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Sailboat Purchase: Peter the nerd!

As I wrote earlier friends are up for the weekend from London, and one of the conversations we had was about sailboats, neither my wife nor I are sailors, I can say with a great deal of certitude that the last time I was on a sailboat was 40 years ago, on an Optimist.  

Peter is a big-time sailor, he has owned sailboats his whole life and one of his life goals is to retire soon and go sailing for a while!  Peter has no interest in going around the world, rather he wants to explore places that are not easily accessible.  

Peter had this whole thing fully thought out, he has actually bought a 55-foot aluminum catamaran (delivery Q3/24).  As he says it's built for comfort first and speed second because he did his research, (actually some sailors did the research) and over the past 5 years he compared Atlantic crossing times by different catamarans, from the sedate Lagoon to the high-performance Gunboat.  The determinant factor for the duration of crossing was boat length.  The difference between equal size lagoon (fat and slow) and Outremer (light and fast) was hours not days (on a 16-day average crossing).  The price difference and comfort difference were another thing, for equally quitted-out boats the Outremer was twice the price.  On a 15-day journey does 4 hours really make a difference.

Peter raised a valid point, high performance in rugged conditions may yield only average results.  Boat buyers test the boats in ideal conditions.  The open ocean is different, and 95% of catamaran capsizing are performance catamarans, which tells you that the owners were pushing the boat too hard in hazardous conditions.

The analogy doesn't translate easily to other sectors.  However, it is amazing that the one selling feature of performance cats is their speed, which in the real world is inconsequential, as Peter mentioned world cruisers usually avoid sailing upwind, they wait for the appropriate weather window, so most crossing have winds near or behind the beam, and then the difference in performance is insignificant. 

It's actually funny when you consider that real-world outcome.


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