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Review of Silhouette


Basic specs.

sail specifications
The Silhouette is a small sailboat designed by the maritime architect Robert Tucker in the mid fifties. A few thousand boats have been produced. The Silhouette is built by the British yard Hurley Marine Ltd. (UK).

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Hull
The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.
Some boats has a hull made of Plywood.

Rig
The boat equipped with a masthead rig. The advantage of a masthead rig is its simplicity and the fact that a given sail area - compared with a fractional rig - can be carried lower and thus with less heeling moment.

Keel

The Silhouette is equipped with a bilge keel. A bilge keel is a double keel, which allows the boat to be beached. Bilge keels are the most popular keel for tidal waters.

The keel is made of iron. Many people prefer lead keel in favour of iron. The main argument is that lead is much heavier than iron and a lead keel can therefore be made smaller which again result in less wet surface, i.e. less drag. In fact iron is quite heavy, just 30% less heavy than lead, so the advantage of a lead keel is often overstated.

The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 0.61 - 0.71 meter (2.00 - 2.30 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.


Sailing characteristics

This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.

Stability and Safety

What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?

The capsize screening value for Silhouette is 2.21, indicating that this boat would not be accepted to participate in ocean races.


Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed

What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?

The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 5.0 knots. The term "Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed" is widely used even though a boat can sail faster. The term shall be interpreted as above the theoretical speed a great additional power is necessary for a small gain in speed.


Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Silhouette is about 58 kg/cm, alternatively 330 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 58 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 330 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.


Sailing statistics

This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.

Motion Comfort Ratio

What is Motion Comfort Ratio (MCR)?

The Motion Comfort Ratio for Silhouette is 14.6.

Low High 93% 0 50 100
Comparing this ratio with similar sailboats show that it is more comfortable than 93% of all similar sailboat designs. This is a comfort value significantly above average.


L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Silhouette is 2.55.

Slim Wide 58% 0 50 100
Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 58% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a slightly more spacy hull design.


D/L (Displacement Length Ratio)

What is Displacement Length Ratio?

The DL-ratio for Silhouette is 295 which categorizes this boat among 'medium weight cruisers'.

Heavy Light 3% 0 50 100
3% of all similar sailboat designs are categorized as heavier. A heavy displacement combined with smaller water plane area has lower acceleration and is more comfortable.


SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)

SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)
Indicates how fast the boat is in light wind:
- Cruising Boats have ratios 10-15
- Cruiser-Racers have ratios 16-20
- Racers have ratios above 20
- High-Performance Racers have ratios above 24
Sail-area/displacement ratio (SA/D ratio): 48.29


Maintenance

Bottom Paint

When buying anti-fouling bottom paint, it's nice to know how much to buy. The surface of the wet bottom is about 9m2 (96 ft2).
Based on this, your favourite maritime shop can tell you the quantity you need.

Note: If you use a paint roller you will need more paint than if you use a paintbrush.


Rig

If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.



Guiding dimensions of running rig
UsageLengthDiameter
Jib sheet 5.3 m(17.3 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Genoa sheet5.3 m(17.3 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Mainsheet 13.1 m(43.1 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Spinnaker sheet11.6 m(38.0 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)

Boat owner's ideas

This section shown boat owner's changes, improvements, etc. Here you might find inspiration for your boat.

Do you have changes/improvements you would like to share? Upload a photo and describe what to look for.



Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Silhouette it would be a great help.

If you have any comments to the review, improvement suggestions, or the like, feel free to contact us. Criticism helps us to improve.



References