We shared an anchorage for a couple of days this summer with Steve and Linda Dashew on their new boat Cochise.
Phyllis and I first connected with Steve and Linda several years ago when they were planning a voyage to Greenland on their last boat, Wind Horse.
Since then we have met up several times when our wakes crossed and Steve and I talk via Skype from time to time, often about our shared passion for photography, but also about voyaging yacht design in general and offshore motorboats in particular.
Whenever we chat I always learn a huge amount, much of which AAC readers get to share through the posts I write. And I regard these meetings and conversations as a huge privilege.
I’m not going to get into any sort of detailed review of Steve and Linda’s new boat since that would take volumes, and anyway you can read all the details over at Setsail.
Rather, I want to share two really important things that we can all learn from these two fascinating people:
There Is No Perfect
For example, one of the things that I find most interesting about their new boat is that, although to the casual observer similar to Wind Horse, Cochise is actually very different. The former is optimized for higher speeds and the latter for fuel-efficient load carrying.
So Wind Horse and Cochise burn the same amount of fuel at cruise speed—about 10.5 knots if memory serves—even though Cochise is almost double the weight, making her almost twice as efficient on a tons-per-mile basis.
On the other hand, at higher speeds Wind Horse burns less fuel, making her more efficient on a pure miles-per-gallon basis, at least when getting there really quickly is the goal. And keep in mind that Wind Horse is already far more efficient than the average fat trawler at most any speed—talk about making a difference to motorboat design!
Tradeoffs
And that leads me to the next important lesson we can learn from Steve and Linda:
When I asked them if Cochise is a better boat than Wind Horse, the immediate answer was,
no, just different.
They then went on to share many of the changes in the later boat, but always with the caveat,
we changed this and got these benefits, but in turn this is the disadvantage of that change.
Retirement
By the way, Steve and Linda have just announced their retirement from designing and building boats so they can concentrate on cruising and enjoying Cochise. When the FPB boats currently in-build are finished, there will be no more new Dashew boats. Truly the end of an era.
And while I totally understand, and in fact applaud their decision, I’m also sad to think that their constant stream of fascinating and innovative boats that truly moved the needle of offshore boat design will come to an end—I have been watching and learning from Steve and Linda’s boats and writing since I first marvelled at an early Deerfoot at the Annapolis Boat Show some 35 years ago.
One more thing: Steve and Linda celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary earlier this year. Congratulations you two, long may you voyage together and inspire us all with your writing and photographs.
Steve and Linda are amazing! Their “Surviving the storm”, is a seminal work about an actual event that chronicles more than few cruisers caught in the Queen’s Birthday Storm of 1994, on the voyage from the tropics to New Zealand. Arguably the best ever heavy weather story as Steve interviews different crews with very different outcomes!
A riveting read and later a life saver when I encountered a “Crush Zone” with 10-12 meter seas in those very same waters on my way to Fiji!
Thank you Steve and Linda!
Michael Bowe,
Patanjali
Cochise has been at our dock for the past week, and we have enjoyed the Dashew’s company alone and with their friends from Tucson, Micheal and Nancy Morrell (who took 16 years to circumnavigate). I will soon do a full boat tour of Cochise and hopefully share as much about the design and boat as I can.
John, you are so right about the constant analysis and ever-developing design spiral. They are quite a couple.
I was just finishing construction of our boat, a heavy displacement Bill Atkin design, when I discovered Dashew’s Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia (1998 edition). Their design and equipment philosophies are pretty much diametrically opposed to everything that we did, but the book was and still is an astonishing resource that I have read (if not fully understood) cover to cover and have referred to on many occasions. I can’t say that I fully appreciate the aesthetic results of taking their thinking to the logical conclusions but I have occasionally fantasized about something like a Deerfoot or Sundeer. Those designs seem to have established the path for many of the production yachts of today, although without the same degree of rigour in planning or execution. There is no question that Steve and Linda Dashew have made leading contributions to the world of offshore sailing.
The Dashew’s are clearly very special people and have contributed so much to the offshore world both power and sail. Unlikely that I will ever be in the position to own a FPB or a Sundeer but that doesn’t mean I haven’t learnt a lot from them and their designs. Thank you for that. John and Phyllis the same applies to you, I’m learning lots but particularly liking your considered approach to cruising and it’s challenges, thank you too for AAC and to it’s other contributors, you’re all adding greatly to all our worlds.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the kind words!
Any Comments from the Dashews on Dennis Harjama’s Artnautica LRC58 design. Seems to be a similar type of boat.
thx,mark
Hi Mark,
Let’s just say that I don’t think Steve is a fan. Also, the LRC 58, while similar in look to the Dashew boats, is in fact a very different type of boat with a radically different hull form from anything that Steve and Linda have ever done. You can read lots more about the LRC 58 and my thinking on the boat here: https://www.morganscloud.com/category/boat-design-selection/series-better-offshore-motor-boats/artnautica-58/
Hi John,
That link does not appear to work. Maybe it’s just my machine, but perhaps you could double check it. Thanks!
Whoops, wrong link on my clipboard, fixed now.
Also keep in mind that you can find that kind of thing using the search box at the top right of the site.