Considering Purchase of New Leopard 40

[Lagoon hound]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Leopard moves a lot of the Sunsail and Moorings charter boats from Cape Town on their bottoms.

I spoke with a couple of the delivery skippers before we crossed the South Atlantic. None expressed any concerns about the forward cockpit.

I think forums are a better source of data rather than a salesman.

What he neglected to tell you is the loss earlier this year of a new leopard that was being delivered to Phuket . All delivery crew perished.

[Saleen411]

Originally Posted by Lagoon hound

I think forums are a better source of data rather than a salesman.

What he neglected to tell you is the loss earlier this year of a new leopard 40 that was being delivered to Phuket . All delivery crew perished.

I was wondering about that. There were 3 posts in March about a new Leopard gone missing for a great many days. Never read what the final outcome was until now. Sorry to read this.

Bad things can happen to any boat/crew...I defer to the experienced sailors I've spoken with that weren't trying to sell a new Leopard. All seem to agree its a very nice charter design...blue water not so much.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Saleen411

I was wondering about that. There were 3 posts in March about a new Leopard gone missing for a great many days. Never read what the final outcome was until now. Sorry to read this.

Bad things can happen to any boat/crew...I defer to the experienced sailors I've spoken with that weren't trying to sell a new Leopard. All seem to agree its a very nice charter design...blue water not so much.

That crew ignored weather/routing advise given to them by Leopard.

I was working for the owner, not Leopard. And I am not a Leopard salesman; I resent the insinuation.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Lagoon hound

I think forums are a better source of data rather than a salesman.

What he neglected to tell you is the loss earlier this year of a new leopard that was being delivered to Phuket . All delivery crew perished.

I resent that insinuation. I am not a Leopard salesman. I was working for the owner on the delivery.

I spoke to a couple of delivery skippers about that incident; I understand that the delivery crew ignored weather / routing advise.

BTW - in an early post I outlined some problems that I had.

[Saleen411]

Originally Posted by jackdale

That crew ignored weather/routing advise given to them by Leopard.

I was working for the owner, not Leopard. And I am not a Leopard salesman; I resent the insinuation.

When I mentioned "Leopard salesman", I was referring to the gentlemen I spoke with last month at the boat show">Annapolis boat show. My statement had absolutely nothing to do with you or your posts.

I do appreciate you sharing your first hand experience.

[Barra]

Originally Posted by jackdale

That crew ignored weather/routing advise given to them by Leopard.

I was working for the owner, not Leopard. And I am not a Leopard salesman; I resent the insinuation.

Mate you seem experienced enough to know that ignoring a weather advice on a cross ocean passage where the advice will likely change several times isnt really here nor there. I reckon the delivery crew would resent YOUR insinuation were they still here!

From memory they were over half way to destination before something happened. We will never know what but one thing I do know is I wouldnt want to be mid ocean, maybe in a cyclone with a charter design forward opening saloon and cockpit that takes 45 secs to drain.

[Red Herring]

On an off note, I noticed that there is a 44 in the Arc Rally that started today. S/V Sea Bear, trundling along 5th in Multihulls, and 16th over all. A Lipari is ahead of it and doing very well, as in a Lagoon 380 which is so far 1st in multis and 2nd overall.

[MarkVatcher]

I just returned yesterday from a BVI Charter on the new Moorings 4000 so i have 1st hand recent experience.

overall i liked the boat and it sailed pretty well in my opinion but this is the first time i sailed a cat so i really have nothing to compare it to but here are my thoughts on performance. hard to tack, the first day we had to fire up the an engine to help us push through the tacks. it seemed like everytime we thought we had completed the tack, without engines, weather helm took over and pushed us back into irons. We were allowing the genoa to backfill to help push us through the tack before releasing the sheet but it was not enough. 2nd day we found that if we basically released both mainsheets and let the mainsail luff through the tack it worked fine but again maybe just inexperience with a cat.

The other issue we had is upwind performance on a port tack we could not get better then 45 degrees awa, on starboard we could maintain a 30 degree awa although SOG was considerably slower. reaching performance, especially beam reach was nice and fast.

The real issue i had with the boat was the aft sliding saloon doors/windows, one of the latches that locks the windows was broken when we arrived basically we could not lock the windows. The moorings did a repair but after sailing up to Anegada and back with a bit of a beam sea the rocking motion loosened up the repair and the latch was broken again and the windows could slide back and forth with the motion of the boat. If i wanted to keep them open to allow a breeze through the boat i basically stuff a rag in the track to hold the windows open. I think it's a matter of cheap latches. I found the front door of the locked down nice and water tight, we did take a few seas over the front and no water made it into the saloon.

we had a couple of leaking hatches, one was the one over the aft table/cockpit which allowed a fair amount of water in and the other was in the main owners cabin which is directly over where our heads were when we slept. in a heavy rain all the water from the roof would basically funnel off the roof directly onto that hatch so it sounded like a faucet was turned on over the hatch and that amount of water then produced a leak. Nothing like drips of water falling on your head/pillow in the middle of the night. had to rig a small tarp from the helm seat to prevent water from running directly onto the hatch.

We also had problems the the Raymarine A9 chartplotter not responding all the time. Sometimes the touch screen would just not respond at all and the manual control panel beside it never worked. Thank goodness i downloaded the RayControl app for my ipad, it worked everytime.

So even with all that, still had a great charter experience and like the boat overall. Maybe it's just because it was abused a bit on a previous charter that it had so many little problems.

[n2climbing]

Mark,

Thank you for your response and thorough review. I have a few questions:
- Are you certain that your aparent wind indicator wasn't miscalibrated? Was there a windex at the masthead to compare to? I'm thinking 45 degrees isn't so bad, especially for a cat...and 30 degrees is pretty much unheard of (other than Hobie Cats my catamaran experience is nil though).
- Do you know the hull number of the boat you chartered? (I'm wondering if Robertson & Caine may have since re-engineered the sliding door/window latches.) That's certainly troubling.
- When you took waves over the bow did the forward cockpit fill with water? How quickly did it drain?
- Those leaky hatches are troubling as well - possibly an indication of "cheap" components...
Thanks!
Manson

[MarkVatcher]

The electronic wind indicator may have been slightly off, there was a few times when raising the main the electronics said we were directly in the wind but looking at the windex at the top of the mast it was slightly off on occasion but other times it was right on so not sure about that.

I was also surprised that we were getting 30 degrees as i know cats are known to not be good upwind and initially was happy getting 45 to 60 AWA but we were trying to push the limits and with the right sheet adjustments we could get 30 on starboard but not on port. don't remember the AWS and SOG exactly but at 30 degrees in something like 15 knot AWS were were only doing about 3knots SOG but it was fairly consistent once we got the feel for it whereas at 45 degrees we were probably getting more like 5 or 6 knots SOG.

Did not take note of the hull number. There is only the one latch that is screwed to the side of the middle sliding window that is the biggest problem, the screws that held the latch to the window would work their way loose and eventually pull out. the other latches are integrated into the frame of the window so are much stronger.

There is a big drain directly in front of the forward door, water did not stay for more than a few seconds. we were not taking massive water over the bow but the drain looks sufficient to handle more water then what we encountered.

[n2climbing]

Thanks to all for the helpful posts. Additional posts are definitely welcome, especially from buyers and prospective buyers of the NEW Leopard 40. Thanks!
M~

[Boatguy30]

5-6 knots in 15 knots of wind is extremely slow!!!

Especially with a boat in "light ship" conditions. IE no longer term provisioning, spare parts, extra dinghy, kayak, watermaker, etc.

Seems you are sold on the NEW leopard and don't want to consider other, better boats.

[n2climbing]

Thanks BoatGuy. 5 kts does seem slow, even close hauled, but I hope you'd agree that "better" is in the eye of the beholder. As we all know every boat is the sum total of many trade-offs and compromises and each of us places different importance on the many qualities/variables involved in the design and construction of a boat. I know you advocated a used L46 in an earlier post. I appreciate the suggestion and welcome any others you may have. I do like the new L40 (in production since late 2014) but we're not married to it and will not be making a final decision for ~ a year.

Best,
M~

P.s. We are chartering a L40 in February. I'll have a much better sense of how I feel about the boat after that.

[MikeFergie]

The official report is out on the missing Leopard from January this year. I have a copy.
Sadly it does point to the boat being at the wrong place for the weather conditions "too close to the cyclone"

What exactly led to the boat ending upside down and the loss of the crew we will never get an answer for.

Another big red flag was the epirp question which never was activated and there are a lot of questions that have been raised on this issue.

The last point on this subject is that a vessel upside down (most probable this vessel) has been photographed near Mauritius but no action has been taken to board it and examine it.

Another larger cat went upside down recently on route to Cape Town following a collision at night with a whale. The boat took water and rolled over. The crew took to a dingy and left their life raft empty which seems odd.

They activated their epirp and a nearby ship rescued them





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[iliohale]

My friend is cruising a Leopard 39 in Mexico, here is his blog: Sailing Intermezzo

He has a lot to say about the boat in his posts.