School Me More on Bristol 27s

[tartansail]

My wife's B-27 also had the outboard. It was a long shaft 9.9 2-stroke in the lazarette that was easy to manage, but not good in a chop. We found that it was worse in 2-4 foot chop than larger seas because of hobbyhorsing pulling the prop out of the water.

The B-27 was a great first boat to cruise with. It was incredibly solidly built, had a reassuring and easy motion in a seaway and sailed beautifully, but not fast. One of the challenges as you get into sailing is that the sailing is much easier than managing all the systems. Our B-27 only had one through hull and a very simple 12 volt electrical system. It had a portapotty which I wouldn't take around the world, but was fine for short coastal cruises. A tillerpilot and handheld GPS were the electronics. We didn't use our dodger because it took too much cockpit space so the boat was wet going to weather, but it felt like it would take us through much worse stuff than we had the b@lls to go out in.

[thomm225]

My Bristol 27 has been an awesome teacher for me. When I sailed it down here to Va Beach, there was a small craft advisory that was issued as I was coming down the bay. Of course, I did the easy part of the bay when the wind was a nice 5-15 knots, but when I awoke to sail across the lower bay where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake, the wind decided to crank up to around 25 knots outta the NE. I decided to cross anyway. The boat took care of me on the way across. I hadn't yet gotten my sea legs after being off boats for a couple years so I was feeling quite seasick on the crossing. But under autopilot (with only a few corrections from me) the boat brought me through. (I was pretty much just laying in the cockpit)

Now that I realize I do enjoy sailing monhulls, I have seen a couple larger boats I wouldn't mind getting. One is a Tartan 31 and the other is a Bristol 35.5 so if anyone is in that beginner monohull mode or small voyaging boat mode send me a PM and maybe we can work something out.