Min Size Sailboat

Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
R2AK is relevant because such a wide variety of vessels make the trip. It goes to the point there is no minimum sized boat if you can stand the discomfort.
 
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capta

.
Jun 4, 2009
4,766
Pearson 530 Admiralty Bay, Bequia SVG
Honestly, I think that is a question only you can really answer. If you are buying a boat to live and travel on, then your very first and most important concern, IMO, is to find a boat that will make you a comfortable place to live. Most rarely sail more than 10% of the time, but this is going to be your home, 24/7/365.
It needs to have good ventilation with lots of storage for your gear and plenty of spares and tools. If you like to eat anything other than sandwiches, then a well designed and equipped galley is on the list.
As for size, you can very easily learn to handle a bigger boat, even singlehanded. Rig and sailing ability are a matter of application and personal preference. I personally would rather liveaboard some slow ponderous full keel boat than a peppy ¼ tonner.
 
Oct 24, 2010
2,405
Hunter 30 Everett, WA
Given planning for water and fuel I wouldn’t mind going to Alaska In My 36. I know people have done it. First is a trip to Desolation and the Briughtons, then Around Vancouver Island.

Les
I wonder how long it would take and how much a group of sailors would slow the trip down?????
Ken
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Why would a “group of sailors” slow such a trip down?
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Trip time from Everett to Ketchikan is about 560 nm as the eagle flies. At roughly 5.5 knots that would be 100 hours non stop. At a 6 hours of transit per day figure 17 days of perfect weather.

More likely you would take a more leisurely pace and smell the fir trees along the way or capture a few oysters. So say double that and you got a month of cruising - one way.
 
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Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
I’d like something closer to 30 ft. Especially if traveling alone in winter.
 
Sep 11, 2015
147
Hunter 31 Marina del Rey
Min size for me will be 30 ft and enough headroom for your height. The market also confirms this. There is a sweet spot around 30 ft where you have many options available, starting with the Catalina 30, my Hunter 31, etc. Many of these boats sell for $15k. It is not advisable to go much lower than this as it would not be worth to install systems, etc. on a low value boat. In terms of space, it really depends on the particular boat.

I am very happy with the space on the Hunter 31 for two specific reasons, the v-berth extends all the way to the bow (the anchor locker is above it) and the quarter berth extends all the way to the stern. This gives you approx. 4-5 extra feet of space vs typical boats. There are other considerations as well, you need to see various layouts to make up your mind. Then there is the displacement. Once you go below 10,000 lb. there is just not much room to grow. Once you put 2,000 lb of tankage, gear, food, etc. the boat becomes overloaded. A typical 30 footer will sink approx. 1" with every 1,000 lb of over load. You can tolerate 1-2" but then the sailing characteristics are affected.

These days you do not need to carry that much stuff. Watermakers reduce need for tankage, systems in general are lighter (i.e. electronics is much lighter, you can get a small forced air heater to keep the boat warm, some spares, an inflatable dingy with an electric motor and you are done). But it all accumulates very quickly and you can easily outgrow a boat <30 ft. On the other hand, once you go above 30-31 ft, you do not get significantly much more until you double the displacement which put you in the 40 ft range.

Go to the website of your favorite manufacturer and compare the models/layouts. This is what I did when I was considering my Hunter 31. Not saying it is comparable to a HR31 but the value is there. I hope this helps.

SV Pizzazz
 

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Jul 1, 1998
3,062
Hunter Legend 35 Poulsbo/Semiahmoo WA
Size boat? For comfort? A 30-footer would be nice for single handing. For comfort the forced air heater is really nice. It typically rains a lot in Southeast Alaska so its nice to stay warm and dry. Yellow rain slickers - you'll live in them.

Can you do it in a smaller boat? Sure, but there is less comfort so there is a tradeoff. Take a look at an earlier thread back in 2014: https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/crossing-georgia-straight.160509/#post-1100330
For a really good read, this is an interesting one: "North to Alaska by Oar, BIJABOJI", Betty Lowman Carey, Harbour Publishing Company, c 2004, 287 pages.
This is a story of Betty Carey who in 1937 when she was only 22 years old, rowed, by herself in an open dugout canoe, all the way from Garden Bay on Guemes Island (near Anacortes, WA) to Ketchikan.

She had only a few charts and notes from talking to others familiar with the area. No GPS. The country was, and most of it is still, unpopulated wilderness. Huge distances between any settlements (and still is). No radio weather advisories. And she did the whole trip solo, by herself. No sail and no outboard, just a pair of oars.
For trip planning, we did 2,222 miles in 77 days to Juneau via Wrangle and Sitka in our H35 and taking it easy. Had to wait several days for a paddle wheel to arrive from Datamarine in Mass. Radar was very helpful as was 435-ft of ground tackle. On the way back we arrived in Shearwater after the end of their dock blew away (I believe with boats attached). The 100+ft waves were between Cape St James and Cape Scott. The outside is better for sailing, inside for motoring. Lots of debris in the water. Going with company on a bigger boat, to me, would be a plus, especially if the company is a good cook, and can cook the salmon that you catch. Forced air heater will help keep the cook warm and make for a happy boat.

Oh, one sailboat from Idaho was T-boned out of Prince Rupert, in Dixon Entrance, by a highspeed aluminum (charter) sport fishing boat early one morning in the dark. The bow of the fishing boat went over and broke the boom on the sailboat. The skipper was in the cockpit and his wife down below.
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
What's in first place?
While entirely subjective.... Most often this is the place you have your boat.
I fortunately sail in the Pacific NW and have the benefit of sailing the boat in the First and Second best place "in the World".:biggrin:
:beer:And the best beer.
 
Aug 1, 2011
3,972
Catalina 270 255 Wabamun. Welcome to the marina
Your quote begs the question: What's in first place?
As @jssailem says, it's entirely subjective. The Med was pretty cool, the Caribbean was pretty cool, and none of it stacks up to the donuts at the bakery in Sidney. Go figure.
 
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Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
No... I said Pacific NW just so some of my Canadian friends would not be upset when the water from the BC mountains is considered.
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
I submit the following as supportive to my comment.
https://beerconnoisseur.com/articles/tour-worlds-best-beer-cities
Tour the World's Best Beer Cities
The Beer Connoisseur's Top 24 Beer Cities


1. PORTLAND, OREGON

Density makes Portland the craft beer capital of the world. Not just that we have more breweries than any other city – about 85 in the metro area, a number that increases monthly. But craft beer is everywhere. The diviest dive bar has a couple of craft taps. Fried-chicken-and-cigarette mini marts are growler fill stations, as are some Safeways – all 49 of them easy to find on the latest growler-fill map. There's a Chinese restaurant that brews its own rice lager. We have taprooms, tasting rooms, bottleshops and brewpubs by the bushel. We have beer tour buses, walking pub tours and pedal lounges powered by enthusiastic beer tourists. A list of all the breweries in Portland would take up many, many pages, but some of the highlights rank among the best breweries in America.

Portland is home to Deschutes Brewery, a craft beer figurehead for 30 years, Ecliptic Brewing, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Great Notion, Base Camp, Gigantic, Lompoc, Burnside, Hair of the Dog, Cascade, Laurelwood, Alameda, Breakside and many, many more (whew!).

In short, good beer has gone viral: Portland has long had a great pub culture (how else to deal with a gray Portland winter?) and we have a wealth of resources – great water and some of the world's best hops within an hour's drive. Plus, the brewing infrastructure, maltsters, stainless steel fabricators, yeast suppliers, a bottle plant and more, was already in place from the days of Blitz Weinhard and other industrial brewers.

All these things made Portland ripe for revolution, but we beer drinkers can take credit too, because we were willing to try that funny cloudy hefeweizen from Widmer Bros. or BridgePort's shockingly hoppy India Pale Ale. Portlanders' love of artisan coffee, bread and chocolate and our passion for this amazing place – for community and local ingredients – are all reasons why the beer here flourishes.

– John Foyston
 
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Aug 1, 2011
3,972
Catalina 270 255 Wabamun. Welcome to the marina
Huh. Being from Missouri, (at least in the "show me" sense) I counter with the thought that we need to actually see it. Gas up the RV.