Bluewater cruiserr

Sometimes I visit the various sailing Web sites. I'm always keen on picking up on the comments made about the SAILING reviews. It seems that there is a need to remind you, dear readers, that I am only reviewing the material I receive. In a few cases I can see the actual boat and in even fewer cases I may get the chance to sail a boat I am reviewing. But usually I am just looking at drawings. Having been drawing boats for the past 43 years, I do feel qualified in this area.

The Ocean Star 48.1 is built by Ocean Yachts in Hellas, Greece. I understand the design is done in-house, but I would have preferred to see a little more effort put into shaping the deck structures. That truncated vertical ending to the coamings aft is a wee bit hard on my eye. Of course this is compounded by the distinctively bland drafting style. There is just no life to this image. I'm not saying it's a bad design, I'm just less than impressed with the design presentation.

The most distinctive thing about this hull form is the reverse to the counter profile aft. There is a definite hook to the counter. The benefit to this is that it makes the stern bigger and that would give you a bigger swim platform. But why didn't the designer just eliminate the hook and give the boat a longer DWL? That way he would have a faster boat with even more volume aft. It's academic anyway, the drawings show no swim step. I'm inclined to think that there will be one but showing it on the drawings was not deemed vital to the appreciation of the design.

The D/L is 216. The keel looks too far forward to my eye. If the keel were moved aft about two feet I think the ballast could be reconfigured to take care of the trim issues while producing a boat that was less prone to weather helm. The rudder is a partially balanced spade on a half skeg.

The accommodation layout is aimed at charter groups. There are four staterooms with double berths and three heads. This layout looks well thought out. The trick with squeezing two staterooms in forward is the access to the rooms. Leaving room for those two doors eliminates options with your saloon layout.

The sailplan shows an almost IOR-like ribbon mainsail, one that's very short on the foot. This will help with the helm balance. Ribbon mains aren't much fun off the wind. In this case the mainsheet is well forward on the boom and the short foot helps with this. The sailplan drawings shows a lot of sweep to the spreaders, certainly in excess of 20 degrees. There are also forward lower shrouds, which is desirable when you have swept spreaders on a deck-stepped mast. You can't induce pre-bend with a deck-stepped mast without forward lowers.

The SA/D is 14.3. I checked this number a couple of times to make sure it was correct and it is. This is a low SA/D and indicates that this boat will not be a light air flyer. However, we would have to know where the boat is intended to be sailed before commenting further. If this boat is going to be sailed in an area where they get a steady 20 knots every day this rig will be perfect.

The deck plan shows a large cockpit with two wheels. This layout is perfect for direct access to a large swim step carved into the transom but again, it doesn't show on any on the drawings I have.

I like to think that in person this boat will have more appeal than it does in these simplistic drawings.