MIDDLE SEA RACE: PRODUCTION BOATS WITH A GREAT PERFORMANCE

Teasing Machine finished the race moments ago. As I had commented before even if having made a fantastic race it is only 10th on the IRC classification, due to the weak wind that all the boats with this rating found on the last leg. The A13 is the first of the production cruiser racers, a pity the boat is not made anymore. We posted here about it when it was just a project. What a beauty ;-).

http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2014/04/archambault-a13.html

To give an idea of the boat performance I will tell you what boats had come in after (at a considerable distance): A Racing carbon Mylius 49, a CNB 92, a Carbon Mylius 76FD, a racing Carbon Ker 40, a Swan 45 and a very fast and well sailed XP44, XP-ACT (that's the boat name) and in fact it made a class act on this race. The Swan 45 is also a great cruiser racer and a production boat but given its price I would prefer to take the focus on the XP 44 that has a really a good cruising interior (there is right now one circumnavigating on the ARC World). Both boats arrived at almost the same time.

And this was not the only XP44 that made a good performance, since immediately after Jivaro, a J133, comes another XP44, Xpresso. The X133 even if more dated is also a great cruiser racer with a very good cruiser interior. Next comes another Jboat and then another one. First a cruiser racer, a J122, Artie, and then a smaller racing J111, all of them making a great race. The focus here goes to the J122 that had a good cruising interior and that in its new version (J122e) looks gorgeous and has an even better cruising interior. I really like it as a cruising boat.

Closing this group comes a Grand Soleil GS 50, a great performance cruiser, a bit less race oriented than the others but that, as we can see, can sail fast providing a lot of comfort.

To really gave you an idea of how fast these boats were think about this: They all were way faster than the first racing Class 40 (that has not arrived yet) and there is 4 racing. As a Class 40 is way faster than a Pogo 12.50 that may put some scratching their heads. And that explains also why that RM 12.60 is so slow on this race (that and a bad crew I believe): Most Med conditions are not favorable to this type of hulls that shine on an Atlantic crossing, on the trade winds, or in a circumnavigation but against the wind and on choppy seas with weak winds they are not at ease.