TEST SAIL:
Beneteau First 30 By
Richard Hazelton
transom and dual rudders all evolve from each other. Under sail, we found the boat felt much bigger because of its solid feel of moving through the water. The tiller has mechanical help, so you do loose a bit of feel. We accelerated quickly in the gusts
and tracked like we were on rails when the wind came in. Control is smooth and solid, you point it where you want to go and it stays there. You want the boat to heel a bit, about 12%, to get full advantage of the chines. This also helps reduce, or in our case, eliminated any weather helm. You feel the sweet spot when you hit it. For off the wind you can use a
conventional spinnaker. However, the bolt pattern on the removable anchor roller is the same as that of a small sprit you can mount for use with an asymetrical. I’m pretty sure you’ll see more sprits than rollers, but it’s a nice option to have available. The fractional rig is farther aft, but the boom for the square topped main doesn’t have to be shortened to clear the backstay for one simple reason — there is no backstay. The 25° sweptback configuration of the spreaders takes care of that. This also allows the traveler to span the entire back of the cockpit, so the 6:1 mainsheet is on the end of the boom. With the traveler at the back of
Ever since the interview with
Juan Kouyoumdjian appeared in the February 2011 issue of 48° North, we’ve been anxious to see how his ocean racing designs translated to a production 30-footer. Twin rudders,
hard chines, should be very interesting, and when one came to town we jumped at the chance to go sailing. Everything on the boat is integrated,
so it’s hard to isolate one thing. As Juan K states below, the chines, wide
boat, it also opens up the cockpit. To look at the picture above, the cockpit looks pretty normal, but in person, it is enormous, more like a 35-footer. The mainsheet comes off a block on the cockpit sole and is clearly meant to be held as you would in a dinghy. The coaming ends before reaching the end of the cockpit, providing a comfy spot for the helmsman.
Designer comments: Juan Kouyoumdjian “The reasons that you put chines on the back of the boat is
quite different than the reasons you put them on the front. From the moment you start allowing yourself to design a boat with dual rudders, the constraints of the shape of the back of the boat go away. For a given beam, you want to keep the boat as wide and as flat as possible. The chine has a secondary effect as well: It works a little bit like a skeg or an emergency rudder, so that when the boat wipes out or looses control, the chine bears the boat away and brings you back on track. On the front, the chines help to break the spray away from the hull, as the spray is worse for creating drag than wetted surface area” Interview 48° North, February 2011
48° NORTH, MAY 2011 PAGE 50
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90