Hi hobsonlea
Judging from the comments and admiring looks, from those with far more experience than I have, I always felt she was a far better boat than I was capable of understanding....even now, as I still regard myself as a
novice.
We have now done nearly 4000 nm in her and I still get a thrill every time I go onboard.
On the
passage down to Mallorca, despite a lack of
wind for much of the
passage, when the
wind was there, she flew. We logged one 185 mile day....the night was spent with 3
reefs in the main and also in the
jib..did 25 miles in two hours passing through the straights of gib, and topped out at 16.5 kn, later on. She was more than comfortable in 30 plus knots of true...we just had to slow her down. On our final run to Palma, we touched 8kn boat speed in 12kn true with the assym up, so pretty good light wind performance as well. Cruising round Mallorca and Ibiza was a lot of motoring, to be expected..but whenever we had the
sails up, we left everyone else behind.
Returning to the UK, it was a similar story to the passage down...either too light a favourable wind, under 7-8kn true, or 20 to 30 kn on the nose. We did have one little blast in Biscay with the assym up, touching 16kn again, but then we ran into sub tropical storm Stephanie. 50kn winds and 7to 8 m seas. I ran with the wind and waves at around 150 degrees, under bare poles and she behaved impeccably! When the wind eased to under 40kn, we close hauled with three
reefs in the main and
jib, and the main eased out quite a bit,at about 30 degrees awa We were probably only making 3 kn, but the sea was really messy then from two different directions and that seemed to me the best way to make some progress with out putting too much stress on the rig etc. Again, I have to say, she coped remarkably well.
As for living on her, for a couple, she would be perfect. For most of the time, there were three of us, which was great, or 4 which was also very comfortable. But for a week there was 6 of us and that was quite cramped....it's amazing how quickly 240 litres of
water goes, or how often the fridge is left open! For those situations I would add a small (portable )
generator and maybe a
watermaker. She certainly doesn't have the space of the more
charter friendly brands, but I wouldn't want to be in a force 9 in one of those!
On passage I aim for 4.5 to 5kn minimum boat speed, so need about 8kn tws for that. Then it is either
motor sail or
motor. She is quite happy on one
engine at around 2500rpm. Gives about 5kn. Prob use about 2 1/2 l/hr. at a guestimate.
An easy boat to live on and to sail...even
single handed. And a great first boat for us.
Hope this helps.
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