We’ve now
been sailing and living aboard Mareda for one month. We’ve sailed slowly around southern and
northern Brittany and are now island hopping our way around the Channel
Islands. Time for a review of how things
are going.
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| One month of laundry at Lezardrieux. Is it still Bling ?? |
Performance:
We’re thrilled with this boat !
Fast, stable, smooth, easy to handle.
The twin helms provide excellent visibility and the twin rudders give
great control in the water. You never
feel like the boat is on the verge of rounding up into the wind. With the keel fully down (2m25) we can sail
into the wind at about 35 degrees. I’ve
lifted the keel fully (1m10) when sailing downwind and it seems to give us an
additional 0.2 knots of speed. With the
hard chines, the boat heels over about 15 degrees and then glides along
happily. When the wind gusts, you can
feel and hear the sails tense, but the boat doesn’t heel over much beyond its
15 degrees.
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| Mareda in St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands |
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| Pat and Jacko in Jersey. |
We’ve only
had to reef three times so far. The first time, we had 20 knots with gusts to
25 on a close reach. We rolled in the
genoa about ½ and put one reef in the main and she did beautifully – smooth and
stable. The single winch system (used for
both the mainsail and genoa sheets) is no problem. You just have to plan ahead for gybes (but
don’t you always? heh heh heh…) It’s
always reassuring to have the mainsail sheet close at hand.
The wide
stern gives the boat a see-saw motion with swell from behind rather than a
rolling corkscrew motion. While the
see-saw motion is more “rodeo” than with rolling, I’m convinced that it is less
seasickness-inducing. That corkscrew
motion on round-end boats gets nauseating fast.
The motor is more powerful than we imagined. With smooth seas, we can get 6 knots at 2000
rpms. At full-throttle we can get almost
8 knots. However, the combination of the
sail-drive system, twin rudders, and a boat that sits high in the water means
that port manoeuvres are a wee bit stressful, like trying to park a car in a
tight spot on sheet ice. I suppose we’ll
get used to it. For now, our strategy is
to put out lots of fenders !
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| Glad to be in port when it blows in Jersey. |
Deck:
It’s clear that this boat was designed by sailors. The hand holds and foot braces are right
where you need them, even for shorties like me (5’4” or 1m63). The cockpit is deep enough to feel protected
but easy to climb out of to go forward. We
LOVE LOVE LOVE the fold-down stern that allows us to get in and out of the
dinghy so easily. Coupled with the davit
and pulley system that allows us to launch and recuperate the dinghy with ease,
this boat is made for island-hopping.
The fresh water hot/cold shower on the stern deck is fabulous, too. The twin helms leave the central stern area
open, so no more climbing over or around the helm to get from stern to
cockpit. Bliss. The solar panels are powerful ! During the day, we can orient the panels to
take best advantage of the sun and the batteries stay fully loaded even with
the frige and pilot working all day. We
recently spent 5 days at anchor and had absolutely no energy problems. Solar
panels make more sense than a wind generator, since you try to anchor in areas
not exposed to the wind. For a long and
grey crossing, panels may not be the best option but you can always run the
motor. Better to run the motor during a
crossing than have to do it at anchor, no?
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| Hoisting the English flag for entry into the Channel Islands. |
We continue
to have problems with the genoa furler.
It’s much too hard to pull in.
Patrick can do it without the winch, but it takes all his force. We slacked the genoa halyard a bit and that
helped some, but not enough. In calm
conditions, I can roll in the genoa without the winch, but at sea with the sail
flapping, I can’t budge it. We’ve tried
changing the angle of the furler line between the drum and the cockpit, but it’s
still not easy. We’ve called the dealer
and asked to have someone look at this.
Other problems:
1) a
thumb-sized chunk of metal is missing from the genoa sheet traveler. We don’t know when or how that happened. We’ve contacted our dealer about that one,
too.
2) The top batten worked its way out of its gouset and tore the sail a bit around
the batten pocket. I fixed it with a
temporary patch and tightened the screws but it will need to be fixed
properly.
3) When sailing close hauled into the wind with the mainsail sheet pulled in
tight, the mainsheet downhaul rubs against the back of the dodger. We didn’t notice this until we found a hole
in the canvas. We’ll patch that one
temporarily, too, but that’s just bad design.
I suppose we’ll have to move the downhaul forward a few centimetres but
I’d prefer to have the dealer do it.
4) One of the latches of the swim platform
broke. The other one holds well and has
a spectra cord and jammer to hold it in as well, so we’re not in danger of the
platform opening unexpectedly. Still,
needs to be fixed.
Patrick and
I disagree about the spray hood. I like
it, he doesn’t. It’s big enough to stand
under without having to bend down, there are large panels everywhere (even in
the roof) to give you excellent visibility (including looking up through the
roof panel to see the mainsail as you’re winching). I was concerned in the beginning that the
side panels didn’t extend a bit into the cockpit to offer protection to a crew
member trying to get out of the wind, but the spray hood so high and wide that
the wind passes over and creates a shadow zone on either side. With the helm on autopilot, the watch keeper
can shelter under the spray hood on either side or lean against the cockpit
table with a 360 view of everything that’s going on. If your ass is small enough you can even sit
on the table with feet braced on the companion way. Patrick thinks the spray hood is too
high. He wants it optimized to just pass
over his head. This would reduce windage
and maybe make port manoeuvres a bit easier, but I think the advantages outweigh
this problem.
One
complaint is the lack of organization of all the lines under the spray
hood. We tried to keep each line neatly
coiled and ready for use, but they invariably ended up looking like a big pile
of multi-colored spaghetti. We bought some
organizers (those hook-type things) to keep the mainsail sheet and genoa
furling line out of the mess and so far that’s helped keep things a bit more
manageable.
The false
teak decks (made of a wood called iroco) is lovely and comfortable for bare
feet but a bit slippery. This is getting
better with time. It was probably
treated with something that is slowly washing off.
Interior:
We’re in a 5 star hotel here.
It’s beautiful, functional and spacious (relatively speaking, of
course). There is lots of storage space although getting to some of the lockers
requires patience and yoga positions.
The forward cabin is a huge open storage space (read: unholy mess). I don’t like that situation but there’s no
good solution. We’ll have guests soon so
we’ll have to spend a ½ day relocating all the stuff that has accumulated
there. Patrick’s tv and stereo systems
are impressive. We’re having torrential
rains today and there are no leaks! No complaints and neither of us misses home at
all.
Overall
score: two enthusiastic thumbs up ! I
had my doubts and snobberies early on about buying a production boat, but for
now, we can’t imagine a boat that would meet our wishes and needs any better
than the SO 379.
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| Jersey Ice Cream: worth the trip ! |
