OCEANTEC 50: WHAT A LOOKER!

There is a small but growing market for really fast long range cruising boats based on solo racers, boats able to go fast with a duo crew, or even solo if one is a very good sailor with solo race experience.

Pogo and JPK, the two main builders of that type of boat, have a waiting list of about 2 years so it is natural that other builders appear on the market proposing similar products and that’s the case with Oceantec, a Slovenian shipyard with experience building racing boats, namely 40 class racers.

The Oceantec 50, designed by Humphreys, has a more modern design than the Pogo 50 (that has already some years) with an inverted bow e slightly less beam (5.09 to 5.16m) being the hulls very similar as well as the B/D and the displacement, about 9T.

That means that the Oceantec 50 has to have an interior not very different from the Pogo 50, a very light one, even if functional and comfortable. The interior layout is more interesting than the one of the Pogo allowing for a dinghy garage where a 2.40m dinghy can be stored inflated but the Pogo layout is designed around the space needed for a swing keel and if that option is taken on the Oceantec 50 this layout will not be possible.

And the point is that a boat with a draft of 3.25m (Oceantec 50) is far from being the best choice to cruise, not being able to get a place in many small ports and not being able to get a good protection in many anchorages. In that respect the Pogo is incomparably better offering a swing keel that goes from 1.5m to 3.5m.

Pogo 50

The Oceantec 50 will not be suited for handicap racing (bad handicap) and not very interesting for cruising due to excessive draft. Of course they can redesign the keel with a 2.5m draft but in that case the difference in needed ballast (to have the same RM) will be 1T (or more) making the boat substantially heavier than a Pogo and even so not comparable in what regards anchoring and port advantages (the Pogo has 1.5m draft).

It seems to me that they should redesign that interior making it suitable for a swing keel option or a lifting keel, much more adapted for the use intended for the boat and also change that interior to one that could be modified to accept one of the keel configurations mentioned above. Producing a boat with two completely different interiors, depending on the keel choice is expensive and does not make sense.

Another point to review is the tankage. They don’t mention water tankage capacity and that’s a bad sign, but if we take as reference the diesel tank (120 liter) it will be clearly insufficient for long range cruising. The Pogo 50, with a similar 55hp engine, has more than the double and it offers a water tankage of 560L.

Also, the winches positions, in what regards solo sailing, are suitable for two tillers not for the two wheel set-up that is showed on the drawings. Something wrong there, if two wheels are used then the winch setup should be changed.

The price seems good, depending on the quality of the interiors. At 630 000 euro (without VAT) it is just a bit more expensive than a Pogo 50 (10% more) being built the same way and with the same materials (Vinylester infused SAN foam core sandwich, Carbon and E-glass reinforcements) but we have to consider that the price of the Pogo includes already a swing keel (with all ballast on the keel) and that if such a keel is offered on the Oceantec the price would be higher, probably 20 000 euros more, at least.

Pogo 50

The Oceantec 50 comes with water ballast (2 tanks with 950 liters) not the Pogo but the truth is that all fast cruising boats I have seen coming on the market with water ballast, sooner or later, opt for not offering it anymore. The Cigale, one of the first, is a good example.

I guess that they only make sense while crossing oceans with a steady wind and only with at least medium to strong winds. Too much complication, with a significant loss of interior space for a slightly better performance. Without the water ballast system the price of the Oceantec 50 will certainly come down a bit.

 Below a Pogo 50, a similar type of boat, doing a very fast ARC having as crew the owner, the designer, the boat builder...and two class40 solo racers.

The Oceantec 50 is a gorgeous boat but needs some modifications to be a successful offer on the market that intends to captivate, the one of the very fast long range voyage boats with the hull based on solo racers.

https://www.racing-yachts.com/app/web/upload/pdfs/330.pdf
http://www.pogostructures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/UK-POGO-50-BASIC-PRICE-2018.pdf

TWO WOMEN DOMINATED AN IMOCA RACE, THAT’S A FIRST!

For the more distracted, the IMOCA class are the boats that race the Vendee Globe, the top solo professional class in monohulls and briefly those boats will also be the top racing class in monohull crewed racing since the Volvo’s will be IMOCA on the next edition.

I  know it was some months back but I was sailing and that does not take the relevance of what happened on the Dhream cup 700 2018, a solo race open to the ones that will be making the Route du Rhum, amateurs and professionals. The race started at Trinité-sur-Mer, went around the Fastnet Rock (near the Irish coast) and came back to France, to Cherbourgh-en-Cotentin.

The 700 is a 736 nautical mile solo race and it is raced simultaneously with the Dhream cup 400 (428nm). On this one the minimum crew are two. Shame on the organization that lost the opportunity to make of the 400 a great amateur short crew event. I understand that the British channel is a difficult and dangerous place to sail solo, unless one is a professional, but why not make this an exclusively two crew race for amateurs?

Anyway the big news is that for the first time in solo racing history two women dominated and got the 1st and 2nd places on a IMOCA solo race beating all the men (10). That’s true that most of the best sailors and the best boats were not racing but they have beaten Yann Elies (3rd) and he is one of the best solo racers.

Congratulations to them, to the winner Sam Davies and to Isabelle Joshke, who arrived very close, 13 minutes after. The third, Yann Ellies lost almost one hour to Sam Davies.

The race had the beginning and the finish in very light conditions but went tough between the Fastnet and Land’s End. If you think that they were not fast think again, there were five multi 50 racing and they are normally faster than the IMOCA but on this occasion only two of them managed to be faster than Sam, the fastest of them arrived just less than half an hour before.

THE FIRST REALLY FLYING IMOCA (OPEN 60)

What a beauty!!!

And I am really happy that the lucky skipper is Jérémie Beyou, a great sailor that in the last years never had a boat that would allow him to fight with the best. Now he has probably the fastest and more modern one.

A VPLP design, this is the first boat designed around the foils, I mean the foils were the central piece in all the design. The boat was designed starting by the foils and all the rest was designed to make them have the best performance. Absolutely incredible the IMOCA evolution in the last 10 years. And it is good to remember that the next Volvo (also IMOCA) will be flying boats too.

SILVERRUDDER 2018 - A VERY HARD SOLO RACE

This edition was very difficult and the majority of the over 100 boats racing did not complete the race. Lot of head winds and 40kn gusts, with strong tides against the wind made it almost impossible for the smaller boats, even if the waves were not big.

The Silverrudder is the biggest European coastal solo race reuniting some of the best amateurs from the North of Europe. It is raced in the Baltic around Funen Island in Denmark and it is innovative since it is not an handicap race but a race by boat sizes, a format that I would like to see expanded to more races. 

The classes are Keel boats: From 18.00 to 25.00 feet incl. From 25.01 to 30.00 feet incl. From 30.01 to 35.00 feet incl. From 35.01 to 40.00 feet incl. From 40.01 feet and upwards. Multihulls: From 18.00 to 28.00 feet incl. From 28.01 feet and upwards.

This is a good place to look at boat performances while being sailed solo and fast on coastal conditions, with upwind and downwind sailing. We can get some interesting facts:

The biggest boat was a fast Wasa 55 (24h42m02s) that seemed well suited to the conditions and solo sailing, narrow, light and not needing much sail. However it was slower than much smaller boats from the two categories below (medium and small). The fastest from the small boats, a Farr 280 was almost 2 hours faster.

We can see that the fastest boats by far (strong winds, small waves) were the Dragonfly Trimarans and again the smaller trimaran was faster (28 - 15h13m28s) than the bigger one, (35 – 17h02m44s) more cruising orientated.

We can see that theoretically faster bigger monohulls were handicapped by the superior difficulty to sail them solo and that only one was effectively faster (not by much) than much smaller boats, but easier to sail solo. The fastest monohull was a XP44 (19h09m59s) followed by a JPK10.80 (20h07m01s) a First 40 (20t35m18s) and by a small JPK 10.10.

We can also note that on average the bigger boats (only one bigger than 50 ft) were not faster than the two classes below, 35.01 to 40.00ft and 30.01 to 35.00ft.

Even more meaningful is that the abandon rate is much bigger in classes over 35ft (70%) than in between 30 and 35ft (54%).

This reinforces my opinion that smaller boats (over 30ft) in coastal conditions, sailed solo by an average sailor can be faster and safer than bigger boats solo sailed. The better the sailor the bigger the boat it can sail solo but as you can see here there was only a boat over 55ft, that was far from being the fastest among the big boats and that the average size on the unlimited class was about 43/44ft. And remember, most of the ones that are racing here are considerably better than the average sailor.

BAVARIA IS BACK

Almost too good to be true: no layout, all jobs and all factories will be maintained. After a bankruptcy and difficult negotiations with several interested parties it was a Berlin investment group that made the deal (CMP). Bavaria is not only back but it is German again.

They went down after having managed to modernize most of its fleet but without time to produce, much less sell the boats. The new line of C boats (45, 50, 57 and 65) is among the most interesting offers on the market and probably they will be one of the best deals on next Dusseldorf boat show since they have to take an aggressive price policy to survive, at least till production returns to normal figures.

I saw the new C-line at last Dusseldorf boat show and I liked what I saw.
http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2017/12/all-about-beautiful-new-bavaria-c45.html

Here a C45 detailed video test by the sailing magazine yacht: they are also positive about the boat.

BENETEAU FIRST SERIES REBORN

I know, I am sailing, now at Iraklio, Crete, after several days sailing upwind, coming from Rhodes and I should not be posting but how can I resist the best news this year so far, in what concerns sailing boats?

As many know the success of Beneteau was linked to the success of the First series that from being popular sailboats have become less and less of a commercial success to become practically only used as cruiser racers with emphasis in racing.

Nothing wrong with the designs, maybe one or other detail that made them less suited for cruising than their predecessors but nothing major, more a sign of the times and the type of boats cruisers want: almost all of them motor upwind and the boats are designed accordingly.

Selling less and less First, Beneteau simply finished with the line and it seemed that it was the end of a nice sailing story and the end of a great line of sailing boats.

But then surprise, surprise, Beneteau just bought Seascape, one of the most interesting lines of sailboats around, by concept and design, even if the biggest boat has only 27ft. It seems that concept will be the backbone of the new First line and they are already working on a bigger boat. I hope they keep the designer, Sam Manuard, who was the man behind that concept.

So, big and interesting news. A much bigger production will make possible to make less expensive boats with a better finish and Beneteau never ceases to surprise refusing to become as conformist as most of their clients LOL. 

CLOSED FOR SAILING

Not really closed, you can post comments and I will do my best to reply but I will be too busy having fun to post...except if I have to take shelter from the Meltemi (I hope not).

If you want to follow my voyage you can do that on my facebook page where I post photos of the places where I stay (normally at anchor). That's in Portuguese but the Facebook translator is pretty good.

https://web.facebook.com/paulo.pernao

Don't ask me where I plan to sail to because I do not really have a plan. I sail accordingly to the conditions to where sailing is nicer and the wind is not too strong or too weak. Lots of great choices on the Aegean and almost any direction has interesting places and nice anchorages.

I sail out of Nea Peramos (photo below) where Stavros Manitsas has a great shipyard. He is a very nice guy, I like the ambiance and the only thing fixed about this trip is the endpoint, at Nea Peramos (Makedonia, Greece) again, sometime in October.