in the North and South Pacific for several years (see attached link with an overview of Rivendel's cruising log) but have been careful not to stray unnecessarily outside of the Tropics, while avoiding the cyclone season. This included a carefully considered decision not to plan any passages to New Zealand unless there would be an overriding reason to do so (e.g. a major repair). The details of those types of discussions, as well as the stories of some larger Hunters that came to grief outside the Tropics in recent years, can be found in the archives here. After reading these stories I hope you will not conclude that larger Hunters cannot safely make passages outside the Tropics (they CAN), while at the same time realizing that the amount of preparation of vessel and crew needed to do so might sometimes border on the impractical.... Have fun! Flying Dutchman
My personal Hunter bluewater philosophy
Ted, in view of the deafening silence (there is a "boat $$ vs. quality" thread running that appears to be sapping the collective energies of the board) and the fact that my comments about avoiding New Zealand passages have raised some eyebrows, let me try to formulate my personal philosophy regarding bluewater strengths and limitations of larger Hunters in a bit more detail. In order to help foster discussion, I will do so by making six deliberately broad and sweeping statements. (1) Most bluewater dream destinations are located between the latitudes of Cancer and Capricorn ( i.e. the Tropics) and therefore blessed with Tradewinds as well as cursed by cyclones. (2) Sensible cruisers avoid the cyclone season. Therefore, the day-to-day challenge for most bluewater cruising vessels is to handle the entire spectrum of Tradewind conditions (viz. from dead calm to 40 knots, from dead downwind to close-hauled, from flat to 15 ft waves and from days of blazing sun to many hours of drenching rain). (3) Nearly all larger Hunters fit that bill perfectly. Moreover, the excellent upwind performance of the B&R rig frees them from the crippling inability of traditional, heavy cruising vessels to make good upwind progress against fully developed Trades. (4) That inability has always doomed traditional vessels to try and make their Easting on the coat-tails of heavy frontal systems or by detouring deep into the Variables. Either way they may get pummeled by gales, whereas just outside the Tropics they will occasionally encounter "bombs" and other noncyclonic storms. (5) By contrast, a vessel able to make its Easting within the Tradewind belts and outside the cyclone season is extremely unlikely to encounter such severe conditions, as a study of pilot charts as well as storm track records will confirm. (6)The million-dollar question for larger Hunters and similar medium-light production vessels is how to make it safely to the Tropics and back, especially if they happen to have their homeports at higer latitudes, e.g. in the coastal areas of North America, Southern Ausralia or New Zealand. As countless cruising logs, as well as our own experience will testify, it is during the passages to and from these higher latitude homeports that many cruising vessels experience the worst conditions of their entire voyage (even if that voyage happened to be a multi-year circumnavigation). As you well know, of course, the offshore waters around New Zealand, including the Tasman Sea, are notorious for the fierce weather conditions that can be produced by the strong lows spinning off from the Southern Ocean jetstream, especially if these lows end up doing battle with the strong highs regularly forming over the Australian desert. Nearly every year, one or more of the New Zealand volunteer vessels joining our medical support project for the outer islands of Vanuatu, have nasty run-ins with such weather. For those of us unfamiliar with these risks, just read up on the notorious "Queen's Birthday Storm", about one decade ago. In 1998 I had the rare privilege of meeting Ernest and Val Haigh, one of the world's most accomplished cruising couples (see Adlard Cole "Heavy Weather Sailing", chapter 21) as they sailed into Funafuti's (Tuvalu) big lagoon on their final trip home after more than 30 years of bluewater cruising. Ernest and Val, who must have been somewhere in their middle if not late seventies, anchored in one of the remaing open spots in the reef, rowed over and climbed into Rivendel's cockpit while I apologized for my inability to be a proper host as two of our crew members, including Nelleke, had come down with the influenza strain that happened to be raging through Funafuti when we landed there. Ernest turned out to be a born raconteur and soon was telling me about his last departure from New Zealand when a group of nervous cruisers (having to sail North only a few years after the Queen's Birthday Storm) had urged him to talk about his "strategy for successfull passagemaking" based on his many voyages to and from New Zealand. Ernest, who at first politely declined to give such advice, finally agreed to speak up when cornered by them at a local watering hole. "This is how we do it" he said to a breathless audience "we untie the docklines, hoist the sails and point our bows North". Then followed a long silence. When one of the cruisers was unable to hold his breath any longer and blurted out "then, what do you do?" Ernest replied "Sorry' I'm afraid that's pretty much it......". In short, the main challenge for a Hunter owner in New Zealand who wants to reach the enticing South Pacific island cruising grounds to the North is how to safely make the 1000+ NM passage. Unless vessel and crew are exceptionally well prepared, my advice would be to have larger Hunters, Beneteaus, Catalinas, etc. -- all of whom are potentially well suited for these tropical island destinations -- make the passages to and from New Zealand as deck cargo. The premium rider for comprehensive bluewater insurance, when sailing on their own keel, is likely to be exorbitantly high anyhow. Moreover, it is now possible to leave one's vessel in a resonably cyclone-safe dry-berth marina such as Vuda Point in Fiji, thus making it unnecessary to keep paying for vessel transportation every season again. Have fun! Flying Dutchman
Ted, in view of the deafening silence (there is a "boat $$ vs. quality" thread running that appears to be sapping the collective energies of the board) and the fact that my comments about avoiding New Zealand passages have raised some eyebrows, let me try to formulate my personal philosophy regarding bluewater strengths and limitations of larger Hunters in a bit more detail. In order to help foster discussion, I will do so by making six deliberately broad and sweeping statements. (1) Most bluewater dream destinations are located between the latitudes of Cancer and Capricorn ( i.e. the Tropics) and therefore blessed with Tradewinds as well as cursed by cyclones. (2) Sensible cruisers avoid the cyclone season. Therefore, the day-to-day challenge for most bluewater cruising vessels is to handle the entire spectrum of Tradewind conditions (viz. from dead calm to 40 knots, from dead downwind to close-hauled, from flat to 15 ft waves and from days of blazing sun to many hours of drenching rain). (3) Nearly all larger Hunters fit that bill perfectly. Moreover, the excellent upwind performance of the B&R rig frees them from the crippling inability of traditional, heavy cruising vessels to make good upwind progress against fully developed Trades. (4) That inability has always doomed traditional vessels to try and make their Easting on the coat-tails of heavy frontal systems or by detouring deep into the Variables. Either way they may get pummeled by gales, whereas just outside the Tropics they will occasionally encounter "bombs" and other noncyclonic storms. (5) By contrast, a vessel able to make its Easting within the Tradewind belts and outside the cyclone season is extremely unlikely to encounter such severe conditions, as a study of pilot charts as well as storm track records will confirm. (6)The million-dollar question for larger Hunters and similar medium-light production vessels is how to make it safely to the Tropics and back, especially if they happen to have their homeports at higer latitudes, e.g. in the coastal areas of North America, Southern Ausralia or New Zealand. As countless cruising logs, as well as our own experience will testify, it is during the passages to and from these higher latitude homeports that many cruising vessels experience the worst conditions of their entire voyage (even if that voyage happened to be a multi-year circumnavigation). As you well know, of course, the offshore waters around New Zealand, including the Tasman Sea, are notorious for the fierce weather conditions that can be produced by the strong lows spinning off from the Southern Ocean jetstream, especially if these lows end up doing battle with the strong highs regularly forming over the Australian desert. Nearly every year, one or more of the New Zealand volunteer vessels joining our medical support project for the outer islands of Vanuatu, have nasty run-ins with such weather. For those of us unfamiliar with these risks, just read up on the notorious "Queen's Birthday Storm", about one decade ago. In 1998 I had the rare privilege of meeting Ernest and Val Haigh, one of the world's most accomplished cruising couples (see Adlard Cole "Heavy Weather Sailing", chapter 21) as they sailed into Funafuti's (Tuvalu) big lagoon on their final trip home after more than 30 years of bluewater cruising. Ernest and Val, who must have been somewhere in their middle if not late seventies, anchored in one of the remaing open spots in the reef, rowed over and climbed into Rivendel's cockpit while I apologized for my inability to be a proper host as two of our crew members, including Nelleke, had come down with the influenza strain that happened to be raging through Funafuti when we landed there. Ernest turned out to be a born raconteur and soon was telling me about his last departure from New Zealand when a group of nervous cruisers (having to sail North only a few years after the Queen's Birthday Storm) had urged him to talk about his "strategy for successfull passagemaking" based on his many voyages to and from New Zealand. Ernest, who at first politely declined to give such advice, finally agreed to speak up when cornered by them at a local watering hole. "This is how we do it" he said to a breathless audience "we untie the docklines, hoist the sails and point our bows North". Then followed a long silence. When one of the cruisers was unable to hold his breath any longer and blurted out "then, what do you do?" Ernest replied "Sorry' I'm afraid that's pretty much it......". In short, the main challenge for a Hunter owner in New Zealand who wants to reach the enticing South Pacific island cruising grounds to the North is how to safely make the 1000+ NM passage. Unless vessel and crew are exceptionally well prepared, my advice would be to have larger Hunters, Beneteaus, Catalinas, etc. -- all of whom are potentially well suited for these tropical island destinations -- make the passages to and from New Zealand as deck cargo. The premium rider for comprehensive bluewater insurance, when sailing on their own keel, is likely to be exorbitantly high anyhow. Moreover, it is now possible to leave one's vessel in a resonably cyclone-safe dry-berth marina such as Vuda Point in Fiji, thus making it unnecessary to keep paying for vessel transportation every season again. Have fun! Flying Dutchman
handling
For what it's worth, my 410 handles rough seas well. Under sail a good day would be 140nm, while under power I can anticipate 180nm in flat seas. The worst sustained conditions I've dealt with during passages are 40-knot winds with 14-foot swells and steep 8-foot wind waves, and the boat handled it fine. The high freeboard makes it a drier ride than on other boats its size, but the downside is that it's difficult to heave to, and the boat tends to dance at anchor whenever a breeze is blowing. The cockpit is not ideal for watch standing because it's difficult to brace yourself, and sea berths are problematic, but it's a problem easily solved by lee cloths for those who sail shorthanded. My biggest concern is the rudder, since both a 466 and 450 have lost rudders during offshore passages during the past year. I view this as a major flaw, and quite frankly am hesitant to take my boat offshore at this point until we learn more about this problem. Would love to hear from Hunter regarding how the rudder can beefed up. Until the rudder problem is solved, I would definately not recommend passagemaking in these boats.
For what it's worth, my 410 handles rough seas well. Under sail a good day would be 140nm, while under power I can anticipate 180nm in flat seas. The worst sustained conditions I've dealt with during passages are 40-knot winds with 14-foot swells and steep 8-foot wind waves, and the boat handled it fine. The high freeboard makes it a drier ride than on other boats its size, but the downside is that it's difficult to heave to, and the boat tends to dance at anchor whenever a breeze is blowing. The cockpit is not ideal for watch standing because it's difficult to brace yourself, and sea berths are problematic, but it's a problem easily solved by lee cloths for those who sail shorthanded. My biggest concern is the rudder, since both a 466 and 450 have lost rudders during offshore passages during the past year. I view this as a major flaw, and quite frankly am hesitant to take my boat offshore at this point until we learn more about this problem. Would love to hear from Hunter regarding how the rudder can beefed up. Until the rudder problem is solved, I would definately not recommend passagemaking in these boats.
John, please use some care before jumping to ...
and posting your view that the Hunters have a rudder flaw. In an earlier post a crew on one of the boats you refer to felt something hit the keel first then the rudder. Hunter investigates these failures for good reason. It might be worthwhile to contact them about your concerns in order to find out the results of their findings. Terry
and posting your view that the Hunters have a rudder flaw. In an earlier post a crew on one of the boats you refer to felt something hit the keel first then the rudder. Hunter investigates these failures for good reason. It might be worthwhile to contact them about your concerns in order to find out the results of their findings. Terry
And so have Moody's.
It was in Cruising World. But when the company settled the law suit, they insisted on a gag order. Their rudder stocks are too small. They don't want to admit it. And they wouldn't help the victim boat. HOW DOES THAT COMPARE TO HUNTER?
It was in Cruising World. But when the company settled the law suit, they insisted on a gag order. Their rudder stocks are too small. They don't want to admit it. And they wouldn't help the victim boat. HOW DOES THAT COMPARE TO HUNTER?
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