Santana 30/30

[dpboatnut]

These have come up at the periphery of a couple of discussions over the months, but not specifically addressed, as far as I can tell.

The usual: anybody have opinions about, and especially experience with the boats?

My intended uses are SoCal PHRF racing, spartan local island cruising, coastal racing, and maybe some longer stuff, like Transpac in a few years. The PC models are in hot demand, with their cruising interior, but I think I''d be happy with the GP or RC- I don''t need the teak furniture.

I''m working on getting together with some local owners, and have seen the 30/30 association''s website, but would like a less sales-oriented pitch; theses guys are desperate to get more boats racing in SoCal, and might give skewed impressions to suit their wishes.

From what I''ve seen, the boats seem to usually race with a full crew of 8, which is lot of crew to keep involved through a season. The boats aren''t that big, and seem to end for end jibe, so unless railmeat is crucial, can smaller crews work OK? These aren''t IOR boats, but are supposedly built to the MORC rule, with which I''m not familiar. What typeforming has that rule caused?

Thanks,
-Chad

[paulk]

The boats are light and beamy so that crew weight does play a fairly vital role if there''s much breeze. Accommodations for short cruises look ok, as is headroom, considering your''re dealing with 30'' of race-oriented design. Look for issues from water ingress from stress cracks caused by hard racing/tweaking of backstays etc. Seem like nice boats overall. Get a new suit of sails and start building shelves for the silverware!

[Jeff_H]

The Santana 30/30 was designed to a brief period in the MORC rule which was not one of the better periods of the MORC rule. I don''t think that they are still terribly competitive under any rule. Although supposedly constructed better than the earlier Schock race boats, they do not seem to be as well constructed as a J-boat for example.

Jeff

[dpboatnut]

I''ve considered the J29 and J30, both of which can be found the same price range of around $20k. The J29 is hardly more than a daysailer, with the same rating as the Santana 30/30 (actually, the 30/30GP''s rate quicker, and the 30/30PC''s slower), while the J30 is a nice boat, but some 30 seconds slower. There''s a judgment to be made here of build quality (about which I don''t know a lot in fiberglass boats) versus usefullness and speed. Each of these three seems to lack one of the ingredients it seems, and the choice is tough as to which is the deal breaker. My inclination so far is that the construction isn''t *that* bad, to the extent that either the J29 is too cramped or the J30 too slow, relatively.

As an added bonus, there''s a very active OD fleet here, which I don''t think exists for the older J''s.

Relating to Paul''s post, is 10.25'' really considered ''beamy'' for a 30 foot boat? I''ve seen a lot of 12'' plus beams in this size, and thought 10-something was almost svelte...

Thanks,
-Chad