More thoughts on the Santana 22
I love sailing Santana 22's. I know you are saying things like, "They don't plane", they are not 'Fast and Fun" enough. I understand. Would I like to have my $1500 boat take off on a plane, barely under control, in 20kts of breeze. The answer is sure, sounds like fun, I definitely have a crazy streak. But if the S22 did those things, it wouldn't be the safe and fun boat it is.
Tom, an S22 fleet captain, talks about how these boats can be sailed without reefing and in good form. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how well this works, there are several things that can be done to depower the rig in winds above 25kts and all are outlined on Santana22.com. When single handing in heavier winds it seems prudent to reef the main. It doesn't effect boat speed and definitely makes everything more controllable. A 90% jib and full main seems to do about the same thing. That was the default configuration for these boats at Spinnaker Sailing school when I attended their keelboat class.
At the sailing school, they sailed these with 4 students and an instructor in the companion way. This worked out well. For One Design racing on SF Bay in wind it seems to pay to have about 430lbs on the rail ( not including the helmsmen ). Lite winds is another story and I don't have the expertise to really comment. I can say that even though this boat has 1230lbs of ballast (total boat weight is 2600lbs), it doesn't pay to move around the boat in light conditions. Crew movement should be limited.
When it comes to sails, though, the ones I'd like to have for day sailing are a 150% genoa, 125% class jib, a main with one set of reef points for general sailing and a spinnaker. For single handing I do find the 90% is nice to have, but the one I have was really cheap. I don't think I'd have a new one made.
In terms of seaworthiness, I've been in one total knock down. Water did not get into the companionway with the boat on its side. Granted that might change in the right (or I should say wrong) sea state. In relatively low chop, it wasn't issue.
Well, that's it for this post. The next will be dedicated to known (as in ones I know) structural issues of the boat.
Tom, an S22 fleet captain, talks about how these boats can be sailed without reefing and in good form. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how well this works, there are several things that can be done to depower the rig in winds above 25kts and all are outlined on Santana22.com. When single handing in heavier winds it seems prudent to reef the main. It doesn't effect boat speed and definitely makes everything more controllable. A 90% jib and full main seems to do about the same thing. That was the default configuration for these boats at Spinnaker Sailing school when I attended their keelboat class.
At the sailing school, they sailed these with 4 students and an instructor in the companion way. This worked out well. For One Design racing on SF Bay in wind it seems to pay to have about 430lbs on the rail ( not including the helmsmen ). Lite winds is another story and I don't have the expertise to really comment. I can say that even though this boat has 1230lbs of ballast (total boat weight is 2600lbs), it doesn't pay to move around the boat in light conditions. Crew movement should be limited.
When it comes to sails, though, the ones I'd like to have for day sailing are a 150% genoa, 125% class jib, a main with one set of reef points for general sailing and a spinnaker. For single handing I do find the 90% is nice to have, but the one I have was really cheap. I don't think I'd have a new one made.
In terms of seaworthiness, I've been in one total knock down. Water did not get into the companionway with the boat on its side. Granted that might change in the right (or I should say wrong) sea state. In relatively low chop, it wasn't issue.
Well, that's it for this post. The next will be dedicated to known (as in ones I know) structural issues of the boat.
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