Is it safer to sail across the Atlantic in a sail yacht or a motor yacht?

Answer 1

Generally speaking a sailing yacht - although size matters! Talking here of vessels up to about 60ft....

A sailing yacht is designed to stand up to rough conditions as it cannot outrun weather systems. A motor yacht is designed to be much faster and generally lighter, thus is not so stable in the same conditions.

A sailing yacht often has a keel (catamarans excepted) which helps it return to the upright position when it is knocked down by a wave. Motor boats don't generally have this advantage.

With normal motor cruisers (there are a few purpose built designs that this doesn't apply to) when running at full speed they consume up to 5 or more litres of fuel a minute. Even with very large fuel tanks, their effective range is generally less than 250 miles. The normal Atlantic crossing from the Canaries to the Caribbean is about 2800 miles, thus causing a bit of a problem.

Sailing yachts, rather obviously, don't have this problem.

There are exceptions to all of the above, but its a fair generalisation!