After the first season | J/80

And one year aboard the J/80 has sailed by! Can you believe that?

About this time in 2021 we lifted Veloce² for the winter and wrote our first impressions double-handling a J/80. Here the full review.

After the first season with the J/80 and some water under the keel, let’s dive in and get some deeper insight on the boat (for our type of sailing) and the choices we made.

Firstly, what was changed/upgraded before kicking off in March?

• New running rigging (full article here)
• Furler removed
• New sail inventory (full article here)
• Re-arranged deck layout (jib reef, main reef, jib and main halyard, reaching sheeting points)
• Electronic firmware upgraded
• New foam deck coamings (full article here)
• Smaller engine

So, how was it?

Performance 👍

A wizard in light air. So slippery! She silently glides through mirror like water and ghosts along in a mere breath. Vote: exceeds expectations.

Magic downwind in all wind strengths. Unstoppable in the light stuff. Wet and fun in the heavy stuff. Responsive anywhere in between.

Upwind she slices through water beautifully in light and medium, but suffers doublehanded (no meet on the rail) in heavy air.

The J/80 reaches nicely, but gets quickly overpowered and could do with a larger beam. Real fun surfing in waves, but does not start planing.

Handling 🤜

Solo: In light and medium air it works fine, relying heavily on the autopilot. From 15kts and up, it is a struggle; even more in waves. A few challenges worth mentioning:

• cockpit very long. Especially difficult dowsing and hoisting as companionway and tiller are a few meters apart.
• no self-tailing winches. Sheeting and holding the tiller at the same time is impossible if any cranking is needed.
• physically demanding.

With this said, reefing early or under heavy jib already at 15kts, makes for fantastic cruising and day-sailing solo.

Double-handed: just perfect. From a handling perspective, the large cockpit, simplicity and no clutter makes it a pleasure. Our configuration is one man at the helm and main (+hoisting the asymmetric, +backstay), sitting behind the traveller while one man for everything else, behind the companionway, or behind the traveller, in planing conditions.

It did require some small layout changes to make it effective without a crew though.

Take downs: it took a while, but in the end we found our technique. It costed us some ripped nylon, some fishing and a lot of sweat. Nothing that training (still ongoing now, in November) couldn’t solve. Windward take-downs are safest without arms pulling in the nylon on deck.

Reefs: we have a very deep reef in the main and one in the jib.

• Reefing the jib: if we only think about handling, it was a handful. The rolled foot of the jib fills with water damaging the sail, because of the low freeboard. Sitting on the foredeck to tie the foot in heavy weather is not trivial and can be dangerous. Reef line, new sheet and ties arrangement should be prepared in advance and safety.
• Reefing the main: straightforward and easy. We do not use the cleats on the boom as they cannot be released under load. We have installed a clutch on the coachroof instead, which can be easily winched and released. If the sail is tied along the boom, shaking off the reef is challenging as the boom is very long and the outer tie is often outboard. A place to avoid; especially solo.

Sail Inventory 👍

The larger jib gives us some extra power in light air and compensates for the lack of a proper overlapping genoa. We never felt under-canvassed and didn’t miss headsail changes.

You might remember that our asymmetric is a lot smaller than the standard one. The main reason is a modern design which facilitates flow and reduces drag. Secondly, we wanted a sail that can be carried at tighter angles. We have collected data sailing deep with a standard asymmetric as well as very high with a flying jib-top for the sake of comparison. Performance of our design seems to be identical across most of the range, except at the broadest and tightest angles. The effect on rating and riddance of one extra sail more than makes up for it though. Lesser sails is an important factor in double-handed sailing, as well for the budget.

Identical in design, but lighter in cloth, the light asym is a deadly weapon in lower wind speeds. It rotates very well to windward and pulls at very deep angles in the lightest air. It got many more hours than we expected.

Reefs: reefing the jib depowers the boat, but the effect is not as considerable as we hoped. When the time comes to reef the jib, we are not far from needing to reef the main as well. We also struggled with finding a good trim and being able to repeat it. Still trying to figure out how to exploit this setting effectively.

Reefing the main works well. Having one deep reef, the effect is huge. We learnt to twist off the top as long as possible, so to carry more canvas downwind. On a reach however, reefing the main early unloads the rudder and is faster, especially in large waves from the quarter.

We really enjoy the heavy jib. Very effective in depowering the boat, easy to handle, tough and safe. Works well as cruising sail as well.

Feel 👍👍

If I had to describe the J/80 in one sentence, I’d say “she is fun and no drama”. It sure is a sportboat and feels like it. Nevertheless, whatever happens feels very natural and nothing to panic for. You can broach a few times on a downwind leg, or get washed down from the coamings by a wave and it’s alright. Seldom a big deal, really.

We sailed her across open sea and in large waves, surfing them or taking them heads on. It always felt safe and under control. There are many sport boats out there, but very few CE classed B (one of the reason why I wanted a J/80 in the first place).

One note of caution though: going on foredeck in heavy weather, is an hazard. Waves break easily over the deck swiping anything away. The single lifeline at 450mm from the deck does not prevent from slipping under it. Additionally, I experienced that violent pitches would lift me clean off the deck. To increase holds and reduce lifeline-to-deck, I set up a few dyneema lines diagonally from pulpit to stanchions.

As for the sailing feel, it is a joy at the tiller. Never heavy and really talks to the hekmsman. Extremely responsive and light on the touch. Among many positives, a small negative: I am not impressed by the gudgeon/pintle construction with no bushings. After one season sailing hard, the slitage is unacceptable and the gudgeon cracked in several places.

Lastly, this description wouldn’t complete without mentiooning what a wet ride the J/80 is. Getting drysuites was probably the best investment we have done!

Living 🤜

I’ll be honest, it’s not the best of accommodations. However, for a night exauseted after a race or cruising alone along the coast, it works just fine. I installed a gimballed Jetboil, very light and sturdy that can be removed. Good enough for boiling water or brewing coffee. As the boat is very wet and filled with sails, I removed the standard cushions and left it bare. For sleeping I use an inflatable camping mat.

A dehumidifier improves living standards dramatically.

Electronics 👎

While most of the boat met or exceeded expectations throughout the season, electronics consitently sucked.

Veloce has a state of the art Raymarine plotter, AP, anemometer, tridata sensor (temp, depth, speed) and extra screen.

The plotter, an Axiom 7 is ok. Not good, but ok. As long as it doesn’t get wet. If it gets wet by rain, the touch screen (which is the only way of interacting) just stops working. If it gets wet with salt water, basically at every wave), then it starts living its own life. But I shouldn’t complain, after all, it comes with Netflix pre-installed.

On the positive side, it is possible to purchase (for a very reasonable amount of about 70% of the plotter’s price, at the time of writing) separate hardware buttons, so called RMK-10 kit.

Calibration has been completely useless as well. Why? Simple, the log paddlewheel that should be aligned longitudinally with the hull, is guided into place anywhere between +-10 degrees from its correct position. It is almost impossible to insert the paddlewheel without error.

The autopilot EV-100 actually works surprisingly well. The installation a little less. The control screen is mounted on the port side, about a meter ahead of the tiller, while the arm mounts on the starboard side about 1 meter behind the tiller end. I’ll leave it to your imagination… Fortunately, I can buy a remote control to solve the problem (for a very reasonable amount of about 25% of the AP’s price, at the time of writing).