Review of Sidewinder 16

Basic specs.

The Sidewinder 16 is a small sailing dinghy designed by the British maritime architect James Roderick Macalpine-Downie together with Dick Gibbs in the late sixties. The Sidewinder 16 is built by the American yard MFG Boat Co..

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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. 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 Sidewinder 16 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.

Keel

CentreBoard

The Sidewinder 16 is equipped with a centreboard keel. A centreboard keel is a pivoting lifting keel, allowing to sail both coastal and inland waters.

The boat can sail close to the beach as the draft is just 0.13 - 0.23 meter (0.43 - 0.73 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.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Sidewinder 16 is about 40 kg/cm, alternatively 224 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 40 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 224 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 Sidewinder 16 is 3.45.

Compared with other similar dinghies it is slimmer than 99% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a significantly more speedy hull design. This type of design is also referred to as 'needle'.

Maintenance

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.

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Finally

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References

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