07-28-2006
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Member
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 64
Rep Power: 7
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Freedom Yachts (G. Hoyt & H. Herreshoff)
Hello,
Freedom yachts come in three flavors. A small cat rig, catketches, and sloops. All have freestanding masts. Some masts are aluminum, some are carbon/s-glass, some are carbon-carbon (stiffest and lightest and most expensive).
The freestanding rig is the oldest one in sailing and it is no longer unique to Freedom in modern boats. It has its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, no wires to let go and ruin your day/life. On the minus side there are aerodynamic efficiency issues which can decrease the upwind performance of the rig. These rigs tend to cost the same as wire stayed rigs because of the materials used to construct them.
We sail among Freedom sloops today, they cannot go to weather with us, they match us on a reach, and they run away from us downwind under plain sail.
They are very well built boats, but we consider them unsafe offshore below decks because of a very very open accommodation plan.
We owned a Freedom 40 Catketch for 8 years. We loved the boat in every regard except up and down wind. These boats can go upwind with schooners, but not much better than that. The lack of jib, the fat mast, and the full hull shape forward all conspire to deliver poor upwind performance. The 40s were built for tradewind sailing so this was never an issue. Also they are tacking challenged. Usually we would wear ship or start the engine to push the bow through the wind if there was any chop at all.
Downwind they roll way to much for comfort and close to too much for on deck safety. Our friends with 33's tell us these are less of an issue for them because of a different hull design and proportionately slimmer masts. Still we saw a lot of them motoring upwind when we were.
We have returned to a conventional rig and are glad of it.
That said, our two friends with Freedom sloops are delighted with the boats. The folks who built them were committed to quality and now build the Legacy line of excellent power boats. Freedom still does a great job of supporting owners regardless of whether they are owner 1,2,3,4....
Generally these boats go for a price premium relative to the boats built for the charter trade. First they cost more to start with, Second those never in the Caribbean are in pretty good shape, Third is the name.
The proof is always in the pudding. There are Freedom sloops for charter and that is the very best way to decide for yourself.
Bitter End Yacht Club has 30s and other folks have the larger ones.
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