David Tyler wrote:

Ah, but you have a secret weapon - the bilgeboards! They make excellent roll dampers.

Whew!! I guess that means 'no' to the beautiful varnished spar, then?

David Tyler wrote:

It's worth noting that the measure of the initial stiffness (and quickness of motion) is Height of metacentre above LWL/ Beam at LWL. For the original SibLim and SibLim 9 metre, this is 0.47, which is quite high. She will be "as stiff as a church", with good sail carrying power.

Hmmmm. I hope that doesn't mean she'll roll the cups off the table at anchor!   Maybe I'd better make a wooden mast to soften the roll!

David’s numbers make sense to me (40% ballast, 45sqm sail, one mast). When I warned against very high ballast ratio, I guess I had Johanna (47%) and Ingeborg (58%) in mind. These, in particular the IF, are more meant for shorter trips and racing, so are not meant for carrying big loads.

Annie, I guess the ballast ratio is mostly given with no or little load. As Badger sunk deeper and deeper when loaded more and more, the ballast-to-actual-displacement ratio must have dropped a lot, but as long as most of the load was stuffed at or below the waterline, it would just make Badger feel better and better. Dory hulls are great load carriers. It would have been a different story if most of the loads were carried in boxes on deck.

Arne

What rig?  Sloop or schooner? 

David Tyler wrote:

 a 40% ballast ratio, and I wouldn't ever want to go for less than that, for any offshore boat.

I'm not sure if I'd agree with you there, David.  Badger had, in theory, a 40% ballast ratio, but in reality it was much more like 30%.  She was very comfortable at sea.  And I think you would find a lot of the older, wooden cruising yachts had a ballast ratio of less than 35%.

However, there are so many other factors to take into account - it's hardly surprising that beginners get bewildered at all the information and statistics that are burled at them - but, as we've said before, probably the most important is the skipper!