JENNY the boat
JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Tue 1 Jan 2008 15:25
Hi Everyone
This is a picture of our boat she is a Jeanneau
Sun Odyssey 45 (45 ft) and she is doing us proud.Since leaving her delivery
yard at WestWays in Plymouth she has seen some fairly heavy weather up to around
45kts and travelled some 5,500 nm which is about 21/2 years normal sailing.She
is very well equipped equipped for Blue Water sailing with extra fuel and water
capacity for crossing Oceans.During this trip she will be crossing the
Atlantic,Caribbean,Pacific,Indian,Red Sea and the med.All over 20
months,although you may think this is along time but we are tight on the sailing
seasons having already crossed the Atlantic before the Trades had properly
established this year which caused us to have a fairly slow crossing of 21
days.
Getting back to the boat its not like using a car
the wear and tear at sea causes a lot of breakdowns of equipment and the rougher
the conditions the more maintenance is required ,in fact the second
place to visit after checking in with customs is the chandlers or boatyard.We
have tried to avoid some of the problems by having a new boat so our down time
is less than some of the older boats even so we have our share.But I must
say that the suppliers of yacht equipment particularly RAYMARINE the makers of
probably 80% of the electronic navigation equipment used by boats on this rally
want shooting for the total lack of reliability of their equipment ,their
agents product knowledge and their complete disregard for an efficient product
support program they are a shambles if they didn't have a captive market they
would go bust.Its like buying a new car knowing that its going to break down but
not when so you have to carry a lot of expensive spares.
Anyway our boat apart from the above is fine and
doing extremely well considering she's a Ford of a boat but less than half the
price of the equivalent Mercedes in boat terms,speed wise she is more than able
to keep up with the leaders of our size and type especially down wind ( but this
is not a race) and she has all the space required for in port living and
entertaining.As I have said before the secret is in the installation of the
equipment on which Jeanneau have done as good a job as the likes of the Swedish
boat builders (the mercs) and although the furniture is a bit MFI 'ish it all
works well,don't forget we are talking 1/2 the price.Lets see if my attitude is
the same when we finish.
I think the main difference in boat choice verses
price is the fact that we are not long term sailing round the world livaboards
as I said before 20 months is a short time for this sort of trip some people
spend 5 years /10years doing the same thing,passage speed may not be as big
a consideration,the comfort of a boat that carries its way has a
skeg on the rudder,oversize rigging etc may be more important.When we get back
we will probably renew our rigging as we will have done the equivalent of 10
years normal Solent type sailing in the 20 months.
I must say that on the few occasions that we have
needed the help of Westways they have come up trumps with getting us the
spares,customs and shipping agents have a lot to answer for in delaying yacht
equipment getting to their destination.
The choice, on a limited budget, when doing this
trip is new or old, quality verses reliability,you really pays your money and
takes your choice,it was a very good friend on mine who first introduced me to
Jeanneau's and indeed fitted out the boat and put in a lot of extras that have
proved to be so useful the test will be the end of the trip,but so far so
good.To my mind 45ft is a good size for long distance cruising in order to give
you speed comfort and room for the equipment.
It will be interesting to see how we
progress.
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