Review of Castle 650
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 Castle 650 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.
DaggerBoard aka Sword
The Castle 650 is equipped with a daggerboard keel. A daggerboard is a lifting keel that can be lowered and raised, allowing the boat to enter shallow waters as well.
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 sail close to the beach as the draft is just 0.30 - 0.40 meter (0.98 - 1.28 ft) dependent of 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.
What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?
The capsize screening value for Castle 650 is 2.67, indicating that this boat would not be accepted to participate in ocean races.
The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level.
The immersion rate for Castle 650 is about 106 kg/cm, alternatively 595 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 106 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 595 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 Castle 650 is 2.71.
The ballast ratio for Castle 650 is 33%.
What is SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)?
The SA/D for Castle 650 with ISO 8666 reference sail is 27.1, with a 135% genua the SA/D is 30.1.
Maintenance
Dimensions of sail for fractional 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 | 20.7 m | (68.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib/genoa halyard | 20.7 m | (68.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Spinnaker halyard | 20.7 m | (68.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib sheet | 6.6 m | (21.5 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 6.6 m | (21.5 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 16.4 m | (53.8 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 14.4 m | (47.3 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Cunningham | 3.9 m | (12.8 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Kickingstrap | 7.8 m | (25.6 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Clew-outhaul | 7.8 m | (25.6 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
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