We are selling our Hunter 28.5 and are looking to buy a 7.9. Reason for down sizing from a large 28 foot boat are simple for us. We want to sail other places. We now sail around the Islands of Lake Erie and love it but for vaction would be awful nice to do the North Channel and all the other really cool places on the Great Lakes. With the 28.5 not possible to take off 3-4 weeks from work for 1 week at the North Channel. After looking for along time for a boat to fit our needs we think the 7.9 will be perfect. But ther are not to many in our area racing for the one design aspect. So how well does the 7.9 do in the PHRF fleet? According to the PHRF # the 7.9 at a 168 is faster then our 28.5 at a 174. When I am not able to get enough crew for the Spinnaker class we need to jump down to the JAM class. I have quite a few that I very much enjoy racing against and most of them are bigger boats like a Tartan 30,Hunter 31 & a Catalina 30. So how well will the 7.9 do against this fleet? We have always had boats we could trailer so going back to it is no big deal. We have a few boats we are very interested in but really don't want to be a 2 boat owner so we are going to move when our 28.5 is sold. Any input would be great.
Cliff Ruckstuhl
7.9 crusing and racing PHRF
Moderators: sderby, Tim Bosma, Tom Elsen
The S2 7.9 is a very good PHRF boat. It does EXTREMELY well upwind, able to hang in there with boats that rate quite a bit less. Down wind, it does a little worse, but as long as the upwind / downwind legs are proportional it will still come out quite well.
You should do very well against the fleet you listed, and the 7.9 can easily be doublehanded - the spinnaker is small and easy to handle and can be launched and doused from the companionway.
You should do very well against the fleet you listed, and the 7.9 can easily be doublehanded - the spinnaker is small and easy to handle and can be launched and doused from the companionway.