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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