You Asked:

Is a 27-foot boat safe enough for the ocean? — Gus, Arlington, Texas

Marshall Brain Answers:

It depends – do you want to row or sail?

If you would like to row, there is a whole class of 23-foot row boats that people regularly use to cross the Atlantic ocean. Known as the ARR design, these are two-person boats. Plus you can build one yourself:

Ocean Rowing as a Challenge

The boat design has a multi-chine hullform in plywood varying in thickness between 1/4″ (6 mm) and 3/8″ (9 mm), allowing easier construction. The parts in the kit are all laser cut to interlock in a self-jigging arrangement which does not require any molds. These are glued together with epoxy resin, reinforced with fiberglass, then smoothed as necessary. Multiple bulkheads each watertight are accessible via hatches. These provide storage space for food and gear during the crossings. If any one of the bulkheads springs a leak for some unforeseen reason, the boat is still designed to remain virtually unsinkable. The concensus is that the ARR boat design in the end did accomplish the goal of standardizing the ocean rowing vessels for safe crossings.

In this video, you see a 23-foot one-person row boat for crossing the Atlantic:

If you would rather sail, then we can look at the example of Michael Perham. At age 14 he soloed across the Atlantic in a 28-foot sailboat called a Tide 28:

MICHAEL PERHAM CLAIMS ATLANTIC RECORD ON A TIDE 28

On January 3rd 2007, 14-year old Michael Perham became the youngest person to sail solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Not only is this a fantastic achievement in itself, but he did the voyage in “Cheeky Monkey”, a standard British-built Tide 28 lifting keel trailer-sailer that can be sailed almost anywhere and then taken home on its trailer for the winter.

See also: Build your own boat of almost any shape and size using free plans