Boat no. 1
At the end of February 2022, I was back in Dubai again.
There are some short videos at the bottom of this page.
Partly for following the construction of our own P30 and the other boats in the production line.
Partly and foremost to get on the water with building number 1, located as a demo boat in Dubai.
First day on the water together Hans Genthe offered light winds, up to 10 knots tws.
During the test, the boat was without anything other than the most basic equipment and without an engine. The weight will probably be about 100 kg higher in race mode with all the necessary sails and possibly an engine.
The mainsail and jib are optimized for IRC, which means that the mainsail is shortened 250 mm on the E and the jib without a significant roach. The shorter mainsail made the boat too neutral at the helm going upwind. The rudder blade was therefore angled a few degrees aft to give a little pressure.
Room for some roach if you don’t have to count in any rules.
We set out on a beat for a few nautical miles. The first feeling is that we have a very light boat and lots of canvas. In the light conditions, we easily reached 6 knot upwind.
Heeling is, as the design predicts, around the 20 degrees in 8 knot tws. The boat leaves pretty much completely flat wake.
All fittings for control lines and sheets are placed fine. Double mainsheet in a Harken swivel base in the middle of the cockpit. Finetune for the main and traveler also in the center of the cockpit. The double backstay is on the Karver Compact winches aft of the helmsman. Cunningham, kicker, jib in / out / up is together with all halyards, mounted under the deckhouse. Halyards in Spinlock XTX, the others in camcleats.
The 2 winches for the jib and halyards are Karver Extra Speed 40. An innovative and very efficient 4-speed automatic winch. You can winch in the sheet in overdrive, faster than normal tailing. In praxis it works like a dream.
Cockpit layout
It is clear that the man behind the boat, Hans Genthe, has a past in Flying Dutchman. A dinghy where great emphasis is placed on easy and flexible trim.
Upwind the rudder pressure seemed appropriate, perhaps a little to the neutral side. A larger mainsail will get it just perfect.
We bear off and hoisted the A2’n (113 sqm) from the spinnakershute in the middle of the foredeck. With light pressure on the sheets, we logged 7-8 knots. A few short puffs at 10 knots tws, got the log up at 9,20 knots. Impressive:-)
Again, all fittings are nicely placed.
The A2 was retrieved back in the spinnakershute. A maneuver that needs accurate timing, an eye at the twa + carefully considering in which order sheets and halyards are to be released. Even though there are large rollers under the front hatch, there is still some friction when the sail has to go up and down. With a little practice it will work out fine.
Forepeak
The A2 was replaced by a Code 0 on Karver roller. Unfortunately, the wind has decreased to 4-6 knots, so we did not get any real big pressure on the sail. A BS of just below 7 knots is acceptable.
The next day we tried the boat with a crew of 6. Unfortunately, the same light wind conditions.
The upwind speed increased by a few 1/10 to about 6,2 knots. Similarly, it dropped slightly downhill.
A 6 man crew is in most conditions, also a few too much. A full crew should be around 320 kg, spread over 4-5 people.
But the boat is primarily set up for single-doublehand and can both be handled and balanced by 1-2 people.
In general, the boat leaves a very fine impression. Beautiful finish, fine fittings which are ergonomically correctly placed, good balance and intense sailing pleasure. It’s all topped off with the sound and feel very stiff 100% carbon fiber hull.
Combined with the aggressive look, this will be a boat for the future.
A few interesting figures on the relationship between weight / sailing area:
