Catigale wrote:romandesign wrote:taime1 wrote:I'm in Ottawa, Ontario - and I have an
. I also used to have an
and before it, an S.
In short, I'm neither close nor do I have the model you are seeking, but hey, those are just details...
So you are a loyal fan. Having experience with all 3 models, how would you compare them?
is a bit out of my price range, but
and 26S are more realistic. How do they compare in terms of towing weight (I only have a minivan)? I heard S is heavier to get out of water because you can't drain ballast in the water and transmissions are getting burned doing it, but it's easier to tow - is it true? Does X really sail much slower than S, what's the speed difference? Is S really a significantly better sailboat than X or the difference is negligible? Is X much more comfortable to live in? What would you choose, X or S and why?
I've sailed on all but only owned an
If you are into racing or performance racing, the S and D versions are the boats for you.
The
and
have huge freeboard which is why I can take 6 crew to the Cape for a week but all that hull has a toll on the performance to wind
That about sums it up. The S is much more a traditional sailboat and the
has the bigger headroom cabin. The S does come with a pop-top and should have some canvas to cover the pop-top which gives you a little more headroom. The biggest issue for us was the aft berth, it's really quite low and my wife is a bit claustrophobic, so it had to go. But, it sails very well and will outsail an
on all points except in certain conditions down wind. It's not so much that it's faster (they have pretty much the same hull speed), it's that it takes less wind for the S to get moving, it points better to windward and it can hold a course much better...like a traditional sailboat should.
The
has a nice open cabin layout, a head you can stand in and a pretty good aft berth. It also has wheel steering and a 50hp engine. It doesn't sail well in that you need to be at the helm correcting its course and adjusting your sheets, you can't sail it into the wind and it takes alot of wind to get it to top speed.
As to towing, I think the S with ballast is lighter than an empty
. You could emtpy the ballast from the
before hitting the trailer, but most people don't. You want as much stability as possible to line up the boat to the trailer, which includes the ballast. We had a minivan to tow the S and it was fine. We also used it to tow the
, but it was probably at the 3500lb limit or a little beyond it. We didn't tow it very far, so I can't really comment on whether or not a minivan can handle it.
I would say that the S is a much better sailboat than the
but that the
is much more comfortable to live in. For me, the comfort alone would have me leaning towards the
. When you add in a 50hp engine and the versatility it provides, for me I'd be looking at the
. But those are just my needs/opinions, you'll have to decide what works bes for you.
...and for the record, the
beats them both, hands down, unless it has a white hull, those are just ok.
