How many on board if the crew can board and stay..
Some thoughts... Vague recollection is that this topic has been discussed elsewhere, at as far as maximum capacity. As far as what I would be comfy with for sailing, 4 to 6 total crew & pax would be okay for a few hours though a few more could squeeze on board for a quickie harbor cruise if they seem tame enough. (I have about 8 PFDs here and there plus a Type IV cushion and a Lifesling.) Beyond the limits posted on small-boat capacity plates or derived from rules of thumb (beam x length divided by some magic number that maybe gives you some result such as twelve or so persons on board), common sense has to have a place. In other words, "It depends." Do you have a (1) few big, but lubberly folks who insist on standing in the cockpit or on the deck while you sail in 30 knots of San Francisco Bay's finest breezes after "someone" forgot to fill and seal the ballast tank or (2) will part of your crew stay below and the rest have common sense about where they position themselves, or, (3) if you are racing, actually have crew who help ballast the boat on the weather rail? Will you have a dozen disciplined, trained Sea Scouts on board for a Monday pond cruise with no traffic around or will you be trying to thread your way through supertankers and jet skis in the rain during a storm while the gang from hell tries to out-scream each other as they tear your boat apart? Someone with an urge to work the math can figure out what happens to the boat's righting moment when 2,000 pounds of people move from inside the cabin, near waterline, to the cockpit and deck, about three feet above waterline. For a real math teaser, calculate the de-stabilizing effect of leaving the ballast tank partly empty or unsealed. Compared to a classic Mac 26, an X already is likely to have a big heavy motor above centerline and has more windage/top hamper so it probably doesn't like having a crowd on deck. Oh yes, I've heard a rule of thumb that every hundred pounds, more or less and particularly so for the first extra pounds, deducts about a knot from your top speed. Don't plan on water skiing with a crowd aboard ... or outrunning an approaching storm. A dozen folks on board could quickly lower you three or four inches into the water, the boat won't accelerate as usual, and turning the boat may get strange. Careful private plane pilots go into a sweat figuring out weight distribution to within a few pounds and inches; sailors don't have to worry quite as much but should think of where all the junk is stowed in relation to how the boat can perform efficiently and safely. For what it's worth, all this weight distribution stuff also bears on safe trailering; we could get into a whole discussion of tongue loads, winching boat tight against trailer, and all that good stuff...but this may be drifting off topic. By the way... how many PFDs do you have and do you have an umbrella/high-limit liability insurance policy? In an emergency, would your crew/passengers help you or would they get in the way or panic? Will the passengers distract the skipper and crew from sailing the boat by fiddling with things, chatting, obstructing view of traffic, etc., or are they trained to either be a real help or mind their own business and stay out of the way as needed? Do you have enough capable crew to keep the landlubbers from sitting on the sheets? I'm not raising the issue of whether you sail in protected waters or otherwise, since I _assume_ that sailors would be smart enough to take a big crowd into a big bad offshore seaway. However, since I have seen Darwin Award candidates crowd people and beer kegs into small runabouts, and head across the lake or into the sea, anything may be possible. Speaking for myself, now that my family has been sailing together for a couple of years (I grew up around motorboats, sad to confess) and have taken sailing classes, anchored offshore and done other good stuff, and made our initial quota of goofs, we're about at the point to where we'd feel reasonably comfortable with guests aboard. Now that I've given my two cents worth of trying to avoid the question, someone else can jump in. Reaction? Comments? Pat
