Legend bashers

Im sure that they are even though said with tongue in cheek. Must be finally getting dragged down.

But seriously though, I would be interested to know which boatyard refuses to lift Legends because they split as it does seem to be a bit OTT.

Interesting also to know who would be responsible in that situation.
 
its not OTT when you think what they pay for insurance. I got told off last time I started talking about the Legends but I will say this. They are not heavy weather boats, they have alot of weather helm if even the slightest bit overcanvassed and if you tap the topsides they sound far too hollow for my liking.....
 
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I was just about to leave the 19th tee for the Yacht club bar when I glanced at my palm top and spotted this thread.
I am pleased to have been responsible for generating such a response to the original post which when I stumbled across it was languishing in the corner unanswered.
Horses for corses and I am glad you are all happy with your choices, but do please lighten up, being so anal will surly lead to piles.
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with the best of regards to you all
Bat Prat
 
Thanks to all for their informed opinions! I for one will not bash Legends, having bought the boat as an "interim" model we liked her so much we decided to retire early and fit her out with live-aboard capabilities.

She does indeed hold her own with the Bav 36 and is a little faster when the wind gets up. I was left standing in 8kts of wind though - still, with time on my side that won't be a problem. I agree about the in-mast reefing with the B&R rig, rather silly, however it turns the boat into a completely single-handed dream which is important when there is only two of you on board. We were half-way down the Clyde by the time our colleagues had their sails up. The lack of clutter in the cockpit is more useful for avoiding accidents than supping cocktails IMHO, and the steel arch is really tough and useful for mounting such cruising comforts as speakers and a cockpit light, not to mention easy mounting of overhead solar panels.

I wouldn't want to cross the Atlantic in her, but I don't want to cross that anyway! "Sapphire" is our home now and an extremely comfortable one at that. She has also been lifted out at Kip without incident and seems as solid as any of the competition when you tap on the roof. She is more solidly put together, as far as I can tell, than both Jens and Bavs, and so far accessing important underfloor bits has been no problem. All the gear on board is from top manufacturers and I remain uncertain about "cost cutting". She does, of course, have an "A" category rating and I don't think you get those from lucky bags. Shame there aren't more owners on these forums but I don't think they have been for sale very long here yet.

Anyway, I am still on the lookout for tips from handlers in rough weather!

Regards to all who answered

Pops
 
See my post earlier .... hull to deck joint ...

Yes it happened ..Solent area ... Marina will not lift Legends in slings without Owners signing a waiver.
 
Marina refusal ...

It was an incident that became well known around the solent - it would not be right to name the participants as I do not know if solution was ever found. But it was a well known marina .... lifting a 34 in slings .... it literally banana'd and hull to deck joint opened up.
Marina put the craft to chocks / cradle and awaited inspection. Claims as you would expect were made against each party ... owner against marina .... marina claim that standard industry practice was adhered to.
Fact is that a Legend opened up........

If you want to know who etc. - ask around East Solent area .... that's as far as I will get to the combatants !!!!
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Legend sailing etc.

Any boat with gear fitted etc. can beat another ......... but are you really trying to tell the world that a Legend will beat a Bav ..... given decent skippers / crews I would expect the Bav to be able to hold her own speed wise from a level start easily ... in fact because the Bav - even though I regard them also as the production AWB etc. - is a slimmer less volume hull than the Legend ... etc - will round the cans first.

To then say that Legend is built better than a Jen ???? Unbelievable .... It may have the comforts and internal volume - but that is where it stops .....

Cat A .... ok - but look again at what it says and also that only a prototype boat or first build is necessary to pass inspection - thats a joke as well !! - for cat. rating. When you think that YBDSA is accepted to rate yachts - that brings it to perspective and reality .....

Now I will be knocked by YBDSA .... Legend Owners - Hi Mike !! ..... I'm past caring really ....

I think the boat buying public is being led by the nose personally ..... more and more home style comforts .... started by the likes of Westerly years ago .... building floating caravans .... people started demanding the volume and amenities .... no longer the Contessa's, the Nic's etc. - it became the race to see what luxury could be shoe horned in .... forcing the boat to be more volumous .... till we have todays AWB's ....

Now I rest and pick up tomorrow !!!
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Modern boats & volume

It is apparent to me that a lot of production built boats go for volume and comfort, at the expense of sea handling capability - they are aiming for a specific market where the owners are not intending on doing open sea passages in all weathers and will be found nicely tucked up in harbour as soon as it gets rough ...
I had as much confidence in a sea with a Macwester 22'er built 30 years ago as I do in out current Jenny built 11 years ago and personally speaking I do not like the design of the new legends - they seem to have far too much freeboard and beam for my liking...
also
We had a Benny Oceanis 331 on holiday a few years back, in Greece, and that bobbed like a cork in the slightest of seas - shoal draft though - put me off completely!
 
Re: Marina refusal ...

Could there be a connection with a Scuttlebutt thread of about 6 months ago where the proud owner published a pic of his yacht being lifted in. Some here commented "ouch" look no sling spreader bars.
 
Re: Modern boats & volume

same old, same old. Gets very boring after you've read the same thing monthly or more frequently for several years. I'm mainly a moboer, but I do have some experience of sailing, and have headed out of Cherbourg in a Bav after a night of F7/F8 Northerly. It was on the nose when we left, and seas were pretty boisterous, but the Bav handled it fine. Many yachts back in Cherbourg, some of who had left the evening before, and we'd helped back onto pontoons in the early hours of the morning when we'd been up checking weather, were radioing asking what it was like, and set off after us once we'd described the actual conditions. As the skipper said, 'nice position to be in, a Bav at the vanguard of heavy weather saiing' with a somewhat ironic grin on his face.

I do have a lot of experience in rough conditions in power boats, and I never felt anything other than comfortable in the Bav. It was obviously quite comfortable in the conditions, and we were the first to head out, rather than "will be found nicely tucked up in harbour as soon as it gets rough"

This irrational dislike of some for modern boats bemuses me. It seems to be a sort of religious war by some, determined to find fault, even though the fault might be largely in their minds. This is not aimed at your post in particular, just a general tide of comment I've seen written over the years here. Maybe modern boats are compromised in some areas, but all boats are, otherwise everyone would be building the exact same design, narrowed down by years of building towards the perfect yacht. I've yet to see one.
 
Capability ...

This is an area that brings in many compromises ... whether it be car, boat or why ....

With modern boats you have those that want to sit out / sit in - in comfort with maximum facilities etc. Legend etc. does this admirably. You have those who want reasonable hull volume, comfort but more sailing and round cans ability .... Jens and Bens .... etc.
Then you have those that want live-aboard blue water etc. - these tend to be classic design and not the wide-body, comfort jobbies - but the traditional long keel jobs etc.

Is the above because of some mis-guided ideas or based on experience etc.

I think at end of day - all people will not be happy with all boats .... but some people will be happy with some boats !!

I like Macwester Seaforth Ketch .... bet there's a lot out there that don't .... so - why should I worry about them .... but it will never even outsail a Legend let alone a Jen ....

Horses for courses .... and may they never all come to same ... that is what makes world interesting ....

Oh - and to the one about sling-spreader bars ...... yes it is advised to use - to protect the top-sides more than anything else .... but taken reasonably - it can be done without ..... its done out here often without spreader bars ... and boats are no worse of .... The Legend that popped the joint ---- simply popped the joint ...... as to decision or who accepted responsibility in the end - I do not know .... I do know that the Marina as far as I know did not do anything wrong.
 
Re: Capability ...

[ QUOTE ]
Then you have those that want live-aboard blue water etc. - these tend to be classic design and not the wide-body, comfort jobbies - but the traditional long keel jobs etc

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I guess Shane Acton didn't read the right books or he wouldn't have sailed his bilge keel Caprice round the world! I wonder what percentage of boats on the RTW circuits ARE narrow long keelers anymore? Since very few new ones are built, and indeed even fewer outside of the UK their numbers are surely diminishing. Even the designers of long keelers moved on - witness Holman and Pye and Van De Stadt design evolutions to name but two. Jimmy Cornell (writer of World Cruising Routes, ARC instigator etc) who did one RTW circuit in a long keeled Victory 40 pronounced it too slow and changed it for his 2nd circuit, indeed I believe he now has a centreplate OVNI and to hell with AVS and STIX numbers!

As for sling spreader bars, no boat of mine would ever be lifted without them, unless it were a small daysailer and the slings were long, and that would apply whether it were a heavily built oldie or a lightweight racer.

Also to keep some perspective to the debates between makers, it is worth bearing in mind that there are very many more AWBs about than so called 'quality' brands so the same percentage of faults will always be seen as higher numbers. It is strange how people gloss over rudder recalls on Swans, delaminating hulls on Rival Bowman built Starlight 39s, stress cracking in forward panels on contessa 32s, keel problems on bilge keel Westerlys etc etc to name but a few. I have also seen rampant osmosis on a 6 year old Nauticat, a busted sideplate of a bow roller on a Malo that wasn't man enough for mooring loads such that the strop was freed to do all sorts of damage yet these are designs held up as examples of ultimate quality.

Generalisations are a dangerous thing.
 
I did sail last year from Cherbourg to Brest on a Legend 356. I found a boat which was sailing quite well and close winded for her hull shape. The inside is quite impressive for a boat of this size.

I cannot comment on her strong wind abilities, since we did not get anything above a 6, but I did not like the lack of trimming abilities of this type of rig. As the wind was increasing, we could only watch the jib luff getting out of shape.

What struck me, was some sloppy work on the joinery and less than adequate fluid routing.
The owner had severe problems with the agent yard in the Netherlands, which did some very bad work on the autopilot.

After having sailed to the Med, it appears that the owner summoned a team from Luhrs Marine to reinforce the hull in the area of the forward toilet (the hull was vibrating badly on some combinations of wind and wave direction). Vibrations (good or bad) seem now to be gone.
 
I was very interested to read all these opinions on legend yachts. Although rather sexist I found several quite amusing and when I told my husband they were built for 'pulling birds' he is even more interested in getting one!
Seriously though, I am more interested in the safty aspects. Has anyone crossed the atlantic with one (slowly), or has anyone had any problems with the lack of the backstay?
 
My dad used to own a 336. We sailed that boat through some pretty unpleasant stuff in the chanel and North sea. It stood up to all that was asked of it, BUT it was far from comfortable offshore. Bounced around like anything and was very tiring to sail.
All told though he was delighted with the boat, and it fitted the bill for what we were doing at the time - mainly daylight sailing in coastal waters with the occasional longer trip to get the boat to the next cruising ground.

When it came time to replace (in 2004 I think..) the obvious first port of call was Legend, but we didn't like what we saw, the large main which gave our boat such good performance, especially off the wind, looked like it had been washed on a too hot setting and the deck fittings on the 40 foot example were the same size as on the 336. Overall the quality seemed to have taken a large dip since 1996 when our 336 was delivered.
In the end he bought a Dufour 40 which does the job of being in harbour almost as well as the Legend, but does the job of sailing a whole load better.
 
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