The Santana 22

Traveller from another S22. ( I am currently thinking of trying this routing)


Information on the S22 is best found on santana22.com
in the archives or by asking on the mailing or message list. It is a great resource. That said, I'd like to speak to my personal experience with the boat. This is the boat that I did my basic keel boat training on with Spinnaker sailing a while back. I had been sailing a Lido 14 up till then and having a blast. The Lido would plane and and was simple to handle, especially with two people.

I then had a Santana 21 trailerable with a swing keel. It was a good boat and I'll post my thoughts on it later ( I believe there are some relevant postings in the older posts of this blog, also you can check Trailersailor.com). In keelboat we sailed with 4 students and one instructor out of Redwood City. The channel is a couple of miles long and is flat water until it enters the bay. Then it can be as wet and wild as anything the bay proper has to offer (in my limited experience).

The S22 site talks about the boat being very forgiving and this echos my opinion. Sailing in winds gusting to 25mph is wet, especially if there is chop or wind waves. I have found that having a small jib is very useful for stronger winds. The Class jib which is 120% provides a lot of drive (when there is wind) and is too much for me when single handing in the 18+mph ( though I am getting bolder). I have also been out solo in 4 to 5 foot wind waves and found even the small jib and a single reef to be too much sail and have dropped the jib and sailed "bare headed". I was surprised to find that I could still make good progress up wind like this. The wind would have to be really extreme for me to not feel comfortable with just the reefed main up.

In waves the boat will surf down wind or on a deep beam reach. With a water line of 18.8' the max speed in knots is 5.81 knots or 6.69 mph. That said I have seen slightly higher speeds of 7 to 9 mph (I suspect tide has helped).

The cockpit is reasonably comfortable though after a day of sailing (like All day) it gets old. This is without cushions or with only those little square ones. The Cockpit coamings are too far back to provide support except with a stretch. When motoring I put a cushion on the seat and one against the coaming and slouch in a reclining position that still allows me to watch forward.

I have been updating the running rigging configuration as stated by the guide on the S22 site and by looking at other boats set up for racing. I have to do this piece meal as my budget is shoestring, but I have diagrams for how I have moved forward with this.

The first diagram is the stock configuration:









The second is updated:


I have done several things like:
Replaced Keel bolts
Put winches and jib tracks on the cabin top
Run all lines to cockpit
Reconfiguring the traveller controls

I am still using the stock configuration for main-sheet and traveller control. I haven't made up my mind about adding a barney post in the middle of the cockpit. Some other things I want to look at is a better way of controlling the cunningham.

My interior is minimal and has some water damage. It is purely an aesthetic issue, but when I do my next haul out, I think I will crash through bebuilding the quarter berth bases as the tabbing is all shot and the plywood delaminated. At that time I will work on a permanent fix of my rudder play issue ( I have a temporary fix of wrapping the rudder post in high density poly-vinyl plastic).