boat shopping, opinions on jeanneau?

[Renegde_Sailor]

Originally Posted by Chinook92

hi all,

im in the market for a new boat, and i will have the ability to pull the trigger on one this summer.

i really like the Jeanneau 42 deck saloon, especially that king size bed in the aft stateroom. this will be used as a west coast boat ie canada and mexico and maybe hawaii with home being washington.

would love to hear opinions

I am in Puget sound right now, and have been sailing up here the last 6 years. What I would consider is what do you want to do with your boat?

To me it seems the Juneau's are great if you want to run around the protected waters of the sound when the weather is nice, and they are capable of running up and down the coast in the better months of the year, however, from September - April you almost never see on under way or at anchor up here.

The up sides of a boat like a Juneau, is that they are good in light air, and in WA in the summer months, we do get lots of light wind, if any at all.

The down sides to the Juneau is that if the weather goes bad on you, and the seas in here stack up like they can (I personally have seen 10' seas on a 6 second period with 46 knots blowing) the Juneau is the last boat I would want to be out doing it in, because with an itty bitty low-drag fin keel, it isn't going to have a good ride, and it's not going to be sure footed.



With the Juneau, your wheels are all the way at the back of the boat, Which means in order to cover them with a dodger you are going to wind up with a greenhouse monstrosity on the boat that is big enough to affect her sailing characteristics, and is going to be hard to see out of. (Imagine driving a bus from the back seat)

By comparison my Spencer 42 was built in 1966, it has a full keel, and I operate 12 months out of the year up here, and do so in relative comfort.



My helm is positioned at the back of the hard dodger, so you can either stand under it and steer, or behind, so you can either be inside or outside, and I have a canvas bulkhead that closes it in, which makes it much nicer in the winter months when you are cruising along letting the auto pilot do the steering, enjoying a warm cup of coco.




Lets compare the specs of the 2 boats:
https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/su...42-ds-jeanneau

https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/spencer-42

The Juneau is 42' long, 13'6" wide, the Spencer 42' long 11'4" wide.

Both have around 19,000 lbs of displacement, and both have a draft that is just under 7' and each has about 750 square feet of sail area with a sail area to displacement ratio of 16.92 & 16.8 being very closed to matched.

You would think these boats would be well matched until you take a look at the rest of the calculations, The Juneau has a comfort ratio of 24.01 and the Spencer 30.64, which is the difference between an ocean boat and a coastal cruiser, and the Capsize Screening formula has the Juneau at 2.01 vs 1.7 for the Spencer (a lower number here is better)

Neither of these numbers take into account the amount of ballast in the boat, the Juneau having 5,286 lbs, the Spencer having 7,000 (although mine is a special version with 8,000 lbs)

The Juneau only has 75% of the standard Spencer's 7k lb ballast, and further more the Spencer makes better use of that ballast as it is all bolted to the bottom of a keel, rather than a good portion of the ballast also making up the supporting structure that holds it.

What this means is that on a boat like the Spencer the entirety of the ballast is located further from the center of buoyancy than it is on the Juneau, and thus more effective.

You can have two boats take the same trip at the same time, and be on different worlds, I have experienced this several times, where I am having a bit of a bumpy ride, but still able to enjoy hot food, and a boat running with me are afraid they are not going to make it.
Now, lets talk fuel:

With the Juneau, you are also going to be limited on range and comfort by the fact that she only has a 34 gallon fuel tank, My Spencer has a 60 & 50 gallon fuel tank.

Given that both boats have a similar size and power mine having a 4JH3E Yanmar 40hp, which at 6 knots sips .5 gal/hr, means that I have a theoretical motoring distance of about 1,320 nautical miles with no reserve.

The Juneau is going to give you 408, which will leave you looking to buy fuel 3-4 x as often as I do.

When you start to consider other needs such as powering your appliances and so on, if you are using the main for charging, you are now significantly reducing the range of the boat.

Even if you were making a passage where you were unable to sail, say leaving Neah Bay headed south, You would run out of fuel before reaching Euereka California.

Considering going down the coast, on my boat I can leave Neah bay and drive all the way to San Diego on the motor and have fuel to spare, never once having touched the sails.

When it comes to cruising places like Mexico, in some places there, the only way to get fuel back to the boats is Jerry cans in a dinghy, and a trip into town.

Personally I would rather spend a day in Mexico eating tacos and seeing the sights, rather than screwing with hauling jugs of fuel back to the boat.

The Juneau is a boat with limited range, limited capability, that in my opinion is not well suited, or built for the Pacific North West, They are great in the Mediterranean, or in the Tropics where fuel is easy to be found, and the weather is pretty predictable, and you have the trades to count on.

However, in the Pacific North West where if you choose to go north from here, you are going to encounter lots of areas that have to be motored through, because they are a mile wide with mile high mountains on either side, and the winds that blow through there create conditions you don't want to be out in your boat in!


The Juneau certainly has a nice layout to the interior with the king bed and all, that is certainly a selling point from a comfort aspect, and that is how they get you, what the Juneau is designed for is being a floating motel suite, it has a focus on living spaces, a vast large cockpit capable of hosting a solid party, however, all of this comes at the expense of her sailing characteristics as in some respects, the two are diametrically opposed.

Finding a solid sailing/cruising boat:

If you are wanting to get into a solid boat, I would seriously consider talking to Bob Perry and seeing what he has right now for current offerings from his designs, he often knows of good solid used boats on the market that he designed and is intimately familiar with.

And btw, this is one of his carbon cutters which I would absolutely love to have! But $$$$$



Robert H. Perry Yacht Designers

I also quite like the offerings from Cape George, the 45 they are building right now is a first rate boat capable of tackling oceans, and will far surpass the life span and longevity of the Juneau, and they can also build her as a pilot house, which in the PNW is absolutely wonderful, and to my understanding they will sell you a hull as a kit that you can have finished out by who you want however you want, and they also have their 40' which is a nice boat as well, and worth looking into as well.



https://capegeorgecutters.com/

Something to consider is a newer boat may not be the way to go, there are plenty of classic plastics out there from the 60's and 70's that are extremely well built boats such as my Spencer, that can be had for a reasonable price, and by the time you get her fixed up to your liking you will have a good solid boat and will have still spent less on her than the Juneau.


The Juneau's sell well because they are a known name, that are produced at an economy price, however, they are nowhere near as well built as many of the boats that are out here, The Juneau is a cored boat, which means she has a skin of fiberglass that is around a quarter of an inch thick, then half - 1" of foam core, and approximately 3/16" fiberglass on the inside.

My Spencer 42 is 1" thick solid glass towards the bow, and almost 2" thick at the stem, and around 5/8" - 1/2" thick in the rear. (she is thicker lower)

To give you an idea of what this means if I were to collide with the broad side of the Juneau head on with a good clip of speed going on my Spencer, the Juneau would be ripped wide open, and would most likely sink, where as the Spencer would suffer scratches and a few gouges, and would be far less likely to be holed.


In the reverse you would likely see the Juneau sustaining serious damage to her bow, the Spencer would be far more likely to shrug it off with the damage being far less severe if not insignificant.

While I hope we are not going to be entering the sailing demolition derby anytime soon, stupid happens out here, and there is a greater threat in the PNW, which are logs in the water, and ramming one of those at a good clip can and will do serious damage to your boat, and it would be much easier to sink that Juneau by hitting one, which means a far diminished ability to operate safely and confidently at night.

Summary:

There is so much to explore here in the PNW, why limit yourself to only being able to enjoy your boat between April and September? There are so many great times to be had and events to attend up here in the fall and winter months, that if you are able to stay warm on your boat, they are an absolute joy!

Considering you are wanting to spend time between The PNW, Canada, Hawaii and Mexico, those are longer voyages that take time, and the question becomes, how stressed about things can you stand being?

If you are constantly worried about fuel, and what port you are going to have to pull in to top off, or considering sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii, which is about 2,200 nautical miles, It is going to mean screwing with Jerry cans lashed to your deck, and Jerry cans lashed to the deck mean adding a significant amount of weight above the center of buoyancy, which is going to cause the boat to be able to carry less sail, and perform poorly the more you carry, and boats can and have been capsized from this.

As well if you are making the Hawaii trip, the way back from Hawaii is over the top of the Pacific high, which means sailing north like you are going to Kodiak Alaska until you get between 45 and 55° north depending on what the high is doing, then making the right turn to head back towards the CONUS.

When you start to look at the logistics of this trip, and how comfortable you want to be doing it, I think you will likely see that there are better boats more suited for doing so.

[Renegde_Sailor]

Oh, and one more thing, if you wanted to look at a bit larger boat, I am somewhat familiar with this Spencer 43 in California, the broker has the wrong year listed on it and failed to do any research on the boat, it is actually a 1986, the last of the S53's that we know of to be built.



The man who fitted her out did just a beautiful job, and personally I wish I was in a position to buy her for myself, as she is built on the same lines as my Spencer 42, scaled up to a 53 footer, and I know how beautifully that boat will ride, and they have a reputation for going like a scalded dog!

https://www.yachtworld.com/yacht/197...ts-53-8346941/

Keep in mind, the broker took terrible images of this boat, and did not follow through with having her cleaned up as he should have before hand, this is a much nicer boat than what the photos depict, and would be cheaper than the Juneau you were looking at, and the gentleman who put her together was nothing short of fastidious in her construction, and you can see that in how well fit all of the interior carpentry is, if this boat is maintained, she will still exist in 100 years.

Have a good one.