“Why should a racing boat be uncomfortable?” Sandy asked.
“It’s not uncomfortable for racing, or for day sailing,” Jerry answered, “but a racing boat of this size wouldn’t be fitted out for cruising at all. You see, to get the most speed out of a boat, designers make sure that the hull is kept as light as possible and as streamlined as possible, too. A light hull will ride with less of its surface in the water, and that cuts down on the amount of friction. You remember what I told you about friction before?”
Sandy nodded, and Jerry went on. “Streamlining the hull shape helps it to cut through the water without making a lot of waves at the bow to hold it back. Not only that, but to make the boat really as fast as possible, most designers want to streamline the decks, too. That way, even the air resistance is lowered. Well, when you streamline the hull, you make less cabin space below. Then when you streamline the decks, you have to lower the cabin roof so that it’s level with the decks. You can see that in a small boat like this, you wind up with no cabin at all.”
“I see,” Sandy said. “But how does the lightness of the hull affect comfort? I’m not so sure I understand that.”
“When you have a light hull,” Jerry replied, “it’s a good idea to keep it light. If you overload it, you lose the advantage you built into it in the first place. That means that you can’t carry all the stuff we have on board to make for comfortable, safe cruising. Our bunks, the galley, the head, the spare anchor, all the tools and supplies—it adds up to a lot of weight. If you want a really fast boat, you have to leave all that stuff behind.”
“Then if this were a racing boat,” Sandy said, “we wouldn’t have anything more than a small cockpit and a lot of deck, with a little storage space! No wonder you said you’d rather have a boat like this! But there’s one thing I’d still like to know. You said that there wasn’t much difference in real speed between a racing boat and an ordinary good boat. How much is ‘not much’?”
Jerry thought for a minute. “Well—” he said, at length—“I’d have to know a lot more about boat design than I know to give you an accurate answer, but I can give you a rough idea. This is a twenty-four-foot boat. If it were a racing hull, you might get eight and a half or maybe even nine knots out of it under ideal conditions. For practical purposes, you can figure eight or less. A knot, by the way, is a nautical mile, and it’s a little more than a regular mile. When you say eight knots, you mean eight nautical miles an hour.”
“But that’s not fast!” Sandy objected. “You said that’s what a fast racing boat would do!”
Jerry smiled. “Believe me, Sandy,” he said, “when your boat is heeling way over and your decks are awash and your sails are straining full of wind, it seems like an awful lot of speed! You’ll see when we get out today. Besides, speed is all relative. A really dangerous speed on a bike would seem like a slow crawl in a car.”
“I guess you’re right,” Sandy answered. “But you didn’t tell me how fast this boat will go, compared to a racer.”