Review of Fifty 33

Basic specs.

The Fifty 33 aka Kirié Fifty 33 is a motorsailer designed by the French maritime architect Michel Joubert in the late seventies. The Fifty 33 is built by the French yard Kirié.

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Hull

The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.

Interior

The boat is equipped with 2 cabins, 5 berths and 400.0 liter fresh water capacity.

Rig

The Fifty 33 is equipped with a masthead rig. The advantage of a masthead rig is its simplicity and the fact that a given sail area - compared with a fractional rig - can be carried lower and thus with less heeling moment.

Keel

Unknown keel type

The boat can enter most marinas as the draft is just about 1.50 - 1.60 meter (4.92 - 5.22 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.

Engine

Fifty 33 may be equipped with an inboard diesel engine at 55 hp (40 kW). Calculated max speed is about 7.6 knots

The transmission is a shaft drive. A shaft drive will in the long run require less maintenance than other types of drive e.g. a sail drive.

The fuel tank has a capacity of 200.0 liters (52 US gallons, 43 imperial gallons).

Sailing characteristics

This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.

Stability and Safety

What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?

The capsize screening value for Fifty 33 is 1.83, indicating that this boat could - if evaluated by this formula alone - be accepted to participate in ocean races.

Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed

What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?

The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 7.0 knots. The term "Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed" is widely used even though a boat can sail faster. The term shall be interpreted as above the theoretical speed a great additional power is necessary for a small gain in speed.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Fifty 33 is about 190 kg/cm, alternatively 1065 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 190 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 1065 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.

Sailing statistics

This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.

Motion Comfort Ratio

What is Motion Comfort Ratio (MCR)?

The Motion Comfort Ratio for Fifty 33 is 31.4.

Comparing this ratio with similar sailboats show that it is more comfortable than 86% of all similar sailboat designs. This is a comfort value significantly above average.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Fifty 33 is 2.80.

Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 82% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a significantly more spacy hull design.

D/L (Displacement Length Ratio)

What is Displacement Length Ratio?

The DL-ratio for Fifty 33 is 318 which categorizes this boat among 'medium weight cruisers'.

21% of all similar sailboat designs are categorized as heavier. A heavy displacement combined with smaller water plane area has lower acceleration and is more comfortable.

SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)

SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)
Indicates how fast the boat is in light wind:
- Cruising Boats have ratios 10-15
- Cruiser-Racers have ratios 16-20
- Racers have ratios above 20
- High-Performance Racers have ratios above 24
Sail-area/displacement ratio (SA/D ratio): 14.01

Maintenance

Bottom Paint

When buying anti-fouling bottom paint, it's nice to know how much to buy. The surface of the wet bottom is about 31m² (333 ft²).
Based on this, your favourite maritime shop can tell you the quantity you need.

Note: If you use a paint roller you will need more paint than if you use a paintbrush.

Rig

If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.

**Guiding dimensions of running rig**
Usage	Length		Diameter
Jib sheet	9.5 m	(31.3 feet)	12 mm	(1/2 inch)
Genoa sheet	9.5 m	(31.3 feet)	12 mm	(1/2 inch)
Mainsheet	23.8 m	(78.2 feet)	12 mm	(1/2 inch)
Spinnaker sheet	21.0 m	(68.9 feet)	12 mm	(1/2 inch)

Boat owner's ideas

This section is reserved boat owner's modifications, improvements, etc. Here you might find (or contribute with) inspiration for your boat.

Do you have changes/improvements you would like to share? Upload a photo and describe what you have done.

Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Fifty 33 it would be a great help.

If you have any comments to the review, improvement suggestions, or the like, feel free to contact us. Criticism helps us to improve.

References

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.