Is a Contessa 32 basically a man cave for Boomers longing for the halcyon days of the 70s?

steveeasy said:
There you go. Not sure a boat exists that covers all the boxes. All boats offer different benifits and have compromises within each design.
A contessa will look after you well in a storm and do little to excite you in calm seas.
Steveeasy
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What exactly is "looking after you in a storm" ?

The '79 Fastnet, the '98 Sydney to Hobart, these are rare occasions when large fleets of diverse sailing boats are subjected to roughly the same atrocious weather conditions. In my humble opinion, it's the maritime equivalent of a duck race - (duck race: when a few hundred numbered ducks are tipped into a river and the one which reaches the finish line first wins - the winner is completely random)

These severe weather events are effectively a sailing duck race. We know that within a violent storm there are rogue waves, and massive differences in wind speeds, we've seen the effects - a flipped cat in Auckland and a superyacht laid on its side, the Bayesian sunk by a downburst or other freak wind event, and a few hundred metres away nothing has been touched. On top of this there is variability in the skill, experience and fitness of the crew - way too many variables to decisively say a boat survived purely due to its design parameters, and not because it got lucky and didn't encounter the rogue wave or downburst that saw off the competition.

The Contessa 32 was the only Class V boat to finish the 1979 Fastnet ... but instead of that being interpreted as "buy a bigger boat", the Contessa got marketed as a go anywhere world girdler.

... a Hick 35 won the 1998 Sydney to Hobart, 10th across the line and won its class. It is as close to an AWB as you can get - 10,6m long, fin keel, balanced spade rudder, 3/4 rig, Yanmar 2GM + Saildrive - another lucky duck which most people have never heard of. They missed a marketing opportunity on that one.

The sailing club bars around the world are full of sailors claiming their chosen boat is best, with tales of survival to back it up - but when the sh!t really hits the fan, we're all in a duck race.
 
We thought about a CO32 when the Joint Services ones came up for sale in the late 90s. Inside information let me know which ones to avoid. They went for silly money at auction because they were coded and the sailing schools were all after them. Silly money was the result.
 
johnalison said:
It was certainly an aspirational boat when I had a Mystere 26 in the ‘70s but by the time I moved up to a Sadler 29 my mates were buying the Sadler 32 that was in most ways a ‘better’ boat than the Contessa, which slipped off my radar. I’m afraid that although I admire the nerve of anyone building a boat of quality and trying to sell it at that price, it seems to have become more of a rich man’s toy than a serious entry into the cruising market. Fine. I don’t begrudge the rich their toys, but I don’t feel any association with them.
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Chiara’s slave said:
The guy definitely meets runagound’s criteria. Though to be fair to the guy he’s a fairly hardened sailor. He had a Vancouver 29 before. He and us were the only members to show up for a particularly windy and wet club meet/ BBQ.
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Vancouver 29? Are you sure? I owned a Vancouver 27 for 7 years I think, best boat I’ve sailed ( for my sort of sailing) and if I won the lottery I’d commission a new one in the blink of an eye.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
The Contessa 32 was the only Class V boat to finish the 1979 Fastnet ... but instead of that being interpreted as "buy a bigger boat", the Contessa got marketed as a go anywhere world girdler.
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I have it on good authority that Willy Kerr, skipper of Assent the co32 that survived the Fastnet, believed the reason he pulled through was that he was the only boat of his size trying to go to windward . Albeit with a blown out storm jib, forereaching about 40 degrees off the wind, luffing into the steeper seas.
 
I'm privileged to have an account of the rescue of distressed bods during the Fastnet 79 storm by the skipper/crew of 'Lorelei', an outstanding She36.
That sounds to me like 'the real deal' in capability.
 
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DanTribe said:
I think you have to sail one and let the boat tell you how good they are
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I thought they were wonderful sailing boats. Then I tried one, and discovered that they are horribly wet, slow, disastrously in anything under 10kn, and difficult to sail with less than 4 large blokes. The rig is nearly unmanageable by modern standards, with that huge genoa and pathetic little main. The foredeck is tiny and cluttered for kite work, and they don’t point very well. Then you park up and go below….. There, it’s dark, pokey and if you’re sailing with a race crew, you’ll be hot bedding. What’s not to love?
 
We have a friend sailing a very nice example of a CO32. He bought it in Antigua and sailed it single handed to the Pacific. I had a good look at the boat whilst he was fitting it out in Antigua. It struck me that it was a good choice for somebody doing long passages single handed.
Reading this thread, everybody has different ideas about what they want out of a boat. Some people want a floating caravan. Some people want a race boat. Some people want a boat with lovely lines. You all pick the boat that suits your needs. The CO32 will never suit everybody, but for some its the perfect boat.
 
In general I am a fan of boats with relatively narrow beam, lower freeboard and deeper longer keels.
Because when sailing you stand or cook or sleep or sit in the cockpit closer to the axes of movement of the hull.
And Co32 seem to be popular with people who just like sailing ( so maybe there is truth I the OPs assertion!)

Cramped cabin? That’s a different subject.

I think there is a comfort ratio out there somewhere . Some bright spark will dig out the numbers showing that a Co32 is numerically hopeless of course
Would I have one? Of course. But there are other boats I would have too. Enduring though, David Sadler must have been quietly proud of his design!
 
I suppose I should spend some of my pension and buy a copy of YM to find out just how justified I am in being the present custodian of a CO32. I'm in my 8th decade and beginning to find tacking the No1 genoa a bit slower than it used to be; I haven't hoisted the spinnaker single-handed for the last couple of years; now use an anchor winch; use the engine more but I'm still out there and racing occasionally but with a much younger crew rather than one or two-handed. Definitely a marmite boat, with many easy to criticise features but still much sought after (thank goodness!) by those who find its charms irresistable.
While some of you find 14 pages extolling (I haven't read them) the CO32's virtues excessive, can you think of any other boat that, without advertising revenue resting on it, could generate that amount of print?
 
Blueboatman said:
In general I am a fan of boats with relatively narrow beam, lower freeboard and deep long keels.
Because when sailing you stand or cook or sleep or sit in the cockpit close to the axes of movement of the hull .
And Co32 seem to be popular with people who just like sailing ( so maybe there is truth I the OPs assertion!)

Cramped cabin? That’s a different subject

I think there is a comfort ratio out there somewhere . Some bright spark will dig out the numbers showing that a Co32 is numerically hopeless of course
Would I have one? Of course. But there are other boats I would have too. Enduring though, David Sadler must have been quietly proud of his design!
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Boat dynamic vary dramatically when you sail in the tropics compared to Northern Europe. When the weather is hot, you predominantly live outside. No need for oilies. Spray in the face is hot. Oiles would be too sweaty so you get just as wet from sweating. A large saloon in not much use in the tropics
As you tend to eat in the cockpit. Shelter from the sun is essential. You need somewhere to cook and sleep. The amount of time sat below is minimal.
All of a sudden a very desirable pilothouse for sailing in the UK becomes a burden in the tropics. The teak decks can't be walked on. The large windows turn the saloon into a greenhouse so you have to cover them.
My point is that not one boat design fits everybody's needs. People criticise other people’s choices from a perspective of their own needs. There are lots of very satisfied CO32 owners out there, I am sure
 
I am a "Boomer" as described my aspirational boats were Vancouvers and ultimately a SHE 36, would I have one now or indeed at any time during the last 15 years? No. There are better boats, better put together with better materials with dare I say it better designs. I have grown up in that camping on the water is no longer an attractive option especially now that their is no need.
So the Contessa 32 is not a "Boomer" man cave for those wallowing in nostalgia, it falls into the category of a classic boat of its time that has an appeal to many young and old, perhaps we should say to those that don't know any better 😁
 
SaltyC said:
I agree it does have the 'Row Away Factor' that many AWB's lack. I have never sailed one, I would like to, but whether I would buy one, small accommodation, low headroom and wet, is a different matter.

At sea in poor conditions with an AVS of circa 160 Deg I would choose wet over an AWB.
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In the Sydney Hobart disaster, 6 people lost thier lives ...

The Winston Churchill, a 25 ton wooden veteran that had been competing in the race for decades was tossed off the top of a wave into a trough ... the hull was breeched and she was sinking, the 9 crew took to liferafts. 3 were lost from the liferafts.

The Sword of Orion, a 43 ft boat was rolled through 360 degrees by an 80ft wave ... the boom punched the helmsman over the side, breaking his harness as it swept the cockpit.

Business Post Naiad (40ft) was rolled twice by the waves, first time it lost the rig and ripped a hole in the cabin roof and took on considerable amounts of water. Second roll it remained inverted for 4-5 minutes during which time one crew member drowned, the skipper was lost later to a heart attack. It turned out that 300kg of ballast had been removed prior to the race which was seen as a contributing factor.

1998 Sydney Hobart: 115 entries, 5 yachts sank, 66 retired, and 44 finished (38% finish rate)
1979 Fastnet: 303 entries, 23 yachts sunk or abandoned, 193 retired and 87 finished (28% finish rate)

Statistically thats an improvement over a 20 year period, yachts have got bigger, faster and I would argue safer.

Comparing the two weather events is also interesting.

The 1979 Fastnet had winds of 60-65 knots compared to the Sydney Hobart where there were sustained winds exceeding 65 knots with gusts up to 80 knots .... the wave height on the Fastnet was reportedly 50ft while the Sydney Hobart had 33 to 50ft with many reports of rogue waves over 66ft, one of 120ft was recorded by a rescue helicopter.

These weather conditions make survival a lottery IMO and with those wave heights, the smaller the boat, the more likely you will be rolled - and when it gets to that stage your survival is in the lap of the gods. A breaking wave greater than 50% of the boat length presents a significant risk of capsize .... that's 15ft for a 30ft boat and 20ft for a 40ft boat .... the odds are in favour of the bigger boat.

What often gets ignored is the hydrodynamics of the keel righting the boat, short keel length with a bulb travels sideways through the water with less resistance than a long keel .. so even though the gravitational force from a heavy long keel may be higher, it needs to displace more water to travel sideways and right the boat - a long keel is also more likely to "trip the boat up" when caught beam on at the top of a breaking wave, rather than slide sideways down the wavefront.

A narrow beam, wineglass hull also has less form stability, which is another reason why more ballast was needed - to stop them sailing on their ears in normal use.

The ballast needed to make an older, narrow beam hull shape sail upright is far more than that needed to make a more modern hull with more form stability sail upright - and as long as the boat rights itself "fast enough" after a knock down, then ballast is just mass which slows you down in light, variable winds.

Ballast does give a small boat more inertia which damps its movement, but it also results in a "wet boat" to sail, as that inertia carries it through waves instead of over them.

Here's how fast an AWB pops back up .... perfectly adequate IMO, and indicative of what to expect in really bad weather as the boat would be on a storm jib or bare poles.

 
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YM - like any hobbyist publication - suffers from the fact that there are only so many issues to cover.

New models, pretty places and readers’ experience thereof, second-hand models, winter lay-up, anchors…

And these topics all get recycled over and over.

Hats off to the editor, imho, for an issue that looks at a classic in a slightly extended manner - and one that has stirred up a discussion of the article and the yacht in question.
 
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