The open 5.70 is one of our considerations. Being honest, it’s probably at the top of our list right now. It’s one of the least expensive options. It’s also available now. It’s a baby 60′ design that looks to be easily sailed by 2 people. It’s very wide giving the crew weight great leverage and it also has a very deep keel for a boat this size (20′ boat with a 5’9″ draft). I really like the simplicity of the design and it’s setup to be easily rigged and launched alone. The whole boat weighs in at 992lbs. With it’s trailer it would be easily towed by our smallest car which is nice.
The issues I see with it are that I wonder how well it will sail 2up in 15~18 here in Newport. Also it’s jib is roller furling, but not self taking. How hard would that make single handing the boat? The spinnaker also has no retrieval line, so I’m wondering how hard it would be to fly alone. The brochures tell you it’s easily hoisted and doused by one crew, but they’re assuming there is a skipper… I’m really curious to see how the boat tracks dead down unattended for a quick solo hoist/drop.
We have an Email into Jerome so we can get out on a test sail. To me this boat looks similar to the viper 640, with a slightly heavier and deeper keel, combined with it’s width. That could mean it would make it easier for my father and I to sail 2up, as the viper seems a bit overpowered for that in Newport w/o killing ourselves hiking.
I managed to dig up 2 reviews online. One from Sailing World (where it won Boat of the Year in 2007), and one on Sailing Anarchy. Here’s a link to the boats website as well. Here’s a link to the manual.
- LOA 18 feet 9 inches
- Beam 8 feet 4 inches
- Draft 5 feet 9 inches
- Displacement 992 Lbs
- Ballast 405 Lbs
- Bow-sprit 5 feet
- Main Sail 200 sq. ft.
- Jib 89 sq. ft.
- Spinnaker OD 378 sq. ft.
- SA (upwind) 289 sq. ft.
- SA (downwind) 667 sq. ft.
Here’s a gallery of some borrow shots I’ve found online:
I was happy when I found your blog the other day. I’m in the same process selecting the right boat in the 20 feet sport boat category it looks that our list of priority is very much the same. I live in San Francisco.
From what I have read and experienced so far (demo sailed the open 5.70 at the Oakland boat show last week) the open 5.70 is my favorite too. The next boats on my list are:
+ Melges 20
It’s at least 10.000,- more expensive than the open 5.70 and almost out of my budget but if it turns to be ‘extraordinary’ I might give it a thought. From the information already available I can only guess:
Pros:
- It’s probably going to be the fastest boat (at least of the category I’m interested in. Viper and Shaw do require to much crew weight especially at SF Bay)
- The overall design/materials is very modern and ‘sexy’
- The Melges Brand makes it very likely that there will be one design fleets some day.
Cons:
- It might turn out more a light/medium wind design and not ideal for the strong wind and chop SF Bay
- It might be not easy to sail it single handed. (That’s the big strength of the open 5.70 I guess)
- it’s a lot of money for a 20′ boat
+ Laser SB3
Pros:
- It seems proved as a good boat for strong wind conditions.
- The heavy weight might help upwind against chop (SF Bay condition)
- The old fashioned deck/hull connection might not look that ‘sexy’ but might make it more dry to sail.
Cons:
- hight price
- design and materials not the lasted state of the art
- not as easy to rig as I wish (can’t do it alone)
- might not be easy to single hand it. No furling jib, large spinnaker.
I can’t wait to demo sail these boats and than will probably make a decision shortly. Thanks for the additional insights from your blog
Stephan