Hey, in my mind the person at the helm is the most critical seaworthy component.

I can offer a view on this issue.
The seaworthiness of the boat can be defined by its inherent stability and strength for its intended use, the suitability of the boats systems for the intended use and the serviceability/reliability of the systems.
The qualifications, competence and currency of the crew is a separate but complementary issue to determine the boat/crew fitness for purpose.

zilla said..
When I was designing and building my timber yacht one critical seaworthy factor was this:
* it had to be able to recover from an inverted position with all equipment, fittings, batteries, engine, etc, etc undamaged, still functioning and in their original position.
That means everything had to be properly secured.
I could not then and still cannot fathom the unsecured junk and equipment I see in yachts and the inherent risk in that approach. Even moderate to heavy seas means big trouble for them.

Does that include your anchor chain?

Reading the steve dashew books tells alot.
Keeping weight from the ends.
Keeping weight low. Amazing how much stuff people put on cabin tops/decks. Every bit of weight above water line takes weight from the keel. Positive locks on all lockers. Everything stowed.
I recently tried this approach and thankful for those books. Those books are a complete encyclopedia of sailing and boats.

Bristolfashion said..

UncleBob said...
Hey, in my mind the person at the helm is the most critical seaworthy component.

You mean the nut behind the wheel Bob!

Yeah, that's about it I guess.

As it turns out, that Wharram 21 Tika was seaworthy, or oceanworthy, so much so that it could even complete a significant ocean voyage with the loss of 50% of its steering system.

Personally I don't like small cats as there is really no way out of a rollover, so I don't consider them seaworthy by inherent virtue of their basic design.

My dream is to sail offshore and I intend on buying something like a Tayana 37; that's my idea of an affordable ocean going yacht/Russian tank that would survive virtually anything the ocean could throw at it.

No matter what people sail offshore in, I'd like to see the data for fatalities in under 50' yachts/ocean nautical miles travelled compared with fatalities in family cars/kilometres travelled on the open road.

I'd say sailing in a little cat is probably safer than driving, despite the inherent risk of a vessel that cannot self right. But that's life.