Thank you Hartley Boats and Peter Slater for the demo sail.
Take a look at Steves first Sail in the new zenith:
I had a real blast, great fun in a F5 to bottom end F6.
Firstly rigging and getting from the dinghy park to the water /launching, this was as you would expect for any centre board dinghy, no issues, pulling her back uphill to the berth was easy enough single handed.
Control lines are well placed and accessible, perhaps another purchase is required on the cunningham.
Centreboard at 40kg is easily lowered and raised by the multi purchase uphaul.
Now to the fun bit. Straight off the shore, as soon as I had got the rudder and centre board down and got the kicker on, she flew away on an exhilarating broad reach. There was a humming from the rudder which increased in tone the faster she went, Richard Hartley advised that this could be eliminated by adapting the trailing edge.
Downwind in todays lovely gusts, the fastest reaching was found by simply keep bearing away further as the wind increased, keeping her flat and the helm neutral, big smiles as she just kept accelerating as the wind speed increased.
The Zenith kept noticeably flat fore and aft on the plane, even with my 90kg well aft; no bow high out of the water, I guess Richard that the hull shape and the 40kg of centreboard keeps the bow down.
In one particularly strong gust (F6) I did pay the price for sitting to far forwards coming off the beat onto a broad reach before she had accelerated, she “went down the mine”, no problem, the bailers cleared the cockpit quickly.
Lesson learnt, go aft early as you bare away!
For the first half of the test sail, I played the sheet off the block on the centre board case, for the second half I played it directly off the boom ratchet, which was much better for sail control, tacking and gybing. Sheeting off the boom also reduces sheet loading (I felt) and keeps the whole cockpit free for crossing the boat when tacking, it also allows for pulling the boom further inboard on the beat as and when required. Sheet loadings were very manageable so no need for a cleat.
Tacking…. I’m used to racing lighter boats, so the Zenith felt relatively slow through the tack, but I’m sure that with practice and by delaying crossing the boat until she is almost through the tack (climbing uphill), this will speed things up. The boom is high which looks a bit strange regarding the aesthetics /overall look of the boat, but the high boom combined with very good stability of the Zenith did make tacking very easy, particularly in todays strong winds; at 6 ft 2″, I was able to duck under the boom without really crouching, step across the cockpit and stand up confidently through the tack onto the new side; she feels like a much bigger boat than she is, she is very stable.
Gybing….Peter Slater was watching and found it very funny when I pushed to find the limits of the Zenith’s stability by trying a slam beam reach to beam reach gybe in a good F6 gust, inevitably this ended in a broach and a swim. No problem….. the Zenith lay on her side and then it was simply reach inboard, let the kicker off and haul myself back on board by the toe straps, freeboard is relatively low .
The next few gybes were trouble free, yanking on the mainsheet as I went by the lee and then steering back towards the run (S Gybe) as the boom came over, letting the main load up heavily almost dead downwind. This does tend to push the bows down, so I had to keep my weight back.
Upwind…. bang on the cunningham and kicker because there is no adjustable forestay. Nevertheless, the helm felt quite neutral when sailed flat or slightly healed. Some weather helm loaded up when over healing, so a combination of hiking and freeing the main /footing (Phantom style) seemed to me to give the best vmg upwind.
I do understand the ethos of keeping the Zenith set up simple with fixed lowers and fixed forestay.
I did make some adjustments to the set up on the water half way through the test, ie hauled the sail back up to the white band, shortened one of the cascades in the kicker so that I could close the leach better( you can see from the video that the leach is too open and the top batten inverted), I also tightened the toe straps.
By heaving too with the centreboard up, all this fettling was relatively easy to do without coming ashore, she sat there good as gold whilst clambered over her and tweaked.
Landing and recovery, this takes a bit of planning but was problem free, remember to take the pin out of the centre board “lock” and lift the rudder 2/3rds up, then play the centre board/ main to give the required track/leeway back to shore.
The masthead halyard cleat worked well and I was able to get the main down easily. Pulling her back up to the dinghy park was easily manageable on my own, overall weight is minimised by the aluminium trolley.
Overall conclusion, She is very well thought out, she is stable and forgiving, but no slouch, quick to plane in a blow and very stable through all manoeuvres. I’d happily sail the Zenith in winds which would usually have me drinking tea in the clubhouse, watching the anemometer and the wing surfers playing in the white horses. I like the look of the chined hull and I suspect she will also go well in lighter airs, I look forward to having another go, and finding out.
Thanks again,
Steve