Beneteau First 27.7

 

Issue: September 2003
Manufacturer: Beneteau

The letter to the editor of the sailing magazine posed a good question. ?Where?, asked the author, ?can I find a small production keeler, like the Hood 23s and Endeavour 24s of the 70s?? What he was asking was where are the small yachts a dinghy sailor can graduate to when the kids have grown, the skipper? joints are starting to ache and the bank balance is showing signs of recovery after 15 years of merciless assault by the family. The direct replacement for those Aussie built 24-footers is not immediately obvious, but in the absence of a home-grown product may I suggest Beneteau?s First 27.7 as a candidate. A $135,000 yacht is probably not a firsttimer.

That would involve a heavy discussion about relative wealth and the values of the 21st Century. The Vicsail Beneteau people suggest the First 27.7 may perhaps be a keen sailor?s second keeler, the step up for the J24 owner, or the skiff sailor who wants to move on. It certainly has the performance to keep those sailors interested, and it has basic creature comforts to entertain the family on a picnic cruise or for a weekend. There is an enclosed head, but no hot water, though Vicsail will install a cockpit shower as standard equipment. But get your priorities right; this is a fast boat first and a camper/cruiser second. It was designed for speed, not for any rating system.

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This yacht flies downwind under its asymmetric spinnakers and it is light and responsive to sail. The 27.7 is light at 2500kg and with 600kg of ballast it will need crew weight, correctly distributed, to keep her upright and charging. The lifting keel, a fibreglass fin with a lead bulb, is raised by a hydraulic pump, which takes 60 strokes to lift the keel and you open a valve to lower, where it is fixed in place. An electrically-driven pump is an option. The rudder is a lifting fiberglass blade in an alloy stock. But to quote the Vicsail guys, this is more a boat you can trail than a trailable boat. At the time of our sail they were getting her ready for Hamilton Island Race Week and were planning to tow the boat there and back. The layout below decks is a simple openplan.

In the bow is a double-vee berth, about 6ft long (don?t know what that is in metric). There are two long settees (around 2m) in the saloon and a big double cabin aft on the port side. The galley features a single-burner gas stove, an icebox, and a foot-operated water pump. The navigation table is surprisingly large ? a swing-out seat is optional. The removable-leaf table attaches to the keel case. Timber lockers in the saloon, mounted on the hull side, are removable for racing. The Jabsco manual toilet has its own room on the starboard side; the toilet room includes a rack to hang wet gear, more important, as someone pointed out, on a small boat than a big one.

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