Motorized yachts seem to be quite a bit larger with much more Sq footage built above the water level than their masted brethren, why is this?
I’m assuming the masts have something to do with it. Is it because they would torque the boat too hard if they were higher up? They already seem pretty high up as is and older vessels like Galleons in pirate movies seem just peachy with a ton of room above the water level. Why is it that most luxury yachts now are so low?
Edit: to clarify I mean shorter as a function of verticality not the length of the boat.
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The most obvious factor is the power requirement of a boat/ship, which is partly a function of its size (must overcome mass and the amount of resistance to movement which increases with surface area of the vessel). Winds can only provide a fairly limited amount of power per unit area of sail, but motors can provide huge power outputs per unit volume.
A big problem as well is that sails are weight ABOVE the waterline. Tend to offset that by adding a deep keel to prevent turtling (rollover). However, a well-designed motorized vessel can have the bulk of the power system below the water line, so a lot more mass (weight) can be placed ABOVE the water line.
Also, the lever rule comes into play a bit with sails. The distance of the push from center of mass accentuates the sideward movement that results. High sails will accentuate lateral rotation. TO avoid that and still get good power from having large area of sails would require extending the sails outward while close to the waterline, and that adds its own problems. This is also partly why keels run so deep, the lever rule at work in the other direction.
Top underline the point, imagine the amount of sail that would be needed for a ship like the Titanic to get the same power that its massive engines provided.
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