If you're looking to identify a good cruising sailboat from the thousands available, this could be of interest.
John Holtrop, a sailboat designer did some work several years ago on a method of selecting sailboats on the basis of "fuzzy logic".
He produced a set of spreadsheets containing over 1282 sailboats together with their design parameters and then included a search function in the sheets so you can select one make and model of boat and search for other boats that are similar in terms of handling and performance to the one you select.
This is very useful if you have your heart set on say a Tartan 30 and can't find any good ones around. You can go into these spreadsheets and find several other boats that are very similar to the Tartan in performance and handling.
I've had these spreadsheets for years, but could never make them work properly. However, I've finally sorted them out and I made a short screencast video showing how to download, set up, and search these spreadsheets.
You can see this screencast at sailingmates.com. You can also read Holtrop's article on fuzzy logic at www.johnsboatstuff.com/Articles/fuzzy.htm
There's also some "virtual boats" in the spreadsheets, including the "optimal coastal cruiser", the "optimal blue water cruiser", the "Cruising World ideal boat" and the "OCC blue water cruiser". You can use these boats as your "template" boat and find all the boats in the database that are similar in handling and performance.
You can spend hours playing "what-if" with these spreadsheets - and you'll get some surprising results.
Peter
John Holtrop, a sailboat designer did some work several years ago on a method of selecting sailboats on the basis of "fuzzy logic".
He produced a set of spreadsheets containing over 1282 sailboats together with their design parameters and then included a search function in the sheets so you can select one make and model of boat and search for other boats that are similar in terms of handling and performance to the one you select.
This is very useful if you have your heart set on say a Tartan 30 and can't find any good ones around. You can go into these spreadsheets and find several other boats that are very similar to the Tartan in performance and handling.
I've had these spreadsheets for years, but could never make them work properly. However, I've finally sorted them out and I made a short screencast video showing how to download, set up, and search these spreadsheets.
You can see this screencast at sailingmates.com. You can also read Holtrop's article on fuzzy logic at www.johnsboatstuff.com/Articles/fuzzy.htm
There's also some "virtual boats" in the spreadsheets, including the "optimal coastal cruiser", the "optimal blue water cruiser", the "Cruising World ideal boat" and the "OCC blue water cruiser". You can use these boats as your "template" boat and find all the boats in the database that are similar in handling and performance.
You can spend hours playing "what-if" with these spreadsheets - and you'll get some surprising results.
Peter