I am considering a world cruise but so many people suggest that Beneteau's less than 40 plus sized models are not suited to blue water passages. As I live in New Zealand I will have to cross both the Pacific and Indian. I would appreciate comments from anyone who has made long distance voyages.
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Displacement Helps
I can't speak to your boat specifically, but based on people I know who have made long trips offshore, they tend to wish they had a boat with more displacement. For example, one couple had a double-ender full keel boat who went from Seattle to Baja, over to the South Pacific and cut their trip short, then up to Hawaii, and back to Seattle. They felt the ride was a bit rough and since bought an older CT-41, a Taiwan built boat. One of the main reasons was to get a smoother ride. One of their worst legs was the one toward Hawaii. The high production fin-keel boats fall into the comparitavely light-weight displacement category and will be fast in a near flat sea condition but move around a lot when the waves increase making it hard on your body's system. Years ago I had a broker explain to me that the fast boats are not necessarily all the fast. Sure, a full keel takes 10 days for a trip and the fin keel takes, say 7 days for the trip, but at the end of the trip the fin keel crew doesn't feel good and takes three days to recover while the full keel boat crew gets to their destination, docks, then go ashore. This would obviously depend on a particular persons constitution but for me I tend to get queasy easy, but not as much as my wife. We had a day-and-a-half trip from the Queen Charlottes across Hecate Strait and made landfall in a nice anchorage and just 'crashed'. It took a day for us to recover before we could continue. The sea conditions were 21 to 24 apparent, seas were about four feet, and we were on a broad reach. The boat would sway from about 30 degrees on one side to say, 20 degrees on the other side with every wave that went under - not my cup of tea. The full keel would probably experience this also but probably not as much. Next time I'll go 'dead down wind' and then switch to a close reach. Hopefully the above will get a discussion going.
I can't speak to your boat specifically, but based on people I know who have made long trips offshore, they tend to wish they had a boat with more displacement. For example, one couple had a double-ender full keel boat who went from Seattle to Baja, over to the South Pacific and cut their trip short, then up to Hawaii, and back to Seattle. They felt the ride was a bit rough and since bought an older CT-41, a Taiwan built boat. One of the main reasons was to get a smoother ride. One of their worst legs was the one toward Hawaii. The high production fin-keel boats fall into the comparitavely light-weight displacement category and will be fast in a near flat sea condition but move around a lot when the waves increase making it hard on your body's system. Years ago I had a broker explain to me that the fast boats are not necessarily all the fast. Sure, a full keel takes 10 days for a trip and the fin keel takes, say 7 days for the trip, but at the end of the trip the fin keel crew doesn't feel good and takes three days to recover while the full keel boat crew gets to their destination, docks, then go ashore. This would obviously depend on a particular persons constitution but for me I tend to get queasy easy, but not as much as my wife. We had a day-and-a-half trip from the Queen Charlottes across Hecate Strait and made landfall in a nice anchorage and just 'crashed'. It took a day for us to recover before we could continue. The sea conditions were 21 to 24 apparent, seas were about four feet, and we were on a broad reach. The boat would sway from about 30 degrees on one side to say, 20 degrees on the other side with every wave that went under - not my cup of tea. The full keel would probably experience this also but probably not as much. Next time I'll go 'dead down wind' and then switch to a close reach. Hopefully the above will get a discussion going.
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