Speedfeet 18

The speedfeet 18 is another interesting boat I’ve found online. It’s site is in French (paste the url into google for a translation option) so it’s hard to make sure I’m understanding everything correctly. It appears they offer a dingy and keel option (the dinghy having a centerboard). The boat is very similar to the open 5.70 and they are both French. The open has slightly more upwind sail area (and more weight in a deeper keel) and a tad less sail area downwind.

I like the look of the open a bit better overall, but there are a few ideas implemented on the speedfeet that are interesting. It’s mainsheet comes forward which might work better (I need to sail an open so I can see how the aft mainsheet works for me). The huge difference though is that the spinnaker hoist is about halfway between the jib and the top of the mast on the speedfeet while it’s much closer to the jib on the open. This gives the speed feet a larger downwind sail area by ~70²’ (always a good thing) but more importantly a better shape to their A sail. I’m not a huge fan of broad shouldered chutes to squeeze sail area into a short space, I’d much rather see a mast head that’s narrow….

The interesting thing is the speedfeet looks much faster in the video’s I’ve seen online. It has 10% (70²’) more downwind sail area and weighs 7% less (66lbs). If my Dad and I sailed the open with 2 we’d be lighter by much more than the 66lbs, so it would just be a sail area issue. It’s not that I think the open will be slower, it’s that I think it LOOKS slower in it’s videos because of who shot them and the angles/locations…. It will be interesting to sail the open myself. The speedfeet is not an option here in the states (and it’s not nearly as popular in France even) but it does show that if the open is slow (it’s probably not) that a slightly bigger chute might cure that issue for PHRF.

• LOA 18 feet
• Beam 8′ 4″
• Draft 5′ 4″
• Displacement 926 Lbs
• Ballast 258 Lbs
• SA (upwind) 284 sq. ft.
• SA (downwind) 736 sq. ft.
• speedboat.fr (french)