SIMINA: House on water or competition boat?
There are 25-30 regatta competing vessels in Romania at the moment. They can be divided into there categories depending on speed and size. The smallest vessels, measuring 20-25 feet in length, belong to the Cruise 2 category while the bigger yet slower boats fully equipped for living belong to the Cruiser 1 category. This leaves the fastest boats to the Racer category, boats that in an overall ranking are most likely to win even if there is no rule of thumb that says it does.
Simina is a performance cruiser that in Romania can be classified as a racer. With a very young crew whose age averages 27, Simina has been winning most races in the general and its own categories for several years now. When we decided to buy Simina, like any future owners, we didn’t know very well what we wanted. On the one hand we wanted a fast boat that would allow us to participate in regattas, on the other we wanted a big house on water and as such, a boat equipped with everything one needs to live in for a season. We started looking almost a year before we decided to buy. We went to the Salon Nautique International de Paris, we took with most several brochures and we spoke of the big commercial boat dealers. Then, we searched long and hard over the internet looking for the boat of our dreams. After analyzing the situation and looking at comparatives, we narrowed it down to two types of boats: the Slovenian Elan 410 designed by Rob Humphrey and the Hanse 400. We got a very good price offer for the Hanse but as we wanted a boat that could race too, after looking at the polar diagram study we discovered that the Elan 410 was faster. On top of that, the Elan had a more modern interior design with lightcoloured finishes, a combination of beech and beige upholstery, with minimalist lines and a more beautiful design of spaces. Since this boat had a performance package that contained the mast, outrigger and a carbon helm, it seemed at that time an ideal compromise between a cruise and a competition boat.
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