Pogo 12.50 super quick cruiser

[John_Silver]

JPK have three model lines: the out and out race boats (Sunrise etc), the FC fast cruisers and now a motor boat. Took the ‘slow racer’ description to be a reference to the FC’s. And to mean that the designs came at the racer cruiser brief from the racer side. As opposed to RM, who profess to come at it from the cruiser side. Another way to put the JPK approach might be ‘detuned’ racer. Tomato (USA pronunciation) / tomato (Uk pronunciation)?

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Well, we do have a JPK owner on the forum.

 

[John_Silver]

Yes, think Flaming has a JPK1010, from the race boat line

 

[doug748]

Chap on Youtube has a Fast Cruiser 39. and takes you through from first purchase:

https://www.youtube.com/@svcyclops/videos

He is feeling his way and you won't learn any racing techniques but worth a look.

.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Chap on Youtube has a Fast Cruiser 39. and takes you through from first purchase:

https://www.youtube.com/@svcyclops/videos

He is feeling his way and you won't learn any racing techniques but worth a look.

.

Obviously very different below deck, but this sort of video reminds me why I have a multi. Looked at the spinnaker set (nicely done) and boat speed. We’d be nudging over wind speed in those conditions and point of sailing. Our NHC is within a few % of a Pogo 12,50, and slightly shorter than Flaming’s machine.

 

[John_Silver]

Chap on Youtube has a Fast Cruiser 39. and takes you through from first purchase:

https://www.youtube.com/@svcyclops/videos

He is feeling his way and you won't learn any racing techniques but worth a look.

.

There's Photon Infinity too. An FC39 based on Guernsey. They had a pure racing JPK previously. Collected the new boat from the yard last autimn and were back in Lorient for the JPK cup earlier this year.

 

[doug748]

Obviously very different below deck, but this sort of video reminds me why I have a multi. Looked at the spinnaker set (nicely done) and boat speed. We’d be nudging over wind speed in those conditions and point of sailing. Our NHC is within a few % of a Pogo 12,50, and slightly shorter than Flaming’s machine.

He previously had a cruising cat, this is the initial video, some interesting stuff on it:

.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

My obvious takeaway from that is that our mere 9m tri would be surviving at 35kn of wind. It can do it but we’d really rather not. Our performance window realistically is 3-30kn.

 

[dunedin]

My obvious takeaway from that is that our mere 9m tri would be surviving at 35kn of wind. It can do it but we’d really rather not. Our performance window realistically is 3-30kn.

Yes, plenty of Pogos have done serious blue water ocean crossings - one nearly hit us mid Atlantic with nobody on board seeming to be on watch, we saw them on AIS and then visual converging before we had to divert. And arrived at the other side with another one just astern - we had gone straight downwind, while it did an extra 1,000 miles zig zagging! But no question about their seagoing credentials.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Yes, plenty of Pogos have done serious blue water ocean crossings - one nearly hit us mid Atlantic with nobody on board seeming to be on watch, we saw them on AIS and then visual converging before we had to divert. And arrived at the other side with another one just astern - we had gone straight downwind, while it did an extra 1,000 miles zig zagging! But no question about their seagoing credentials.

We are RCD cat B. Dragonflys are proven safe for that category, and can still make ground to windward when other ‘seaworthy’ boats have given up. And probably quicker than a Pogo in cruising trim, ie without the line of white socks used for ballast. We see other class 40 boats fairly regularly, and fully crewed, they make us pay serious attention to trim. Exhaustingly so in fact, there's generally just 2 of us, and one of them had 2 prosthetic joints, now has 3. Comically, the combined age of the crew on the rail is probably the same as us They’ll get us if there’s a long enough leg. Angus's 35 is a teensy bit quicker than us, the new 40 is too new to have any realistic data. Apart from the price of course…

 

[Zing]

Does anyone have any personal experience of a Pogo 12.50 cruiser???
either as owner or crew.

No experience personally, but I know an owner, whose opinion I respect and he is totally positive about the boat. A proper sailing boat. Sails extremely well and can be cruised well too if you don't want teak veneered luxury.

 

[flaming]

JPK have three model lines: the out and out race boats (Sunrise etc), the FC fast cruisers and now a motor boat. Took the ‘slow racer’ description to be a reference to the FC’s. And to mean that the designs came at the racer cruiser brief from the racer side. As opposed to RM, who profess to come at it from the cruiser side. Another way to put the JPK approach might be ‘detuned’ racer. Tomato (USA pronunciation) / tomato (Uk pronunciation)?

There is, I think, a bit of misunderstanding about the difference between what the likes of a Pogo are trying to do, and what the racing line of JPK are trying to do. And then again to what the cruising line of JPK are trying to do.

Think of it this way, the first thing you have to understand about a sailing boat, any sailing boat, is that it's fundamentally a leisure item. It has no real purpose other than making the people on board happy.

If you are not interested in racing, but going fast makes you happy, then what you want would be a boat that is mega quick off the wind in a bit of breeze, and you're prepared to give up some performance upwind in order that when you can go fast you can go really fast. Add in a preference for a mono, and decent interior space, and you arrive at a Pogo.

If however racing makes you happy, then winning the race will make you even happier. In that case what you want is a boat with a decent all round performance, so in this case you're happy to give up a bit of top speed off the wind in order to get significantly better windward performance. However, going fast with a big kite up is still tremendous fun, so let's not give that ability up completely. And hey presto we arrive at the JPK racing line.
In my 1010, we're capable of hanging with the J109s etc upwind, especially in a bit of breeze, but when the breeze is up we can get up and plane. Top speed this season was 19 knots, and we sailed entire legs at Cowes at an average of more than 13 knots. On a point to point breezy downwind race though, a Pogo of the same size would smoke us. A point to point upwind race and we'd leave that Pogo for dead...

The results from last season's JOG Poole - Cowes race are interesting. I wasn't there, but the reports are that it was a 2 sail reach to Hurst (via north channel) and then a "just about kiteable" blast up the solent to the finish, in about 25 knots. Fastest time was a Farr X2, then a Sunfast 3300, then a Pogo 12.50. From previous observation, I would expect that the Pogo was not being pushed anything like as hard as the SF3300 or the Farr, and may not have flown a kite, but still turned in basically the same time.... And whilst the Farr and 3300 corrected out 1st and 2nd, the Pogo was quite a long way back.... Not designed for IRC at all.

I fully understand where the "slow racer" tag for the JPKs comes from though. Compared to the Cape 31s, we're basically the same size but a huge amount slower. The only conditions I'd expect to be on a par with them would be a 30knot upwind leg. And in terms of offshore capable boats of the same size, the Farr X2, for example, is again a huge amount faster. On that Poole race for example, the 1st 1010 (a very well sailed boat) was half an hour slower. We're a little more "dual purpose" capable though, and also the performance of the boat is accessible to distinctly average sailors like us in a way that it isn't for a Cape or a Farr without a lot of on the water time.
Same applies to the 1180s (Sunrise etc) and the class 40s. Basically the same size, the leading Class 40 was 18 hours faster than Sunrise in the last fastnet. Even though the Class 40s were doublehanded and a punishing upwind beat is their worst point of sail relative to the 1180s.

Where the JPK cruising line is a little different again, is that it's closer to the JPK racing line in terms of all round performance than the Pogo, but compared to the more usual offerings is considerably faster in all directions.

So... If you just want to go as fast as possible, buy a dragonfly. If you want a mono and don't care about racing (or at least racing results) then get a Pogo. For a tad more comfort, better upwind performance and a good proportion of that downwind performance get a JPK cruiser. If you want to win under IRC it's hard to go wrong with one of the JPK racing line, if you can find one.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

And crew numbers, Flaming? That could have a big effect on performance, making the boats significantly different from racing to cruising. That is the real reason we have the DF. We have no wish to spend our leisure time managing crew, did that for 35-40 years for a living. Now, racing or cruising, we just jump on and go. I reckon there’s more space per person on a dragonfly, if ‘fully crewed’. The real drawbacks are cost, and dividing those 6+ crew jobs between just 2-3, plus of course being johnny no mayes on the race course, except at the Royal Vic where they have a fleet, and being johnny no mates in the race office, where it can seem as if they spend their time preventing us from competing, though we’ve recently had a big air clearing there. Told them we had no plans to reach in to the wednesday eve starting line at 15kn, nor to compete in Taittinger without extensive consultation, and getting enough boats for our own start.

 

[flaming]

And crew numbers, Flaming? That could have a big effect on performance, making the boats significantly different from racing to cruising. That is the real reason we have the DF. We have no wish to spend our leisure time managing crew, did that for 35-40 years for a living. Now, racing or cruising, we just jump on and go. I reckon there’s more space per person on a dragonfly, if ‘fully crewed’. The real drawbacks are cost, and dividing those 6+ crew jobs between just 2-3, plus of course being johnny no mayes on the race course, except at the Royal Vic where they have a fleet, and being johnny no mates in the race office, where it can seem as if they spend their time preventing us from competing, though we’ve recently had a big air clearing there. Told them we had no plans to reach in to the wednesday eve starting line at 15kn, nor to compete in Taittinger without extensive consultation, and getting enough boats for our own start.

Well all the boats I've referenced are sold as DH boats first and foremost. Even my 1010 is more often found as a DH boat than a fully crewed boat. The SF3300 and Farr X2 sailed that Poole - Cowes Jog race Doublehanded....

What that trend is doing to the inshore fully crewed fleet is another topic....

 

[Chiara’s slave]

The big double handed races would be IRC, presumably. Any NHC data is presumably gathered on round the cans racing, so hard to get a performance comparison. The other class 40 boats, and obviously Cape 31s we’ve seen have all had bodies on board.

 

[flaming]

For sure. But then it's kind of meaningless to race boats with wildly differing performance profiles. We've seen this in IRC with sports boats, When you're racing a Farr280 against a First 40 they rate very similarly. But one goes 6.5 knots upwind and 15 downwind, and the other goes 7.5 upwind and 9 downwind, the racing is a bit meaningless.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

For sure. But then it's kind of meaningless to race boats with wildly differing performance profiles. We've seen this in IRC with sports boats, When you're racing a Farr280 against a First 40 they rate very similarly. But one goes 6.5 knots upwind and 15 downwind, and the other goes 7.5 upwind and 9 downwind, the racing is a bit meaningless.

It’s why we only race the DF for a laugh. I get serious in a one design fleet. I was meaning to explore the effect of crew weight on these ‘big sports boat’ designs more than open the ratings can of worms. Though in fact, if we had some class 40s at our club, their performance profile is probably not a million miles off ours. Whether that still holds when 2 up and fully crewed, I don’t know. Your boat has a very high ballast ratio I believe, to help it’s short handed performance.

 

[flaming]

It’s why we only race the DF for a laugh. I get serious in a one design fleet. I was meaning to explore the effect of crew weight on these ‘big sports boat’ designs more than open the ratings can of worms. Though in fact, if we had some class 40s at our club, their performance profile is probably not a million miles off ours. Whether that still holds when 2 up and fully crewed, I don’t know. Your boat has a very high ballast ratio I believe, to help it’s short handed performance.

43%. Not shabby but not mega either.

The bigger difference in the later generations of shorthanded boats is the form stability. And the way that the chines work. For sure you go upwind faster with crew on the rail. You'll never get away from that, but the boats are being designed to lean on the chine, so the difference is much less than it would be with a more traditional cruiser racer like a First 40.7 etc.

And then you turn the corner and you have about half a ton less weight on board, so you get on the plane a in a couple of knots less wind, and you hold each surf just a little longer. Of course offset by the fact you cannot trim as hard....

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Trimming, absolutely. Racing for 2 hours on the DF, 2 up, we are totally wrung out, if there's any weight in the wind. There’s 3 of us on an XOD usually!