Melges 24 Charleston

The Melges 24 is the undisputed champion of the sportboats.  Ever since Shark Kahn won the Worlds in 2003 with a new more aggressive style, the Melges 24 seems to have accelerated.  The boat attracts both serious club racers and the World’s finest sailors, including folks like Terry Hutchinson and his allstar crew.  Competing at this level takes a serious commitment of time and money as well as sailing and organizational skills.  Crews now regularly “hang” on the hiking lines for the 1+ mile upwind legs.  When the breeze is on, it exhilarating but painful.  People talk about not being able to walk right for days after a major regatta.  Hutchinson Sports hiking pads and lines help allot, but it’s still tough.

On this back drop, three boats have rushed to the foreground of the 20-foot sportboat market.   The each argue that they are more fun at less cost and with less effort than the Melges 24.  They are:

1) Viper 640, now made by Rondar and with 29 boats racing at Charleston Race Week.  The “all-in” price around $30,000.

2) Laser SB3, a huge hit in Europe, but so far slow to catch on in the U.S.  They had 6 boats and Charleston Race Week.  Given the slow start, it appears that the SB3 is dead in the USA.  Around $37,000 all in.

3) Audi Melges 20, the newest entry, with 6 boats at Charleston Race Week.  Supposedly 4 more containers of the boats are on their way to the U.S. right now.  All-in around $50,000.  Fleet prices might bring that down to $45,000.

Note: My all-in price is everything you would need to trailer the boat from regatta to regatta and race it at the highest level.  On the Melges 24 that would include 2 dock boxes on the trailer, tapered sheets, new sails, etc.  For the Melges 24 that’s about $63,000 right now.

Both the Viper and the Melges 20 are attractive to me because I’m trying to find a boat that I can race at a very high level nationally and have lots of fun in with my family in club races.  The M24 has become a crew killer.  I don’t mind asking a 20 or 30 year old to voluntarily leave everything on the course.  But I don’t want my 13 year old to do that.  I want her to love the sport, not wonder why sailing is fun.

I got the opportunity to sail a Melges 20 twice during Charleston Race Week — once on Wednesday for a casual demo ride around 5:30 p.m. in 8 or 9 knots of breeze.  During the last race on Sunday, my friend Mark Marenakos graciously turned the helm over to me and I race with Katie, Justin Walling, and Anthony, the factory rep. from New England.  We recovered from nearly DFL to take the bullet in 12-14 knots of breeze.  We put ourselves back in striking distance on the second upwind leg and ripped downwind in several nice puffs to scoot across the line first.

You race the boat with 3 or 4 people or on an evening date you could easily sail with two.  There is no class weight limit.  Kiss weigh-ins and starving yourself before regattas goodbye.

The Melges 20 is a simpler Melges 24 — no backstay, no traveler, no tapered sheets, an over the boom vang, hiking with your legs facing in and your back resting on a comfortable Hutchinson Sports-style hiking line.  The rig is trickier looking than the 24.  It has two sets of spreaders and fore and aft tracks on the deck that let you adjust the rig tension on the fly.  There are also rake adjustments on the spreaders.  Guys smarter than me will figure out the ideal rake for all conditions and write tuning guides.  I’m not sure how the rig will work in the long haul since we didn’t make any adjustments.  The rumor is that Melges tested the 20 in San Fransisco with the Pegasus guys and then chopped two feet off the mast.  Perhaps with the shorter mast, they should have simplified the rig and lowered the price.  With the boat in production it’s probably too late for that.

At Charleston Race Week, the SB3s and Melges 20s started together, but were scored separately.  Over the 3 days, the boats seemed remarkably close in speed.  Each class taking turns with the line honors.  The Viper turned out to be faster.  Generally starting 5 minutes later, the top Vipers were sailing up to the back of the Melges / SB3 pack.

Having raced a Melges 24 for 5 years and having 4 crew members on the Melges 20, I was surprised by how little there was for me to do.  All I did was hold the tiller — no mainsheet, no traveler, no backstay.  Anthony adjusted the main, letting it out 6 inches in the puffs to keep us low and fast at the right angle of heal, instead of high and slow.  I understand that on boats with 3 crew members, the skipper holds the mainsheet.  I think that would improve my sense of feel for the boat’s groove.  The option of doing it either way will be great for training new skippers like my new teenager.

The helm is super balanced.  There isn’t much  if any weather helm.  Mostly that’s great, but it does reduce the sense of feel.

The hiking stick takes a little getting used to.  It wants to hang up on the mainsheet either in front of or behind you.  You learn to tack leading with the hiking stick similar to the way college sailors race 420s.  In breeze, the boat likes a pretty quick tack.

Off the breeze, the sailing style is very similar to the 24, but without the same sense of power.  It seemed like the short water length meant we were up and down a little more than on the 24.  The goal was to stay on a plane while sailing as low as possible.  People who are new to sportboat racing will find it exciting and stable.  We watched numerous Viper spin outs, but never felt out of control on the 20.  My chute trimmer Justin Walling weighs about 165 pounds.  He isn’t big enough to hold the spinnaker on a 24 in heavy breeze.  He had a blast trimming on the 20.

I hope to try a Viper soon, perhaps in Savannah next month.  The people I talked to said, the Viper is very wet, both upwind and downwind and requires allot of athleticism like a Laser.  Mike Krantz said the team that hikes the Viper the hardest and works the boat the most is the one that’s going to win.  By the end of the weekend, he was tired of doing crunches.  Whereas on the Melges 20, it was more about positioning on the race course, speed and good crew work.

My biggest concern about the Melges 20 is the price. I know several people who requested their deposits back when the price was announced.  Even if you can afford it, you have to wonder how many other people can.  With any one design boat, the more there are of them, the funner the racing is.

If I ran Melges, I would do everything possible to get the price under $40,000.  At $50,000, Rondar’s brag that you can get almost two Vipers for the price of one Melges 20 almost rings true.  The excessive price is going to stunt the boat’s market penetration at this critical early stage and let the Viper class get stronger.