September 2024
By Christopher Birch
When it comes to cruising boats, bigger is not always better. And yet the average size of the boats anchored around me grows larger by the day. At first they were swelling in length. Now they’re getting dangerously wide, too. The cavernous hall inside a catamaran is better suited for hosting a convention than it is for realizing the dream of the cruising life. For starters, when they turn upside down, they have a tendency to stay that way. A sage advisor will also point out that it could be tough finding a marina slip or a travel-lift bay wide enough to accommodate the girth of a double-wide cat. And before you sign on the dotted line for the purchase of one of those bloated floaters, you might want to pause and consider the work involved in washing and waxing the sprawl of gelcoat. I often wonder when the balloon will pop, and boats will return to a manageable size.
My wife Alex and I left the confines of Boston Harbor bound for adventures unknown a little over two years ago. Since then, our course has taken us up to Newfoundland and down to the Bahamas. Now we’re in the process of crossing to England via Bermuda and The Azores.
Three lessons learned along the way stand out. Lesson #1: Sail now or forever hold your peace. Details can be found in this column in the July 2024 issue of Points East. Lesson #2: Keep a weather eye out for the three D’s: Drunk, Dropped-out, and Dissolute. See the August 2024 issue of Points East.
Lesson #3: You need less boat than you think.
A few decades ago, our 36’ Morris Justine was considered large for a cruising boat. Now we are usually one of the smaller boats in any anchorage. I find that a curious trend. It’s impossible to specify a perfect “Goldilocks” size of boat, but we can all agree that supersizing a boat brings both advantages and disadvantages. My contention is that the trade-off scales have fallen out of balance.
The extra turn of speed a longer waterline delivers isn’t all that relevant. Getting somewhere quickly isn’t what the cruising boat is all about. If you want to go fast, you should go by airplane. The extra waterline length comes coupled with larger displacement and larger sail plans. The forces multiply exponentially, resulting in a boat that is harder to sail, harder to dock, and harder to maintain.
I’ve noticed a correlation between the size of a boat and the amount of waiting required of her owner. First, they wait for their bank accounts to fatten up sufficiently to make their boat purchase. Then, they wait for crew, because their boat is unwieldy without extra helping hands. They wait for parts and labor to repair the abundance of complex systems aboard. They wait for the tide to drop so they can get their tall mast under the next bridge. And they wait for the tide to rise so they can get their deep keels over the shallow spot ahead.
People with the smaller boats tend to just get on with it. The required features list on a worthy cruising boat is short: Good steering, good rigging, good sails, a good anchor, and a seaworthy design capable of keeping water out of both your bilges and your lungs. You don’t need a lot of boat length or beam to accomplish the job well. For those convinced that a larger boat is inherently more seaworthy than a smaller one, I have two words for you: RMS Titanic.
Some point out that bigger boats have room for more bunks. Let me share a secret about bunks: Just because boat-buying-sailors such as you and me enjoy sleeping on boats doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world does, too. Our boat has one bunk for me and another for Alex, and there aren’t any other bunks. This fact comes as welcome news to our friends and family, who come to visit. Day sailing with us and then going off to sleep in a hotel is a perfect solution for them. Works for me, too. I’m happy that our boat has no guest rooms intended for people who don’t really want to sleep there. It’s smart to match the number of bunks aboard with the intended number of full-time crew members.
Sailing in fine weather is a pleasure no matter the size of the boat. Sailing in bad weather is uncomfortable no matter the size of the boat. It’s a mistake to think an extra 10 feet of LOA is going to change any of that. I observed the cruising boats that made the long journey to the Azores with us to be significantly smaller on average than the cruising boats plying the near-coastal waters of New England. Clearly, the offshore voyaging sailors understand that an oversized boat won’t be doing them any favors. Two and a half years into our voyage, and not once have we wished we had a larger boat.
A simple boat makes for a simple life and a pleasant voyage. And small is simple.
Christopher Birch is the founder of Birch Marine Inc. on Long Wharf, Boston. He and his wife, Alex, are now cruising full-time aboard their 36’ Morris Justine. Follow their voyage at EagleSevenSailing.com.
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