Yesterday at the St Pete boat show, went for a test sail on a new
Presto 30, a trailerable 30-31' sailboat with 8.5' beam and 14" draft
(swing keel up). She weighs 4500 lbs roughly.
Carbon fiber masts and wishbone booms. The masts rotate so that even
in the 20 kt wind she did not have to be pointed directly at wind to
raise main and mizzen. Huge cockpit so that even with 6 people in
cockpit she was easily sailed. No winches, no traveller, nice.
With 20 kt winds she was sailed single reefed and did very well
seeming stiff enough.
Her wishbone booms are not directly attached to the masts and the
sails are loose footed so it would have been interesting to see her
jibed but we did not do it.
If I remember correctly, the owner/builder told me she has some
ballast in the swing keel and ballast molded into the hull too.
For a motor, she had an 8 hp outboard in an off center well and the
motor goes up and down with a lanyard. Even in this wind, she seemed
o control very well under power and I was impressed at how well she
did in reverse.
She had a truly enormous anchor locker in the bow.
She had a huge amount of storage space under the cockpit accessed via
a hatch in cockpit floor. There must have been some leakage because
this was wet.
Interior layout was very open with a lot of room and a lot of opening
ports, necessary for Florida.
With 18-20 kt wind abeam, she was doing a consistent 8.1 kts over a
half mile, very nice.
Owner/builder told me it took him 3 hours o set her up once she was in
the water; this seems excessivly long but my impression is that the
system for doing this has not been perfected yet.
She does not have standing headroom in the cabin but even for a 6' 1'
person like myself it seemed spacious and not a problem. They are
working to get a large part of the cabin top to raise with canvas
sides giving standing headroom, this will be great.
There were no lifeline stanchions and putting them on would alter her
considerably. With such a large cockpit, perhaps she does not need
them and crew can simply tie in when in nasty weather or at night.
She does have a deep molded in toe rail. One can also access the main
mast directly from the forward hatch without going over the cabin top.