Review of Dufour 56
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.
The Dufour 56 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.
Fin keel
The Dufour 56 is equipped with 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.
The boat can only enter major marinas as the draft is about 2.44 - 2.54 meter (8.01 - 8.31 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.
The boat may be equipped with an inboard Volvo Penta diesel engine at 100 hp (74 kW).
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 Dufour 56 is about 538 kg/cm, alternatively 3014 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 538 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 3014 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 Dufour 56 is 3.39.
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 | 16.5 m | (54.1 feet) | 16 mm | (5/8 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 16.5 m | (54.1 feet) | 16 mm | (5/8 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 41.2 m | (135.3 feet) | 16 mm | (5/8 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 36.3 m | (119.1 feet) | 16 mm | (5/8 inch) |
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