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sails are made of a high-performance fabric. Add to that the
two-way mainsheet system, Dyform standing rigging and a
cascading backstay, and it’s easy to see the diference. his
boat also had a new self-tacking headsail, a little smaller
than the standard overlapping headsail.
his self-tacker carries an interesting sheeting
arrangement. he sheet runs vertically to a sheave up the
mast, and then down inside the mast, out the base and
back to the cockpit. his allows the headsail to ind its own
angle when sheeted in hard on the wind and promotes
decent pointing.
Cranking power’s supplied by four Harken winches,
including an electric one for the main halyard. It’s a two-
speed model and makes fast work of raising the main. Two
primary winches – stationed just forward of the helm – are
easily accessible, and with the two-way mainsheet system
trimming the main is easy. he self-tacker’s sheet comes back
to a winch on the coach roof. A second set of cockpit winches
would be handy for serious racers tweaking a code zero.
With sails set and clear of the shallows, I took the
helm for the beat upwind, past the moored ships. A nice,
positive helm – the Oceanis tracks nicely. She heeled a
little in the gusts and accelerated quickly with the slightly-
loaded helm. From the windward wheel the view of the
headsail woollies is great.
his yacht’s itted with a B&G display at each helm,
presenting all the sailing and navigation data. Easily
visible in the direct sunlight, they told me we were doing
6.9 knots in 11.3 knots of true wind (about 18 knots
apparent). With no sheet adjustments needed, tacking was
the essence of simplicity.
Reaching back to base we eased the sheets, slipping
along nicely. But downwind, against the current we
were short of apparent wind and our SOG dropped
considerably. A good time to try out the engine – a 45hpU
- DEK
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