On 3/11/2010 12:40 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:15:52 -0800, Robatoy wrote:


15-20 knots and 6-ft chop wouldn't even get my old Hoby 16 airborne. I
miss that thing, but I couldn't take the pounding at this age.

I'm not a boat nut, but a friend of mine had an old wooden sailboat in
Southern California. I believe it was a ketch -20 some feet long -
anyway a rig he could handle by himself. Oak with a heavy lead keel. He
claimed it wouldn't even get moving till the Coast Guard put out the
small craft warning :-).

Speaking of sail, the thing that amazes me is the speeds that are being
sustained under sail. At the rate things are going it won't be long
before United States' transatlantic record falls to a sailing
yacht--last August Banque Populaire 5 came within about 9 hours of
beating it. 32 knots under sail, all the way across. I remember when
Crossbow first managed to struggle over 30 knots on a short measured
course and now that's being bettered for thousands of miles at a
stretch, and here's what a big boat going fast looks like today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFGS7YCDk3Y. Same boat flipped at
SIXTY-ONE KNOTS.