Sailing a Boat in Heavem for Eternity

When Davey Jones takes my bones and my soul fights its way free from his dark, watery clutches I will soar to sailing heaven and forever run my dream team with great racing on diamond sprinkled sunny seas, and the apres voiles will last all night and a bacon roll with a cup of tea will cure all the little hangover we awake in our berth to.....

But what boat ? 

Well in fact there is an answer I can come to pretty quickly and it is a boat I have only sailed against and never on. The venerable j35.

The j35 and its older sister the j36, were really the day when Johnstone got it all right and moved up to what in those days was resoluted CHS and PHRF class 1 racing in the 80s and 90s (before the rich got richer and gentlemen got divorced) . In my little part of infinite race courses, that is where it is, a class one racer, run by a team of gentlemen, racing mostly in strict one design, but with some diversions into handicap land, and of course the girls boat is full of babes......

Why the j35? I mean am I not an assymetrical nut? 

Well it is exactly having raced agin them and not ON one. I have seen enough j35 transoms for one life time from what were supposedly regatta machines such as the IMX 38 and Corby designs. Damn that j35,. out of the box. a bnig j24 and it goes like stink up and down wind, while also being 'on her time' in terms of being able to sail to her handicap . Apparently at ease. However that is not really the whole picture, it was both a pretty CHS freindly boat while also being sailed by some very, very competent sailors. But one thing is absolutely certain - the boat was killer good VMG up wind. Where other boats seemed to point and then stall and make leeway, the J35 trucked on and seemed to do so in all weathers., from vespers to storm. Down wind too they were able to use their massive mast head spinnaker to plough their non planing hulls or surf readily when sailing off wind. The boat emerged  in a time where there were many things being penalised which had become trendy on racing machines - lighter displace,ment, high rigs with running back stays,, bulbed keels, roach on the mainsail. Take a similar sized boat of the same era,  the Mumm 36 = a boat which never did anything in handicap racing with her full set of sails.

The boats move nicely, and the slight datedness they had acrued in the late 90s has now been reduced by the advent of boxy architechture and ninety degree angles around wally inspired boats.

Given 50,000 euros would I go out an buy a used race ready one today in the real world?  Well no way hosei. they have a balsa core hull ( I was told some had nomex cores but never had that confirmed., j build with balsa!)  which has lots of uncertainties even after a typical marine surveyor has gone over the externals with a fine tooth comb.

Also there is the crew / big on rail meat. I raced against Bengal Tiger and Spirit of Jacana at various events and they seemed to sail with between 8 and 12, which is much more than they can sleep and a fair deal more than I can imagine mustering on a regular basis.  In heaven, I could just have all my best mates to AC standard, and clone any other good former pros to do the sharp end, out of earshot.

In heaven I will just place them all there along the rail, and running a symmetrical kite always makes for a lot of team work and the odd mess up and broach and so on! Assymetrics are great for light crewing and planing boats, and for inexperienced crews, but the challenges of running with a stamdard pole make it more interesting. On non planing boats there is little VMG difference in my experience IF you sail savvy.

Also you have that very standard 1970s interior where you all sit round in the cabin and face each other, shoulder to shoulder on each side, a little cramped but cosey. Tea and bacon rolls all round.