Hull speed

[JBM]

There seems to be a glass ceiling for Pearl - around 6.25 knots.  Occaisionally we hit 7 or a little more when "surfing" down a large swell.  I've read that hull speed is 5.75 but I've read some posts that say they can cruise at 7 with enough wind.  We are still using  a hanked on working jib and wondering about installing the roller furl genoa that came with the boat.  Would this give us another knot?  Here is Pearl in a 15 knot or so breeze outside of Christmas Cove, Maine:

[marymandara]

Well...

Intalling the furler is not going to do anything to speed the boat up. Maybe go the other way.

6.25 Kt. is pretty respectable for an Ariel, I think.

I have seen 7 Kt. in a Commander, but not with any regularity. Bear in mind that the Commander is lighter weight than the Ariel by a bit, and that I had emptied the boat of virtually everything unless it really needed to be there. Water, even! That was, of course, max. speed on a beam reach. If you are hitting 6.25 to weather, my hat's off to you and you have no worries about speed!

Dave

[Scott Galloway]

Nice Grand Banks beige LPU on those decks!

At the risk of my credibility, I have clocked in at over 8 knots downwind with a good sized swell running and while surfing (AKA wallowing) down the face of a following swell. This is speed over ground as measured by GPS. Sails were a full main and a class jib.

I have clocked at over 7 knots to weather using the same sails, and with the sea at the rail. These are not sustained speeds, but they were sustained long enough for a GPS reading.

With my Nissan 6 running and no sails up in relatively flat seas, I have clocked about 5.7 knots at full throttle on a sustained basis as read from my knot log in terms of speed through the water.