Boat Dilemma

[crump 2]

Short version: Invest more in the Davidson 28, or hold off and plan on an upgrade?

Long Version:

I bought my first yacht, a Davidson 28, in April 2018 after spending a year or two training and crewing on boats down at Westhaven. Since then I've gone from totally green to... well I can dock without embarrassing myself now! We are based at Hobsonville/WestPark marina.

The boat has been great. I've cruised up as far as Whangaroa, sailed with my kids and a lot of friends, and am on my second race season with CCYC and an established pool of crew members. It's safe and reliable and for a first boat I really can't fault it. I didn't entirely know what I wanted to do with the boat when I bought it but it's become clear that the racing is a bit of a bug and something I'd like to go further in. Here comes the dilemma.

While we've improved a great deal and are starting to perform more consistently, there's no escaping the fact that there aren't many boats around us in the same performance range. We are last on elapsed every race by quite a margin (excusing those that hit a sandbank...) though starting to come in better on handicap. There is very definitely a list of crew work and racing experience to work on but there is also money that needs to be put in to sails, rigging and other gear to have it in race condition.

The question is do I continue to invest money in the boat to make it perform to handicap and plan on keeping it longer term, or do I put that on hold and start planning to move on? The things I would like to do are:

• Continued regular club racing.
• Some involvement further up the harbour (RYC etc).
• SSANZ Triple Series (2021 and beyond).
• Coastal Classic (2021 and beyond).
• More cruising, especially Barrier, BOI etc.

The goals are very much engagement and experience building. Here are a few RaceTrack class ratings for comparison (I can't find a D28 with an active PHRF to compare):

• Tracker, 0.6161
• Davidson 28, 0.6192
• Whiting 29, 0.6204
• Noelex 22, 0.6218
• Noelex 25, 0.6321
• Pied Piper, 0.6515
• Marauder, 0.6787
• Young 88, 0.7509

SSANZ has a couple of boats in our range though not many so that seems doable. The lowest I can see in last years Coastal is a Marauder and we'd trail that by a good margin. The time it takes us to get from Hobsonville to the harbour entrance doesn't go unnoticed either and makes weekend cruising fairly limited. The math on VMG against the tide is especially rough on the slower boats!

If I moved on I'd be looking for something with an active class around me to compare against and take notes from. Something that puts us in the fun part of the fleet where my crew can feel a little more engaged with the race scene. Something that can get a bit of boogie on downwind wouldn't hurt either! 

I'm a bit torn as I love my boat but not sure it's going to do what I want. All advice and ideas welcome.

Cheers

[Deep Purple 530]

Scarlett fever or start me up. $25g or less and all the racing you could ever need

[crump 2]

2 minutes ago, Deep Purple said:

Scarlett fever or start me up. $25g or less and all the racing you could ever need

Yeah blimmin heck those seem like a lot of race for the money.

[crump 2]

3 hours ago, Deep Purple said:

Scarlett fever or start me up. $25g or less and all the racing you could ever need

Any comment on the different 930 setups and what I should care about in that space? E.g. one of these boats has standard keel and prod, the other an extended keel but no prod?

[crump 2]

1 hour ago, crump said:

Any comment on the different 930 setups and what I should care about in that space? E.g. one of these boats has standard keel and prod, the other an extended keel but no prod?

I'll answer that myself by having a read of this 32 page thread... lots of info on all the different keels, though maybe not an terribly satisfying conclusion!

 

[Black Panther 1,767]

I would consider a Y88 or a Stewart 34. Why? Because one design racing is way more gun than hcap. Then it comes to size and cruising adaptability. 

[Fish 0]

Namu is good buying at that price. Should race with likes of S34's, Farr 1020's kind of fleet. You'd need more sails for racing, downwind stuff obviously, then the rest is for your preference.

I would have said a Y88 for racing and ok cruising, maybe a bit tight depending on how big your family is.

[Black Panther 1,767]

As well as better racing a one design fleet also means access to good 2nd hand sails.

[Deep Purple 530]

Y88’s are twice the price and S34’s up a marina size. Good boats though 

 nothing beats a 930 for bangs for buck in a 20knot sw coastal which was one of the wishes

cruising accepted 

[crump 2]

Where does the performance come from? E.g. a Young 88 is only marginally longer than a Davidson 28 and not vastly different in sail area but rates significantly higher in performance. Data lists it at almost half the weight I guess. It doesn't have the waterline length but rates similar to a Stewart 34 in race performance?

I see both these boats claiming 20kts downwind at times which is fairly unimaginable to us. I have dug up a much bigger spinnaker for us to cause trouble with now but we haven't seen its upper end yet.

Both the Y88 and Stew34 are fairly high on my desirable list. And no one is convincing me to campaign the D28 for a coastal? Aww 😄

 

[Ptown 14]

9 hours ago, crump said:

I'll answer that myself by having a read of this 32 page thread... lots of info on all the different keels, though maybe not an terribly satisfying conclusion!

 

My two cents having modded The Entertainer from bog stock and raced the hell out of her: go Scarlett. The keel makes a huge difference and She runs Masthead and fractional gear. They cruise better with the t-keel too. 930s are just so much bang for buck and lots of knowledge around which people are happy to share. They still get out in fair number too at times all be it in different configurations. Part of me is tempted to buy Scarlett...

[crump 2]

BTW you are all great and all the boats coming up here are good suggestions to consider, thanks! The main thing will be figuring out what to do with the current boat...

[crump 2]

7 hours ago, Tamure said:

I think the main question you need to ask yourself is what’s more important, cruising or racing. 1020 or  S34 best of both, 930 more race/sportboat style, 88 good for both but a bit dearer.

 

So I had a look at Scarlet which helped a lot. I can see why she's quick and would be a lot of fun but I think I'd miss the more comfortable space of my D28. She has things like functional headroom through to the head room etc. I think I'm going to list my boat, give it time, and start saving for something a bit more balanced like the S34 and keep looking around.

[splat 57]

Sails are not inexpensive and you have to have a well sorted budget to keep on top of a race wardrobe IMHO.

If you are keen to race shorthanded and fleet, as well as, cruise occasionally in Auckland,  in my view it would be hard to go past an 88 (cough , cough as a sorta 930 owner) - second hand 88 sails are available (we got  hold of a very lightly used 88 3DL Genoa as an overlapper for another 930 down here - it was cheap and in surprisingly good shape) and the 88's have a very strong owners association as well.

I remember as a kid when Scarlett was built for Jock Freemantle - Queenstown (later Production builder of Beale 33s). To a wide eyed youngster it was simply an awesome machine in its 80's bright yellow on its road trailer!.  It was built with a lifting daggerboard and was a tad tender if my recollection serves me right as rail fodder on a gusty lake.

I love our boat..perfect for the family Xmas cruise...relatively cheap marina berth length at 10 metres and I can deal with most maintenance issues - even  installed my own windgear on my own couple of weeks back (first time solo mast climb). The interior layout of our Ross 30 (930) is a bit different from the production boats where for starters the mast is keel stepped and there is only one main bulkhead aft of the mast compared with the factory boats with an aft and forward bulkhead with a beam between. Not having a second bulkhead to isolate the toilet and support the deck stepped mast really opens the narrow end of a 930 up.

I think Murray did a really good job on the layout on this boat.

 

 

 

[crump 2]

Definitely looks a bit tidier inside than the other 930's I've seen Splat. Photos are always tricky of course!

[splat 57]

32 minutes ago, crump said:

Definitely looks a bit tidier inside than the other 930's I've seen Splat. Photos are always tricky of course!

 

[raz88 97]

One other point going back to the original post - the whiting 29 that's come up in your racetrack search is a slow one. If you change your search to full history you'll see them all and that loads rate more like 0.67. Still not 88 or 930 territory, but a decent margin faster than your d28. 

If I were in your situation I'd say that the answer to your fundamental question is that yes you're better to upgrade to a different boat than throw heaps of money at the d28. Contrary to what's been said above a y88 shouldn't cost double what scarlet does, and fleet street sold recently after being advertised in the high 20s. Also worth looking at farr 9.2s, lidguard 29s as well. 

[raz88 97]

On 23/07/2020 at 8:56 AM, crump said:

Where does the performance come from? E.g. a Young 88 is only marginally longer than a Davidson 28 and not vastly different in sail area but rates significantly higher in performance. Data lists it at almost half the weight I guess. It doesn't have the waterline length but rates similar to a Stewart 34 in race performance?

I see both these boats claiming 20kts downwind at times which is fairly unimaginable to us. I have dug up a much bigger spinnaker for us to cause trouble with now but we haven't seen its upper end yet.

Both the Y88 and Stew34 are fairly high on my desirable list. And no one is convincing me to campaign the D28 for a coastal? Aww 😄

Hull shape, weight, sail area, appendage drag, balance. There's a range of factors. Both 88 or 930 will plane downwind which is why the big speeds are achievable. The hull shape and weight of the d28 don't really support this. 

The d28 is a good boat but is kind of a generation behind the others mentioned in this thread in terms of design thinking. 

930s are great as pointed out lots in this thread, but are narrow so feel smaller inside than an 88 or similar. 

[Deep Purple 530]

Yeah but then they can do this, coastal 2014, our very average 930 half an hour in front of the first S34 and 2 hours in front of the first Y88 and look at the boats behind us....

 

 

[splat 57]

3 hours ago, Knot Me... maybe said:

Is that a centercase still in Ballistic?

If you think she is open mine would come as a shock. A photo taken from the same place would look just the same as long as you removed the case, galley, cupboards, nav station, shelves, light fitting, wood trim, squabs, warning sign, leecloths, lectronics panel, 50% of the dome nuts and widen the gap between the bunk fronts a fair bit. You can leave the paint and windows.....and add in some substantial ribs around the top of the keel plus a slightly bigger box under the bulkhead opening which contains part of our MMBU system and a small bilge pump.

I do like that wood trim, it finishes it off so much nicer than my seafog on seafog on seafog. I have considered throwing some clashing on for the aesthetics but never found the time.

C'mon KM you know apart from the C/B case the rest is foam and a very thin layer of glass plus tabbing and fillets ..I'd argue it weighs bugger all. Besides why have we never seen a photo of the interior of the elusive reptile? Crump might want to see what a modern interior interpretation of a 930 like think looks like. Pics or it never happened!