Common Problems Page

Common Problems with these boats.

It is my experience, and the experience of most of the Soverel 26 owners I believe, that these boats were built rather well for their time. As MORC Race boats the boat sails well at most points of wind and at most wind speeds. When we talk about problems I have broken them up into three areas. Sailing and sailing characteristics, rig set up and tuning and finally maintenance and repairs.

Sailing Characteristics

Several of the owners have expressed issues with being able to save their time while sailing PHRF against J24s, particularly in shorter light air races. The Soverel 26 with her large fore triangle and tall rig have been called off the wind rockets. In light air with lots of upwind and reaching work it has been reported that they do not perform well against the smaller and lighter boats.

The solutions for this are the standard recommendations:


• Lighten the boat as much as possible. Take everything you can off in light air.
• Try sailing the boat slightly bow down. Get the stern slightly out of the water.
• Don't be late off the starting line and stay in clear air.

Any owner with more tips for the rest of us on this issue it would be greatly appreciated. E-mail me [Robert Sessions] and I will gladly post them.

Several boats have changed the boom length on their boats adding about a foot in length to the boom. I would be interested to hear if it has turned out to be worth the penalty.

Art Ahrens responded 9/29/2004

I used to own hull 17, called Incorrigible when I owned it, it was originally owned by R. Munsterman and called Paper Chase. I noticed your comments on the main size on the web site. There was a large amount of variation in the size of the main on the boats. Some had booms which were higher than others, which appeared to me to be the most common technique used to obtain a MORC rating benefit. These boats pointed very high, but did not reach well at all. Incorrigible did not have the elevated boom, and as a result, was extremely quick upwind, and with a new suit of sails, was extremely fast on reaches. J-24's rarely gave us a problem. The boats like large mains, and a trick that we used to reach was a high clewed 140% jib tacked or barber hauled outboard. The trailing edges of your jibs should be parallel with the keel. When the boat is set up correctly on a reach, when a puff of wind comes, the boat will accelerate and feel lively. It should not want to heel over.

Rig Tuning

Several owners have asked about rig tunning and set up. Anyone with any tips please let me know [Robert Sessions].

Maintenance and Repairs

Most of the boats were built between 1975 and 1977. I do not know of any boat built in or after 1978. Most of these boat suffer from the wear and tear common to a 30 year old fiberglass boat. These boats were built with a balsa core deck and hull liner.

I would say that the number one reported problem with these boats are leaks through the deck. This probably leads to the second most common problem soft-spots in the deck (ie wet and rotten balsa core). Leaks are cause by weak and old (or in some case incorrect) bedding of deck hardware. My boat also suffers from incorrectly filled deck holes from moving/removing old deck hardware. Associated with deck leaks can be leaking fore deck hatch and the seals around the cabin top windows. Also the mast hole in the cabin top can be a source of water.

I have come across several good articles on repairing these common problems and I have listed them here.

• The first article is about fixing holes in your deck and bedding hardware. The article is reprinted from Sailnet.com: Drilling and Filling Holes in Your Boat

Another problem can be leaks around the toe rail and around the stanchions. The stanchions are often pulled on when the crew is hiking and that can lead over time to, loose bedding, deck cracking or even deck damage.

Some of the boats particularly those in the south have been susceptible to hull blisters. Boats that stay in the water all year can have this problem. Don Casey has written a nice step by step method for repairing these [exerted from an article on Sailnet.com].