Review of Pearson 27 (Shaw)
Basic specs.
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Both the hull and the deck 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 deck is a sandwich construction which improves the indoor climate. Especially when the water is colder than the air in the cabin, then the double hull insulates against cold water and reduce the condense water in the cabin. The core material in the sandwich construction is balsa.
The interior is like most other boats made of teak. Teak has the advantage of being naturally very oily and therefore water-repellent, which is suitable on boats.
The boat is equipped with one cabin, 4 berths, a galley, 95.0 liter fresh water capacity and toilet facility.
The Pearson 27 (Shaw) is built 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.
Wing keel
But be aware that even though a Wing Keel keel is very good for speed racing, a fishing nets and the like in the water can easily make you into a troublesome situation.
The keel is made of lead. Compared with iron, lead has the advantage of being 44% heavier, which allows a smaller keel and hence less water resistance and higher speed.
The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 1.01 - 1.11 meter (3.31 - 3.61 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.
Pearson 27 (Shaw) may be equipped with an inboard Universal M12-2 diesel engine at 12 hp (8 kW). Calculated max speed is about 5.1 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, which is made of aluminium, has a capacity of 38.0 liters (10 US gallons, 8 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.
What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?
The capsize screening value for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is 2.03, indicating that this boat would not be accepted to participate in ocean races.
What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?
The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 6.4 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.
The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level.
The immersion rate for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is about 127 kg/cm, alternatively 715 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 127 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 715 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 Motion Comfort Ratio (MCR)?
The Motion Comfort Ratio for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is 19.7.
What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?
The l/b ratio for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is 2.95.
The ballast ratio for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is 38%.
What is Displacement Length Ratio?
The DL-ratio for Pearson 27 (Shaw) is 227 which categorizes this boat among 'light crusers & offshore racers'.
What is SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)?
The SA/D for Pearson 27 (Shaw) with ISO 8666 reference sail is 16.3, with a 135% genua the SA/D is 19.4.
Maintenance
As balsa wood is used as sandwich core material special care must be taken in relation to work that require penetration of the sandwich construction in order to to prevent water to get in contact with the balsa wood. Otherwise the balsa wood will eventually rotten and be expensive/impossible to repair.
When buying anti-fouling bottom paint, it's nice to know how much to buy.
The surface of the wet bottom is about 19m2 (204 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.
Dimensions of sail for masthead rig.
Are your sails worn out? You might find your next sail here: Sails for Sale
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 | ||
| Mainsail halyard | 23.0 m | (75.5 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib/genoa halyard | 23.0 m | (75.5 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Spinnaker halyard | 23.0 m | (75.5 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib sheet | 8.2 m | (26.9 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 8.2 m | (26.9 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 20.5 m | (67.3 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 18.1 m | (59.3 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Cunningham | 3.1 m | (10.2 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Kickingstrap | 6.2 m | (20.4 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Clew-outhaul | 6.2 m | (20.4 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
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