40class boats

Yesterday I was aboard one of the MC-TEC Atalaria, Marc Lombard design class 40s. Quite impressive! It was a lot of race boat for the money. The layout seemed really well thought out and the construction was nicely executed.

Another note: I heard that the TJV is up to 40 Class 40 entrants. Soon they will have to start limiting them.

 

I agree, except with the name of the boat (Akilaria)

I have been also inside that one and I was impressed too. And it seems that there are a lot of people impressed with that boat: They have already made 10 racing boats and another one is to be delivered next moth.

I was also impressed with the plans for the cruising version, but it seems that the demand for the racing version is so big that they didn’t have time to develop the cruising version. I am very curious about that version, it looks a lot better than the one from the Pogo.

 

Thanks for correcting my typo
For me the racing one would work fine for cruising.
The Pogo did not impress me like these did.
How do they do it? Really inexpensive!

 

The Pogo is less expensive but the Akilaria seems of another quality to me.

They can have those prices because they manufacture the boat in Tunisia, were the labor is inexpensive. They don’t subcontract, they are living there, so they can maintain the quality.

 

I thought that I had posted on this thread about Akilaria, but I was mistaken.

As DG has pointed out, this is the Marc Lombard 40class boat and it is one of the best.

Take a look at Marc Lombard’s site and at his designs. In my opinion he is a great designer, with lots of successful racing boats but also with great cruising boats. Fast ones and unusual ones like the RM1200 or the Opium 39. More recently, one of the big French manufacturers (Jeanneau) relied on him for the renewal of the Sun Odissey line and of course the new boats are fast and good looking (I like the 39i a lot).

The Akilaria is not only a good and fast boat (several second places) but also a very beautiful one, at least to my eyes…. take a look at the pictures:

http://www.marclombard.com/

 

Paul, sorry for the delay, buy I was hoping someone could reply to you in more technical terms. I can’t.

What I can tell you is that chines are being used more and more by the designers of the 40 class boats, minis and Open 60’s. That means they think they give racing boats an edge and I believe they know what they are doing.

I have exchanged some emails with Julien Marin about one of his designs, a planning cruising boat that shares the pedigree of his 40class boat. He was one of the first to bet heavily on racing chined boats (bet is the wrong word). Apart-city, the winner of the last race is one of his designs. He says that the main advantages have to do with the speed at witch the boat starts to plan. He says that with the chined hull the boat can plan at 11k, while without chines that would only happen at 12k.

He must be right cause he is winning races, but don’t ask me why

 

Pogo 40 in California, USA

The first Class 40 (Pogo) has arrived in the US.

Today the owner was nice enough to show me around on the boat. It seems quite nice, not quite the type of boat or interior layout I prefer, but it sounds like it will fit his needs perfectly.

 

I have not been around on this forum, but I want to share this article with the guys that like fast boats.

Look at what the staff of the BlueWater sailing mag, a conservative USA blue water sailing magazine said when they tried an Akilaria :

“Class40s are not for the faint of heart. They are for sailors who lust after raw speed in boats that can be singlehanded or doublehanded across oceans or, for that matter, around the world. We can only hope that Class 40s catch on in the U.S. with the same fever that has swept Europe.”

More here:

http://www.bwsailing.com/articles/2007/nov/akilaria-class-40/

 

Every time I hear "15 knots, wow!", I think one thing: buy a windsurfer.

Jeez.

Paul

 

Not quite a Class 40 boat, but rafted up next to us in Dartmouth two weeks ago was a new Pogo 10.5, on a maiden voyage from Brest. My daughter did them a favour and gave them a ride ashore in our tender, in return they invited us on board to share a bottle of wine. They'd been travelling at 16 kts on the way across, and this is a Pogo "cruising" boat!
See http://www.pogostructures.com/?m=7&s=1&l=en