As for seaworthiness—I have complete confidence in the boat—on my most recent sail, the reason I turned back was because I wasn’t comfortable in the conditions I was sailing in, not because I thought the boat wasn’t able to handle it. After my last sail, through some serious waves and in fairly strong winds, the Pretty Gee handled everything the bay and I threw at her, and handled it without any issues. She tacks well, points quite high, and is fast and easy to sail. There are a few changes to the Pretty Gee that I want to make to ease sail handling, like the shroud covers I have talked about on my blog, as the jib sheets occasionally get caught under the shroud turnbuckles—which is a royal pain if you’re trying to tack.

The lack of head room on the Corsair F28, even for some one as short as me, was a real problem. I plan on taking many long voyages on my boat, and I want to be able to go down below and be comfortable…that was not possible on the Corsair F28. Even though it was possible on the Corsair F31—the F31 would have cost almost twice as much as the Telstar; would have cost more to dock; and the mast-raising system on the Telstar is far superior in both safety and ease of use.  The ama design on the Telstar is also better in my opinion—the Farrier ama design would leave the ama hull-deck join in the water when I have my boat in its marina slip, the Telstar’s design does not.

I’ve ordered a Telstar 28, as you can see in my post here. I’ve ordered it with the 20 HP Honda, as the weight of the 50 HP was a bit too much. I had looked at the F-28/F-31 from Corsair, but decided on the Telstar for a lot of reasons, the mast-raising system being one of the more important ones.

I’m also going to outfitting my Telstar for extended cruising, and have decided on a few pieces of gear that I consider exceptional. The first, and one of the most important as far as I am concerned, is the 15kg Rocna anchor, which will be my primary ground tackle. I’ll have more on the gear and how I’m configuring my boat in a story soon.