YachtDatabase.com

Review of Puma 26


Puma 26
Puma 26 anno 1974.

Basic specs.

sail specifications
The Puma 26 is a sailboat designed by the maritime architect bureau Holman & Pye. The Puma 26 is built by Nao-Glass.

Looking for a new boat? Find a Puma 26 or similar boat for sale

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.


Rig

The Puma 26 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

Fin keel

The Puma 26 is equipped with a fin keel. A boat with a fin keel is more manoeuvrable but has less directional stability than a similar boat with a full keel.

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 1.45 - 1.55 meter (4.76 - 5.06 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.


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.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Puma 26 is about 149 kg/cm, alternatively 836 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 149 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 836 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.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Puma 26 is 2.86.

Slim Wide 73% 0 50 100
Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 73% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a slightly more spacy hull design.


Ballast Ratio

What is a Ballast Ratio?

The ballast ratio for Puma 26 is 40%.

Low High 50% 0 50 100
This ballast ratio shows a righting moment that is higher than 50% of all similar sailboat designs. This righting moment (ability to resist heeling) is spot on average!


Over- / underrigged

Low High 58% 0 50 100
The Puma 26 has more rig than 58% of all similar sailboats, which indicates that the boat is slightly overrigged.


Maintenance

Rig

Dimensions of sail for masthead rig.

mainsail specifications headsail specifications

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.



Guiding dimensions of running rig
UsageLengthDiameter
Mainsail halyard 23.0 m(75.5 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Jib/genoa halyard23.0 m(75.5 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Spinnaker halyard23.0 m(75.5 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Jib sheet 8.0 m(26.2 feet)10 mm(3/8 inch)
Genoa sheet8.0 m(26.2 feet)10 mm(3/8 inch)
Mainsheet 20.0 m(65.5 feet)10 mm(3/8 inch)
Spinnaker sheet17.6 m(57.7 feet)10 mm(3/8 inch)
Cunningham2.7 m(8.8 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Kickingstrap5.3 m(17.5 feet)8 mm(5/16 inch)
Clew-outhaul5.3 m(17.5 feet)8 mm(5/16 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 Puma 26 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