My engineering background is rock solid, my artistic ability is what it is. I have built boats using wood strips, stitch and glue techniques, and molded fiberglass. Some have been better than others, but they all floated without breaking! I select a building process assuming an inexperienced builder, having few tools, who wants the process to be simple and progress to be fast. Visit my site @ http://www.johnsboatstuff.com
Take these results with a grain of salt. Not all the boats on this list are great world cruisers, they just share a set of common features that indicate a suitability for offshore use, as defined by a group of recognized experts. If your evaluating a boat for offshore cruising, and its not on this list, it would be prudent to determine why. Look at the factors that are different and make sure the "trade offs" they represent are acceptable. Don’t hesitate to ask the designer for an explanation, and apply that to your personal requirements. For example, a crew of four young men may put more emphasis on performance than an older couple. For the guys, lower disp/lwl ratios, higher sail area/disp ratios, lower comfort factors, and higher capsize risk may be acceptable. An older couple will probably be more interested in a higher disp/lwl ratio, high comfort factors, and low capsize risk.
The complete data base and details about the fuzzy logic process used to select these boats can be downloaded, Download the Data Base, for your use. The file is available as a ZIP or regular XLS.
My engineering background is rock solid, my artistic ability is what it is. I have built boats using wood strips, stitch and glue techniques, and molded fiberglass. Some have been better than others, but they all floated without breaking! I select a building process assuming an inexperienced builder, having few tools, who wants the process to be simple and progress to be fast. Visit my site @ http://www.johnsboatstuff.com