Review of Gib'Sea 31
Basic specs.
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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.
The Gib'Sea 31 is equipped with a fractional rig. A fractional rig has smaller headsails which make tacking easier, which is an advantage for cruisers and racers, of course. The downside is that having the wind from behind often requires a gennaker or a spinnaker for optimal speed.
The Gib'Sea 31 has been built with different keel alternatives.
CentreBoard
One option is a centreboard keel. A centreboard keel is a pivoting lifting keel, allowing to sail both coastal and inland waters.
The keel is made of iron. Many people prefer lead keel in favour of iron. The main argument is that lead is much heavier than iron and a lead keel can therefore be made smaller which again result in less wet surface, i.e. less drag. In fact iron is quite heavy, just 30% less heavy than lead, so the advantage of a lead keel is often overstated. As the surface of a fin type keel is just a fraction of the total wet surface, the difference between an iron keel and a lead keel can in reality be ignored for cruising yachts.
The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 1.10 - 1.20 meter (3.61 - 3.91 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.
Fin keel
Another option is a fin keel. The fin keel is the most common keel and provides splendid manoeuvrability. The downside is that it has less directional stability than a long keel.
This keel is also made of iron.
The boat can enter most marinas as the draft is just about 1.75 - 1.85 meter (5.74 - 6.04 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.
Gib'Sea 31 may be equipped with an inboard Yanmar diesel engine
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.
The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level.
The immersion rate for Gib'Sea 31 is about 210 kg/cm, alternatively 1181 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 210 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 1181 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.
What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?
The l/b ratio for Gib'Sea 31 is 2.89.
The ballast ratio for Gib'Sea 31 is 34%.
Maintenance
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.
| 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) |
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