You might take a look at a few books....
Nigel Calder's book on cruising (don't recall the name, something like Cruisers Handbook?) that has lots of good info INCLUDING a discussion of hull and speed with a couple pics showing bow and stern waves. There's also a good book out there that was written by the Cruising Club of America (CCA) in the late 1980's that is still a great reference for someone looking into cruising boats.
Link HERE.
Those truly "yachty" looking boats with the long sexy overhang on the bow and counter timber tend to have a wineglass shape, full keel, pretty deep drafts and tend to "dig a hole" in the water as they go faster--the bow and stern wave engulfing the boat! Their design roots are based on the racing boats of late-Victorian through early 20th century naval architects; (Watson, Fife, Herreshoff, Alden) then notable mid-20th century NA's changed things a bit (Stephens, Rhodes) by getting rid of the extended rigs (bowsprits and long boom mainsails).
Designs of cruising boats often just copy the racing boats of the times--look at reverse transoms (originated with German Frers design around 1950 but became really popular seems like in the 1970's and later); these days look at the big "sled" ocean racers (with pointy low buoyancy bows and big wide sterns) and then look at the shapes of contemporary cruising boats....hummm... get the picture? Wherever the racers go with designs that skirt the racing rules...soon too the cruising boats will follow (sadly).
When you're considering speed, the newer boats having a flatter, fatter, shallower hull shape vs the traditional "wine glass" hull shapes are another consideration for speed and ocean cruising (beyond waterline).
Then there's the whole underlying issue of keel and rudder design which really impacts wetted surface, maneuverability, survivability (of the boat, not you!) ...
A good cruising boat will often compromise on ultimate speed to get a sea-kindly motion and superior heavy weather sailing capabilities.
There are many choices out there as others have mentioned. Numerous of the best cruising boats have designs much like the "working boats" (fishing and pilot boats) of years gone by.
When going through the thought process that you are now...we knew we wanted to live aboard for a number of years and wanted to incorporate our love of "old things" into our cruising boat. When getting down to the specs that worked for us, we wanted a "traditional" and wooden boat with a split rig and wanted a draft under 7', waterline over 40' with a hull between 50' and 60'; we wanted to stay under 40 tons gross, we didn't want anything with an American-looking clipper type bow; we liked the "style" of European boats with plumb bows and thought that a rising counter timber was both elegant and fast. We didn't want a super full bow because one can pound thru waves with that, but instead sought a bow with fine entry with increasing fullness as one goes "up" from the waterline and back. We began to look at boats built in the UK but found a Crocker-designed boat built here in the US that was perfect for us. It has a 46' waterline, 54' length on deck, 67' sparred length (long bowsprit and boom), 6' design draft.
Our own boat was designed to be an updated
Brixham Trawler with schooner rig ("updated" all being relative as the boat was designed in 1930); she has a plumb bow with a fine entry and a fairly short counter timber at the stern. In fact, its a bit squat and I call it her "duck butt"
her split rig normally carries between 1600 and 1800 sf of sails. For its time of design (1930) it has an unusual underwater shape going from wide shallow draft midships much like a modern boat then into a very "sexy" (rising floors) with wineglass shape into the counter timber. 29 Ton gross.
We were lucky to have racing yacht designer
Doug Peterson walk into the boatyard one day, wandering around under our boat, he said "this is a fast hull." Of course, we didn't know who he was at the time. After he left someone told us that was Doug Peterson
I hope the info provided is helpful to you (or at least entertaining!) I wish you luck in finding just the right boat for YOUR planned voyaging!
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