Review of Contessa 38

Basic specs.

The Contessa 38 is a sailboat designed by the American maritime architect bureau Sparkman & Stephens. The Contessa 38 is built by the British yard Jeremy Rogers.

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Hull

The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season.

Rig

The Contessa 38 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 Contessa 38 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 1.91 - 2.01 meter (6.27 - 6.57 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 Contessa 38 is about 284 kg/cm, alternatively 1595 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 284 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 1595 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 Contessa 38 is 3.25.

Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 54% 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 Contessa 38 is 52%.

This ballast ratio shows a righting moment that is higher than 96% of all similar sailboat designs. A righting moment (ability to resist heeling) significantly above average.

Maintenance

Rig

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**
Usage	Length		Diameter
Jib sheet	11.8 m	(38.5 feet)	14 mm	(0.55 inch)
Genoa sheet	11.8 m	(38.5 feet)	14 mm	(0.55 inch)
Mainsheet	29.4 m	(96.4 feet)	14 mm	(0.55 inch)
Spinnaker sheet	25.9 m	(84.8 feet)	14 mm	(0.55 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 Contessa 38 (S&S) 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

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.