BOAT TEST
launching from a trailer and sailing in
shallow water. Full marks here. On the
other hand, since a long centreplate slot is
an inevitable consequence, I don’t
understand why Dufour hasn’t fi tted a slot
gasket to reduce the volume of water
being dragged along inside the case.
Dinghies fi t them for good reason. A
gasket should make the boat both drier
and faster (and quieter too). If you’re
sailing a dinghy, or a sportsboat with a
daggerboard, wet-footed sailing is to be
expected. I would suggest that with this
boat it might not be appreciated and is
largely avoidable.
If you want to do things properly when
not in danger of hitting the bottom, you
insert the large screw that would stop the
plate crashing back into the case in the
event of a knock-down.A lot of slop
Something else I would like to see
improved is the rudder assembly. The
blade lifts vertically through an open stock
and has two plastic screws intended to
stop it wobbling around, one acting
laterally at the bottom of the stock and
one fore-and-aft at the top. The
trouble is that they don’t really
do their job: there was still a
good deal of slop. Wedging a
piece of cloth (all we had
readily to hand) between the
blade and the top of the
stock made little difference.
To me, the whole rudder
and tiller assembly felt
slightly spongey and
didn’t give the precise
feel I would like. Since
everyone else
thought it was fi ne,
such thoughts are
clearly subjective.
That said, I
understand
that Dufour has
since madesome design modifi cations on this front.
Tacking, gybing and manoeuvring was
straightforward. There’s plenty of space
for the helmsman between the shortish
tiller and the 5:1 mainsheet, and a decent
gap between the sheet and the kicker too.
Once you bear away to set the
asymmetric spinnaker (on the options list,
along with a symmetrical alternative) you
pull out the pole that retracts into a recess
in the foredeck, and hoist the kite from its
turtle. Our test boat had a hank-on jib that
had to be dropped and tidied up to keep it
out of the water. While that’s common
practice on sportsboats, the Facnor
FlatDeck furling system due to be fi tted
later (together with a laminate jib) would
make life easier.
Under spinnaker there was just enough
wind to get the boat on to a semi-plane at
times. We weren’t watching the GPS but
must have been doing an easy 10 knots
and perhaps peaking at a little more.
Control downwind was fi ne as long as we
didn’t try to sail too shy – which, of course,
we did once or twice just to explore the
limits. When you fi nd them, the rudder
loads up rapidly before much of the blade
comes out of the water as the boat heels
over and rounds up.
While Dufour is rejigging the rudder
assembly, it might consider making the
blade a little deeper and giving it some
more balance.DRAKKAR 24 TECH SPEC
Price: from approx £25,000
LOA: 23ft 0in (7.00m)
LWL: 22ft 2in (6.75m)
Beam: 8ft 4in (2.54m)
Draught – centreplate up: 0ft 8in (0.20m)- centreplate down: 4ft 11in (1.50m)
Light displacement: 1,918lb (870kg)
Centreplate weight: 661lb (300kg)
Sail area (main & jib): 287.5sq ft (26.70sq m)
Engine: Outboard, 3-5hp or electric
RCD category: C (8 crew)/D (10 crew)
Designer: Umberto Felci
Builder: Dufour, France
Distributor: Universal Yachting
http://www.universalyachting.com
Long seats and an uncluttered cockpit create a lot of space. The boom is high, there’s no traveller and guardwires add security