BoatBanter.com - San Juan 28

" wrote:
Does anyone have direct experience of these boats?

Yep. Never owned one myself, though.

... I have heard that
they are fast,

Depends on what you're comparing them to. They're not as fast as the
San Juan 30, which is the design it's more or less copied from. The
SJ30 was one of 3 boats produced by San Juan that was not designed by
one of the corporate owners sons; the SJ24 and SJ30 were both done by
Bruce Kirby to the IOR rule in the "broach coach" era but are about as
fast (maybe a touch faster) and much better mannered than most of
their ilk. The SJ28 was their in-house attempt to make the boat a
little roomier and a little cheaper to build.

....and good in light wind,

Meaning that it's not so good in strong winds... IMHO it's a bit
tender. My preference is lighter fractional rigs but for a '70's style
chunky masthead rig, the SJ28 is quite workable.

.... but can be difficult to control
downwind due to the pinched IOR type stern.

Depends greatly on how you drive it. Those tiny pinched IOR sterns
were only part of the problem. The other parts were the deep forefoot
& wedge-shaped bows, and large mast head spinnakers. Remember the
radial cut was a new innovation back then and suddenly spinnakers got
a lot bigger; especially bigger up high.

It's possible that if driven hard under spinnaker, the SJ28 would be a
broach coach; but I've never seen that happen. In the absence of a
large spinnaker, there shouldn't be a problem.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King