Dufour 32 Classic
"Cruising News" - January 2000
A New Boat owners Reflections
By Bart Jackson
I've owned a fair number of yachts schooners, ketches, yawls, sloops, all older and wooden boats. This is the newest boat that I've ever bought. And I bought it this past summer because I chartered a boat on Lake Superior which was a new boat, a Beneteau. It was the first time I had ever sailed for an extended period of time a modern hull with a fin keel and all that kind of stuff. It was an experience. And I thought once I'm going to get a brand new boat that I can do some of the things I want to but have a modern rig and a modern hull on it. This is a big change for me.
I spent a fair amount of time looking for the right boat, but I don't tend to spend a lot of time fooling around with decisions like that. I looked at production models, but there were certain things that I wanted on the boat for better or for worse that aren't available on a lot of the fiberglass production models. I also decided I wanted a fiberglass boat for once.
I've always had wooden boats, most which you have to crawl around below because there is no head room, and I just decided it was time for me to have head room on a boat.
I decided on the 32 for a variety of reasons: It was a stable, good performance boat that would give me various options I wanted that you can't get on production boats - like a teak deck. Having been a wooden boat person, that was important to me.
It kind of softened the blow of having a fiberglass boat. I also wanted roller furling on the mainsail as well as the jib, although I realize it's less efficient as a sailor. For somebody who mostly does cruising, I decided I wanted features like that. Those are the two big things that are readily available on the Dufour that are not available on other boats.
I currently have a 31 foot Choy Lee, and I wanted a little more room, but just enough room. I prefer to get the smallest boat I can lay my hands on that will accommodate whatever my needs are. There are other boats that fit that bill, but the Dufour filled the bill admirably. It has a forward cabin and a small aft-cabin, so you can separate the kids from the adults. That's not easy to do.
It's important to me that whatever I have I can sail alone. I do a lot of single handed sailing. I had a 45-foot sloop at one time, but it was more of a handful than you'd really want. I used to sail my schooner around San Francisco in storms just for the hell of it, but for cruising I want a boat I can manage easily.
I've known a number of people who have had Dufour models and that influenced me a lot. For the construction aspects, I rely on talking to people who are better at that than I am, and the Dufour was generally a little more highly regarded in terms of quality and hull integrity. I could see for myself that I liked the aesthetics a little better on the Dufour, l wanted a lot of wood below, which this boat has.
It was a close call, but I was a little more comfortable with the Dufour. I think the Beneteau may actually be faster, it's got a longer waterline in that size class - but a quarter to half-knot to me doesn't really mean anything. I was more interested in aesthetics than performance. I come from a long-line of wooden boat people, so performance is relative. Relative to that, any other boat would be super.
What I decided was that I really wanted to spend some time sailing a modern hull with a modern rig where I could sail closer to the wind. When I chartered that Beneteau, I was astonished at how close to the wind I was suddenly going; of how much higher it pointed. It was a big surprise to me, a real revelation, compared to wooden boats where you don't go to weather very much.
This one will be the first one on the West Coast actually of this size and of the line they have been developing the last four or five years. Check back with me after January, and I'll tell you more.
BART JACKSON
SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA
This article was written by Bart Jackson, new owner of a Dufour 32 Classic, and published in the January 2000 issue of "Cruising News".
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