Matthew's blog

Lifting keels and the loss of "Bayesian"

Submitted by Matthew on

Imagine, for a moment, that you are aboard a 56 metre luxury yacht anchored off Sicily. It is before dawn, there's some wind but the crew aren't worried, and you're coming up to take a look around. Suddenly, the yacht is knocked about as all the windows explode around you. Confused, startled, and scared, you run for a muster station, managing to get aboard a life raft moments before the yacht disappears beneath the waves. The whole event took longer to write up than it took to happen.

Lithium Charlatanism

Submitted by Matthew on

It's great to see electrification taking off, as was definitely evident at a recent boat show. It's a little less great to see how much charlatanism and huckstership have tainted the nascent field of marine lithium batteries and the equipment that uses them.
*****
This 1100 W electric outboard is equivalent to a 3 hp gas engine!
1100 W is 1.475 hp, by the literal definition of horsepower which is 1 hp = 745.7 W. Stop lying.
*****

Big Boat, Big Depreciation

Submitted by Matthew on

I recently came across a 60-foot motor yacht that, after two years with its first owner, was now listed at a brokerage. The broker mentioned that its asking price of \$2.8m CAD was quite a deal, being a $1.5m savings versus the boat's original cost, while having only 200 hours on its twin Volvo IPS powertrains and being virtually pristine inside and out.

VMG to windward

Submitted by Matthew on

I've come across a few boats recently that, while they had tempting layouts and nice equipment lists, seemed to be sorely lacking in their ability to make real progress to windward.

Here on the Great Lakes, that's a deal breaker.

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