Which models were known to be club champions

[renegade27]

I absolutely LOVE my '04 JSO 35. The design, the quality, fun-factor all great. Just one thing - Can't stand the performance upwind in any sort of blow. The boat is very difficult to hold down and round-ups seem unavoidable, although we've gotten much better. d**n shoal keel and short rudder...

Anyway, I've been thinking about moving to a different boat, and my first choice would be a Jeanneau. But the boat has to be a capable of competing at a club level. I'd love to move into a 379 but I'm hearing struggles to make her go fast.

Which Jeanneau's are known to be good club racers?

I know the Sun Odyssey 39p (Performance) does well. Who else does well?

[MartyB]

Are you in Europe? If so, look for a sunfast 35, same hull etc as the SO35, but a deeper keel, and 3' or 1M taller mast. Even a deep keel SO35 would do better than what you have generally speaking.

The deep draft SO37 or SF37 would also be nice boats in the used market. But at least in the states, the ratings for a 35 are a bit faster than the 37 generally speaking. The 35 would be on my short list of slightly older Jeanneau's.

If you want to go a bit more race oriented, then something on par with the Beneteau 1st series would get you a reasonably nice interior, along with size for size, a bit better sailing performance than the SF Jeanneaus I mentioned.

Marty

[hoppy]

SF3600

[so36idavid]

May 22, 2014 9:32:23 GMT renegade27 said:

I absolutely LOVE my '04 JSO 35. The design, the quality, fun-factor all great. Just one thing - Can't stand the performance upwind in any sort of blow. The boat is very difficult to hold down and round-ups seem unavoidable, although we've gotten much better. d**n shoal keel and short rudder...

I don't know your boat very well and I'm sure you've tried everything you know like hard on cunningham, outhaul and halyard. But after many years of racing in very windy places here's my unsolicited 2c.

Rounding up is basically a symptom of two things. One is the center of effort of the sails is too far aft. So if you shorten the main sail before going to a smaller jib you will move the center of effort forward which will give you a more leeward helm. The second factor is a deep heel. This is partly a consequence of the d**n shoal keel. But it's really something you want. If the boat gets overpowered you want it to round up which is better than laying down on its side or, heaven forbid, rounding down. The cure for excessive heel is to shorten sail. So once again try reefing the main. 

If it's gusty then put your best trimmer on the main. If you have more than a few degrees of weather helm then the traveller needs to go down. It helps to have constant communication between the driver and main trimmer. Driver's job is to point the boat where it needs to go, trimmer's job is to keep the boat at a constant heel. As soon as that gust hits, traveller down, as soon as the boat starts to stand up, traveller up. After you've done this for a while it will feel like the trimmer is reading your mind and you should never feel weather helm. If you do, talk to the trimmer. BTW it's very slow to drag your stanchions through the water, traveller must go down before the toe rail is in the water. 

One other thing you might try in a blow is to crank the sheet in very hard and a bit of traveler down. Basically you want to sail with a bit of a bubble at the luff. Trimmer should just fly the battens and keep the leech telltales flying. 

Sailing at a deep heel is slow. Flat is fast, fast is fun .

David

[Don Reaves]

I also absolutely love my '04 SO35. Over the years, I have learned to trim the main as David suggests and it has helped a lot.

One other thing I would suggest is to avoid excessive rudder. I have calibrated my wheel and know how far to turn it to get 5 degrees of rudder. I try hard to avoid going any further while I'm sailing in a straight line.

My latest experiment hasn't begun yet. I've ordered new sails from a local sailmaker who really knows how to build racing sails. Although mine will be made of dacron, the cut will be far superior to the original sails. I'm hoping this helps also.

Don

[tedp]

I've been through all the performance questions myself. A shoal keel and rudder will have less upwind performance all round, but I found reefing down to keep the angle of heel within limits is a good thing. You will avoid excessive rudder and dragging the hull through the water. Over-canvassing means hard work without producing results.

Also, make sure you have good quality blocks on the running rig, so the friction goes down. You'll avoid having to crank very hard to get the sheet or the traveller in.

If you're satisfied with your boat apart from the upwind performance, it's much less expensive to tweak the rig and use better sails than to change boats.

[MartyB]

Do you have your original sails on the boat? if so, and they are Dacron, you lose about 5-10% of there new ability per year of use. If they are 5-10 yrs old, you could be anywhere from 50-100% shot! A cruising laminate like Ullmans Tri axel laminate is a panel sewn laminate, typically costing less than tri radial, but more than a cross cut Dacron. Better performance too, these only lose 2-3% of there new sailing ability ie stretch etc per year until around year 7-8, then the % lose increases quickly to 0 like a Dacron in the same time frame.
Laminates also do not stretch as much sail shape wise in gusty conditions. So the gusts become go power, not heeling power as the sail goes out of shape. Sta-set lines or equal are also the same way, lots of stretch in windier conditions, which will help is making sail shape out of shape in windier conditions. Going to say Samson XLS extra, nets you less than 1% stretch at 20% max load, vs 3-4% stretch at 15% load for Sta-set or equal common line used in running rigging.

Making sure your rig is tuned is a major factor too. Many have their shrouds and stays too lose. Along with the mast is not centered correctly, or spreaders set correctly, parallel etc.

All of these will effect how good or bad you can go upwind, this can change things to the better by 5 degrees or more sometimes.

Little things like making sure your bottom is clean, will help speed. A folding or feathering prop will net you upwards of .75 knots vs a fixed prop. Local one does get a 9sec credit for a fixed vs folding, but .75 knots depending upon the boat speed, is upwards of 3-4 minutes per mile gain in actual time! The credit is not worth it! Do you race with a dodger or bimini up? again, no credit in handicap, and this is windage, hence time to finish, so your ability to finish in the silver is down. Flush thru hulls can add .1-.2 knots of boat speed also

Just a few things to help you go faster that have not been mentioned.

In the "i" series boats, the 39iP is probably the best powered up version. Most of the others only have a 1' taller mast, the 39iP IIRC about 3'. Rating is around 80 or so phrf which is probably what you sail under handicap wise on the east coast of the US. There is an SF35 for sail sorta kind near you at the moment. No 39iP's that I can see anywhere in the US. In fact, not too many XXiP's in NA at all of any size.

Marty

[jp]

In the UK there is a SO 33i Performance named "Silver Fox". As an owner of a SO 33iP myself I have been following her performance for a couple of years. In general she seems to succeed well. The Brighton Marina Yacht Club's result pages don't contain info about wind conditions but I suppose that the less successful races are ones with less wind. 33iP can perform in medium and stronger winds. I do not participate in races but want to do my best to increase performance. We e.g. replaced the original tri-radial mylar-taffeta genua with a 3m2 larger tri-radial mylar genua with vertival battens and this made a difference.

[renegade27]

Thanks all for the suggestions. SO36iDavid, there was a whopping thread about shoal draft Jeanneaus and control in higher winds that review all types of tricks/ good sailing habits jeanneau.proboards.com/thread/2249/minimize-broaches-roundups?page=1&scrollTo=10769

I've done everything (I think) - anchor rode out of bow, adjustable backstay, new sails, traveller manning, et all of which helped. For me, the biggest change was moving the sail blocks back in a blow to absolutely flatten out the jib.

Still, while I would round up every 4-5 minutes in a 20kt blow, now I can control to one or two (really good!) roundups out for the day in strong wind - -

Still, this boat isn't a strong club racer (would regularly win in my '88 Pearson 31 - - now in the 'top tier' (3 or 4 out of maybe 10) boats in the fleet.

The SF35 (can it sail to it's rating??) is interesting as is the 33ip. Thanks for the suggestions - - -