H260-26 ft boat speed

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Quoddy

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Apr 1, 2009
241
Hunter 260 Maine
Typically, what’s the highest speed you can maintain on a reach when you’re in the mood for speed?:)
Point of sail? What sails up? Wind and wave? Heeling much?
 
Oct 2, 2006
1,517
Jboat J24 commack
Spinnaker and a LOT of wind

Heeling will come into play when you push it a bit to far :)
 

Tim R.

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May 27, 2004
3,626
Caliber 40 Long Range Cruiser Portland, Maine
Maybe 20-25kts. I jump on my semi floating windsurfer, rake the sail back on a broad reach on smooth water and hang on!

I can usually get my home trucking along at 7-7.5 on a broad reach with my asym, full main and 15-20knts.
 
Oct 26, 2008
6,432
Catalina 320 Barnegat, NJ
Before calibration ...

I was reading speeds of up to 8.9 knots reaching off in a good breeze of up to 20 knots on our 27' Starwind based on my speed transducer! I had my GPS but didn't like to believe the truth ... 6.3 knots. :redface:

Seriously, I finally calibrated the instrument and had my best speed top-out at about 6.9 knots this fall. I had the GPS for verification and it bounced up to 7.2 knots at that occasion.

The GPS will bounce around a little so you can't always trust the reading on an instantaneous basis (if you even move your hand-held slightly - I use a Garmin 76cx - you can affect the max. reading). Now that I have calibrated, the transducer based reading is pretty consistent with the GPS but seems to read pretty much right on during a stbd tack and reads slightly low with a port tack. I like the speed instrument more because it holds very steady and slight increases or decreases can be monitored more readily and accurately. The GPS jitters around too much in a nonsensical pattern.
 
Oct 15, 2009
220
catalina 320 Perry Lake
It also depends on water conditions. In November we were on the North Atlantic (in a much larger boat) and had gale force winds for a week but where we really exceeded theoretical hull speed (about 8.5 kts) was getting a push from the gulf stream and surfing down waves whose faces were often much longer than the 46' boat. We were hitting 12+ kts sometimes.
 
Jun 7, 2004
383
Schock 35 Seattle
Your calculated hull speed is 6.46 knots. I am guessing that with all your sails up and in good condition and plenty of wind you should hit that number on a reach. Normal sailing in a bit less wind would put you a knot slower. With the wind behind you and enough of it you may be able to surf the boat at higher speeds.

http://www.image-ination.com/sailcalc.html
 

Blaise

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Jan 22, 2008
359
Hunter 37-cutter Bradenton
Your hull speed is 1.32 X the square root of your waterline length period. On most sailboats, as you heel, the waterline length increases slightly, as does your hull speed. As a displacement boat moves through the water, it creates a bow wave. The faster the boat moves, the longer (measured crest to crest) this wave becomes. When this wave becomes as long as the waterline, the boat must climb over the wave it is creating. This is very obvious on a power boat transitioning to a plane. You can also feel this on sailboats that plane.
 
May 24, 2007
185
Beneteau 352 Milwaukee, WI
Wild ride ...

Pearson Flyer (30 footer) during Queens Cup 2010. 9.2 knots on a close reach with reaching spinnaker and 20+ kts of wind. Seas were 2-4 and we were on the leading edge of a squall line. Had to switch back to 145 genoa when the storm caught up to us and we were on the verge of losing control.

Average speed over the 68.7 nm course was 6.9 kts on a single tack to within sight of the finish.

For your boat, check this site - http://kobernus.com/hunter260/specs/specs.html I used to have an `06 MacGregor 26M and often reached 5.5 knots before being overpowered. Super heel when solo and winds 15+. Factory main and working jib.
 
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higgs

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Aug 24, 2005
3,736
Nassau 34 Olcott, NY
I love broad reaching in big seas with lots of sail up. We were able to average 7 kts over 70 miles on an Irwin 32, hardly a speedster, with 35 kts and 7 footers on L Michigan.
 
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