SARCH S8, THE FIRST TRAILERABLE CLASS A

A class A trailerable sailboat it is something many sailors desire. The best of two worlds:  a light, fast sailboat, easily trailerable, that can be sailed offshore, even cross oceans, with the advantages of not being expensive and easy to store in a garage for the winter?

That is a boat that ticks a lot of boxes and makes you, and even myself, dream. A boat not only able to explore the seas but all those big and beautiful lakes, and for those that are not retired, able to be transported cheaply and fast to the cruising grounds one wants to explore, without losing weeks on the way to arrive there.

Who is making such a wonder? Well, a very small Spanish shipyard that is better known in the North of Europe than in the South and that has been making very interesting small high-quality yachts for years, using a mixed building technique that involves carbon, epoxy, high-quality maritime okume plywood and infusion techniques that allow for very strong and light boats.

They use an unusual building technique, now a well-proven one, that allows for a  hull with a thickness between  1.2 and 1.7cm, one that is much bigger than what is normal on this size of boats, giving the hull a very big resistance to impact. A kind of RM on steroids in what regards solidity.

They have on their line three boats, the DS6, a daysailer, the S7, a Class B cruiser and the new S8 that is being developed but can already be commanded, at a special price. The numbers on the models' names regard the length of the hulls, so we are talking about 20, 23 and 26ft sailboats and they have plans to build a 33ft boat in the near future.

Their best seller is the S7 that has deserved positive reviews from German, French, Spanish and Nordic sail magazines. The boat comes standard with a basic iron keel and certified as Class C, but can have a lifting keel made with a high-tech aluminum foil and lead torpedo keel and in that case it not only offers more power but is certified as Class B. That option costs 4580 euros, including the keel and the lifting equipment.

Contrary to the vast majority of fast boats of this size it comes with a very well designed, well built, cozy interior with plenty of space (cabin height 1.60m), with a closed WC cabin that can have optionally a chemical or a true marine toilet with black water tank, an 80L water tank, and good interior storage.

The S7 is fast and testers reported on a beam reach and downwind speeds of 8 to 10 knots without too much wind (13 to 15K) and a very good sail performance on all points of sail including upwind. With over 18kt of wind it can sail downwind over 10k, at around 12/13kts.

For some, the S7 looks like a mini-racer but it is not the case due to beam, that is very different. A Mini racer has less 0.5m in length but has 3.0m beam while the S7 has only 2.49m. That makes for a very different hull and the boat will sail differently, with more heel but with less wave drag upwind and with less stability downwind.

This gives the Mini-racer more stability, one that allows it to be certified as Class A but gives the S7 a proportionally better performance and comfort upwind, a good one, with a good final stability, one that allows it to be certified as ClassB.

On the different sail tests, they reported for the S7 upwind speeds of  5 knots with 8.5kts wind at 40º and 5.5 at 45º. With more wind it could sail upwind at a bit over 6kt. The S7 on its better and lighter configuration displaces around 950kg, it has 350 kg ballast that due to the aluminum foil is almost all on a torpedo, 1.70m under the water. That gives it a 38.9% B/D.

These numbers allow for a good final stability and a good AVS and make it a safe offshore coastal cruiser that will allow good seaworthiness on reasonable sea conditions, way better than the one of the Viko 21, that I talked about on one of the last posts. Even if both boats are certified as Class B sailboats, the Viko has a much lower B/D and significantly lower stability.

There is however a thing that I really don´t like on the S7, the single winch for all the manoeuvers. Sure, with a jib on an auto-tack rail system and a main on a purchase system (with a good traveler) it is possible to sail with only one winch, but that makes the use of a genoa, code 0 or asymmetric spinnaker complicated.

And it seems Axel recognized this because on the S8 there are 3 winches, two on the cockpit and one in the same position as the one on the S7, over the cabin. They are not on the options it should not be difficult to mount them on the S7, if a client wishes to.

If genoa tracks are put over the cabin, instead of that auto-tack system,  more flexibility will be allowed on the choice of sails as well as a better trim will be possible, at the cost of two more winches. On the positive side regarding sailing and simplicity, the carbon mast option costs only 6500 euros and the S7, like a Pogo, does not have a backstay.

Much better built, faster, more seaworthy and bigger than the Viko 21 the  Sarch S7 is also more expensive. A standard boat costs 47 750 euros and they have a comprehensive list of options that will adapt the boat to the use you want to give it. The options seem well priced and include a four-wheel trailer with a winch for 3950 euros.

Many sail tests have been made by different sail magazines and the general opinion about the boat is very positive:
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/yachttest-sarch-s7.pdf
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/testbericht.pdf
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/voiles-et-voiliers.pdf
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/251-qqb-s7ok2.pdf
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/v-ab_sarch-s7-definitivo.pdf
http://www.sarch.eu/assets/sarch73.pdf

The price of the boat, taking into account the building quality, does not seem excessive to me, but to understand why you have to understand how well the boats are built: first, they make the hull and bulkheads in okume maritime plywood using a stitch and glue technique; then using the wood as core they fiberglass the hull interior (including bulkheads) using axial fiberglass, carbon reinforcements and epoxy resin.

On the outside, they do the same but using carbon fibers. The cabin and deck are made using, not an okume core, as on the hull, but a lighter Aircell core (high-quality PVC foam), using axial fiberglass, carbon reinforcements and vinylester resin. On the deck and cabin they use vacuum infusion and on the hull they used it too, but they found out that they could get better results, at the cost of some weight, with manual saturation.

This is a boat built without cutting on costs and just to give you an idea epoxy is about 6 times more expensive than top polyester resin and carbon fibers cost 4 times more than good fiberglass. That is why these materials are not used on well-built boats like Pogo, that does not even use vinylester, but only polyester resins and fiberglass fibers.

Built like this the Sarch are very solid boats that will not break, even on bad sea conditions and that will last many years. They could be lighter if built in another way but I doubt they would be as solid. Even so, due to the materials used, these are light boats and, if we take out the 350kg ballast, the S7 weights only 600kg.

The S8 is a better, bigger sailboat, more seaworthy, faster, with more interior and storage space and also a more beautiful sailboat. The standing height on the cabin is higher (1.84) but the boat due to a bigger length, looks slender and larger than its size.

The new boat is a meter longer but it has the same beam, due to the max limit for a boat to be trailerable. The weight will be different due to different ballasts and keels. The standard one has a hydraulic 420kg swing keel, a max draft of 2.00m and it will displace 1300kg.

The second version, which would be a Class A boat before the last RCD alteration and will be suited for most utilizations, will have a more efficient vertical lifting keel with 1.80m draft, a foil in carbon/fiberglass and a torpedo in lead. It weighs 478kg, the boat will displace 1350kg and will have a 35.4% B/D.

The third version, the certified Class A sailboat will still be trailerable but will demand not only a trailer with brakes but a heavier vehicle to tow it because it will weight 1658kg, having a ballast of 770kg on a lifting keel with a steel foil, a lead torpedo and 2.0m draft. That will give the boat a 45.7% B/D and it will make it a very powerful sailboat with a great safety stability.

The STIX, which results from a complicated formula, is the RCD stability Index, related to boat seaworthiness. As a rule of thumb to know if a boat is well designed and seaworthy the STIX should be bigger than the length of the boat. The S8 has 26ft and a 38 STIX and that is an extraordinary difference between length and STIX.

The 2.00m draft keel and the huge B/D will also allow a bigger stiffness that will be translated in more sail power that will be very noticeable on a beam reach and even more upwind. It will be a boat that will need to reef less and only with a lot of wind. The only inconvenience is that it can roll a bit more when there is no wind and there are still waves.

33ft Sarch

The S8 price, compared with the one of the S7 seems too good to be true, only 15 250 euros more, especially if we consider that the S7 comes with only one winch and the S8 comes with three. 

Another good news is that the price of the extra equipment seems to be fair and the options for the S7 cost about the same as the ones of the S8. But this is a promotional price only valid for the first boats.

This price, 63 000 euros for a standard boat on the shipyard (Spain), seems really a good one for what is offered, carbon/epoxy included. The Django 7.70 costs standard 80 000 euros and the Pogo 30 around 100 000 euros, with the fixed keel, both are Class A but neither is trailerable.