Built for comfortable bluewater cruising, the Bill Dixon-designed Hylas 57, was Cruising World's 2022 Best Overall Boat of the Year. Read our Caribbean correspondent David H. Lyman's quest for the ultimate offshore cruising sailboat. Tum inyo his tips for selecting the right boat to fit your cruising plans.
Designing a Proper Offshore Cruising Sailboat
By David H. Lyman © 2022
My orgonal text for a story published in
Cruisng World magazine, November 2024.
Are you looking to acquire, or upgrading, to safe, comfortable, live aboard cruising boat? Here are my thoughts.
Hardly a week goes by when someone on Facebook asks: “What boat should I buy? I’ll be retiring in two years. I want to go sailing and explore the world.”
I’ve given up replying. My last response: "There are way too many un-asked questions to answer in a Facebook post. Seek professional help!”
Watching YouTube videos might give the novice sailor the impression that cruising offshore to distant islands is akin to renting a motorhome and heading down the Interstate, bound for a National park. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sea is a dangerous place.
If you’re looking to purchase or upgrade to a proper offshore, live-aboard, long distance vessel, I have a few thoughts to share. I’ve been sailing for 50 years. In that time, I’ve owned and sailed four cruising boats: a 1947 34 foot wood Alden sloop I bought for $6000; a 42 foot wood sloop; a Lord Nelson 41 cutter I sailed for ten years; then a Bowman 57 ketch I owned for 14 years. I’ve made dozens of offshore voyages between Maine and the Caribbean on my boats and delivering others. I have a few strong opinion on what constitutes a proper offshore sailboat.
What makes a “proper offshore cruising yacht?”
Funny you should ask. My son arrived home on winter break from college and asked: “Dad. I need your help.” It’s always nice when the kids ask for help. “I have to finish my design an offshore expedition sailboat for one of my classes.” Havana, my son, 21, is in the yacht design program at Solent University in Southampton, UK.
“I have four weeks to finish. Can you help me?”
“You grew up on the best offshore cruising boat there is,” I tell him. “Why don’t just draw up Searcher? You know her layout, hull, and rig.” Searcher was that 57 foot Bowman ketch. They only built a dozen. Most are still sailing around the world. She had an 8-foot draft, a cut-away forefoot, a large keel with encapsulated ballast, a large skeg supporting a large rudder. She has an early version of the Ted Hood’s Stow-way main and mizzen masts. She tracked straight as an arrow, made 8 knots on a good day, had six cabin, a total of 11 bunks and three heads. I could sail her single-handed, and did. She could take a grounding with no damage to the keel, and ram into a rock ledge, which I did, with nothing but scuffed up gelcoat and GRP.
“Searcher was built a long time ago (1976),” Havana complains. “A lot has changed. My design has to be original and more modern.” He set up his computer system in his bedroom and got to work. He’s one of the new breed of designers. He’s now past using pencils, large sheets of mylar, splines, T-square, and French curves, as in my day. Solent U has him drawing lines for his boats using computer software: AutoCad, Rhino, MaxSurf, SolidWorks. I was amazed how quickly he’s mastered these systems, but then he’s been playing video games since elementary school.
The Process
My role was strictly as a consultant. Each element of his design was an opportunity for us to discuss what makes a proper offshore cruiser.
We have a saying up here in Maine, “Can’t tell, not known,” so he and I went online to look at Hylas, Oysters, Discovery, Swans and Hallberg-Rassy, Jeanneau, and Beneteau. We looked at semi-production boats and custom one-offs. We scoured the “pre-owned” market. YouTube has dozens of videos on aluminum hull construction, and expedition videos on small sailboats. Skip Novak walked us through his Antarctic expedition boats. All this was as confusing as it was enlightening. But it gave me an opportunity to share my thoughts on offshore boats with my son.
For Christmas, I gave Havana two books on yacht design: “Yacht Design According to Robert Perry” and “My Yacht Designs and the Lesson They Taught Me,” by Chuck Paine. These two chaps have designed many of the cruising boats sailing today. Both books are well written, profusely illustrated with photos of yachts and line drawings, and tell how each boat came to be.
Designers need knowledgeable owners and builders who have specific ideas of what they want in their new boat: cockpit layout, anchoring platform, bunks, nav-station, rig and hull design. It’s the designer's job to take the owner’s, or the builder’s, six pages of requirements and fit those ideas into a stable, comfortable, or fast (can’t have both) hull and make sure they can be built. This isn’t a matter of drawing an elegant sheer-line, or coachhouse; there are a lot of engineering, formulas, standards and computations that go into keeping a boat from capsizing, and slipping through the water with little fuss. Directional stability, weather helm, heel angle, righting moment; these are perhaps more important than the “look” of the boat.
I checked in daily to see how the son was doing. There on his screen, lines were beginning to represent the hull of this 50-foot expedition cruiser.
Havana is not yet a designer, he’s a student, but he’s been drawing boats since he was 6. Now he knows how and why.
“A flat bottom hull with a plumb bow? A bolt-on fin keel?” I ask looking at his screen, “What do I keep telling you? ‘Form follows function.’ You’ve designed a racing hull. It may be fast, but it’ll not be comfortable. That flat bottom forward of the keel is going to make it pound.”
I delivered a Southerly 535 recently from Newport to St. Maarten. It had that same flat bottom and pounded so much no one could sleep below. “That vertical stem you have may look nice on racing boats, but not on a world cruiser. For one thing, when you haul up the anchor it bangs into the bow, at night the chain rubs on the hull. If you stick a bowsprit off the bow to hold the anchor, you may as well have drawn a more elegant a 35-degree prow. I just don’t like the look of that flat stem.” That’s just me.
Havana went back and increased the stem angle, carried it below the waterline and further aft, but it was still a flat bottom to my eye.
Our discussion of the keel took three days.
“I don’t like narrow bolt-on keels. Not on an offshore boat.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. They may be fast around the buoys in a race, but they require constant steering, which tires out the small crew, and on a cruiser burns out the autopilot. And, they are apt to fall off if you hit something.”
“No they won’t, not the way we’re told to design them,” he replies, “We strengthen the hull forward and aft of the attachment points. Should you hit something at hull speed, the keel won’t come off. It might be damaged, but it’ll stay on until you get to port, haul out and inspect for damage. If it falls off, it’s the owner or the builder’s fault, not the designer. We follow Lloyd’s standards.”
We discussed stability, the balance between gravity, buoyancy, hull shape, and the forces of the sails. We talked about form stability and ballast stability. Havana shows me a diagram comparing the stability of three types of hull. Traditional full keel cruisers are the least stable, meaning they heel more, but will right themselves in a knock-down. Racers, less so. Catamarans are designed, he tells me, “to be stable in light winds, but once a pontoon lifts off the water, stability decreases. Cats are the most stable, upside down.”
The keel is a big deal, I’m learning. It not only keeps the boat from drifting to leeward, it determines directional stability and affects steering. Havana is learning how to control these functions by placement of the sailplan in relationship to the keel. Before he can bolt on his keel, he has to design his rig, mast height, fore triangle, sail area. With the sails up, he can calculate the CE, Center of effort, and the CLR, center of lateral resistance below the waterline. With these points he can determine the force exerted by the sails, to heel the boat and drive it forward.
“Remember that day we were caught in a gale north of Bermuda?” I reminder him. Searcher was flying down 20-foot seas in 40-knot gusts.“Searcher tracked as straight as a freight train. Even when your mother was at the helm. Why?” I ask.
“Directional stability.”
“Right, and how was that achieved?”
“The long waterline, keel and the skeg and large rudder.”
“I don’t like these narrow fin keels. They are fine on race boats, not on a cruiser. Worse yet, those spade rudders.” A skeg is like an extension of the keel. It helps the boat track. “It’s like the feathers at the backend of an arrow,” Designer Chuck Paine told me recently. The skeg also protects the rudder in a grounding, and keeps the rudder from picking up trap lines, floating kelp, or a mooring pendent.
Racing boats, with narrow fin keels, spade rudders placed well aft and flat bottoms, are like highly strung race horses. They require constant attention. The crew is forever tweaking sail trim, and steering. I’m a cruiser and my philosophy is “set it and forget it.” I’m not zig-zagging around a race course, I’m on a long offshore delivery. The boat will be on one tack for days. I trim once, balance the boat on course, and set the autopilot.
The Mast and Rig
The rig: choices here: sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl, schooner.
I’ve owned or sailed all five. The length of the boat will dictate how many masts will fit, one or two. The main mast should have two headstays, same for the backstays, for redundancy. Havana’s boat will be a cutter. One mast. Slightly forward of midships.
Reef and Furl
The debate continues: slab reefing, in-the-mast, and in-the-boom. My Bowman had one of Ted Hood’s electric at the end of a three day, overnight voyage. mast systems. It worked fine. I had no problems in 14 years. I was cautious when rolling in the main, to ensure it was wound tight enough so all the sail would fit within the mast slot. The system had an automatic over-ride that stopped and beeped if I was over-taxing the electric motor. I could reef the sail and deploy the main by myself. The Southerly had an early vintage in-the-boom system. It was manually operated, required two people, if not three, and it caused us all sorts of problems. It’s perhaps not fair to compare the Southerly’s boom with the more modern boom systems.
The Foredeck.
Reducing sail forward needs discussion. Roller furling, of course—eliminates the need to go to forward of the mast. I like an inner stay on which to hoist or unroll a staysail when the wind get over 18 knots. This stay can be removed from the deck fitting and secured by the mast, when not needed. Makes is easier for tacking the genny. When heading offshore, I set up the inner stay and hanked on the staysail. Once underway, I raised the staysail and kept it raised until land is in sight. When the wind gets over 20 knots, the genny is rolled in and the staysail does the work. It brings the Center of Force lower and aft, closer to the center of the boat, reduces heel, is easier on the helm and better when hove-to. Designers need to beef up the deck to accommodate an inner stay, and the mast will need running-backs, or swept back spreaders to counter the force of the inner stay.
The Southerly I took south last fall had a Solent stay with a well built sail we used when the winds got over 20 knots. Worked fine. Havana’s boat will have Solent inner stay, which eliminates the need for running-backs.
Designed for Anchoring
When Havana got around to his deck layout, a discussion of anchoring ensued.
Racing boats seldom anchor. These modern weekend racer/cruisers, I told him spend most of their time tried to a dock. The anchor appears to be an after through. But an offshore cruiser will spend most of its time at anchor and the space and gear on the foredeck needs some thought.
Two anchors are mandatory, a working anchor on all chain, and a spare on 30-feet of chain and then all rode. There’s reason for this. When the wind picks up at night and there’s the threat of dragging, deploying a second anchor adds to one’s sleep. We had a hefty Bruce as the working anchor on Searcher, and a 40-pound Danforth as the spare. That anchor, chain and rode were easily loaded into the dinghy, run out, dropped and set.
Many of the new boats I saw at last fall’s boat shows had only one roller for an under-sized anchor. The windlass buried below decks. The cleats were for dock lines, not a snubber or storm anchor rode, even a stout mooring pennant. These boats are not going to the Caribbean. I want space on the foredeck to rig a snubbing line, rig a storm anchor, and a windlass on deck with a chain gypsy and a capstan for the anchor rode, and a strong Sampson post to secure multiple rodes. I want at least 2 if not 4 bow rollers to accommodate the two anchors plus a snubbing line. Oh, yes, another Danforth or Rocna strapped to the push-pit aft as a kedge.
Deck Layout.
“Where do I put the mainsheet traveler,” Havana asks.
“On your boat, I don’t think you need one. It’s not a racing boat.”
“How many winches? And, where? Should I add a swim platform? Two helms or one?”
“Two helms?” I reply “Why would you need two?”
“All the new boats have them.”
“Two reasons. Makes ‘em look like racing boat. But the real reason is, easy access from the cockpit to the swim platform. The ladies like them.”
“Dodger or raised coach house?” Decisions, decisions. Searcher was one of the first raised-salon boats, before the Oysters came along. You could look out the coach windows at the horizon, standing in the cabin. The Southerly had a raised salon. You could see the horizon seating or standing at the dining table. I liked these newer amenities. My previous boats, even the Bowman, were like camping in a tent. The Southerly was a motorhome. But at $1 million, it should.
Accommodations
Now came the crunch. Into his nearly perfect hull, he had to cram two queen-size cabins, two heads, a galley, nav-station, main cabin salon, power plant, generator, lockers, cabinets, drawers, a settee, a lazarette aft, anchor chain and rode lockers forward. Water, fuel and gray water tanks needed to be fitted below the cabin sole.
“The cabin layouts all look alike,” he complains, referring to other 50-footers.
“The difference is in the details,” I said. “Interior designers often deal with bunks, cabinets, lockers, the dining table. What concerned me were there enough hand holds below, and above?” The Southerly was well thought out, designed and built. There was something to hang onto whenever I wanted one, except going aft to the stern. It was risky leaving the twin helms and making my way to the push-pit over the wide aft deck. Going forward, hand-hold rails were well placed.
It's All Abou The Compromise
By the time winter break was nearing an end my son was a nervous wreck. Then he realized he needed to lengthen the mast by 1.5 meters and move it 2 feet aft, to make room for the forward head. Then go back and re-calculate the boat’s CE and CLR and lead and stability. That meant shifting the keel, enlarge the skeg, shorted the cockpit to accommodate moving the deck house aft by a meter. It was driving him nuts.
“They warned us,” he said, “Sailboats are the most complex and difficult things to design. They are more complex than an airplane.”
What did he learn? He now understands the design process, has become proficient in AutoCAD and other applications, and knows a bit more about himself, what he likes and doesn’t like. He nowknows where to find answers, and what questions to ask.
What did I learn? I will still sail boats but leave the designing to my son. After school, he’ll need to go sailing for a year or two, on as many different boats as he can. He’ll find out what he likes and doesn’t like, designer flaws, builder’s errors, and come to his own vision of what makes a safe, comfortable, speedy world cruiser. As a professional yacht designer, he’ll be able to create boats that are original, boats only he could have designed.
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Reading Up
Begin by stocking your library with books.
I began reading about the sea and voyaging when I was 14 reading Twenty Thousands Leagues at Sea by Jules Vern. My second book was Chapman’s. My marine library fill an entire bookcase.
Here are a few that deal with yacht design:
Buy Perry and Paine’s books. Chuck’e eBook its at chuckpaine.com
Bob Perry’s hard cover book is available on Amazon. His website is perryboat.com
Principles of Yacht Design Hardcover – by Lars Larsson, Rolf Eliasson, Michal Orych
Elements of Yacht Design: The Original Edition of the Classic Book on Yacht Design by Norman L. Skene and Maynard Bray
Inspecting the Aging Sailboat, by Don Casey
Capable Cruiser 3rd Edition by Lin and Larry Pardey
The Ocean Sailing Yacht, by Don Street, perhaps out-of-date, but fun to read.
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Searcher, our Bowman 57 ketch, at anchor in Kelly's Cove, Normand Islands Bay, BVI 2009.
AFARAN, my Lord Nelson 41 cutter, at anchor on Norman Isand, BVI, 1994
Above and below: An Island Packet 349, with a proper anchoring platform and an easy on,m easy off stern.
