Another weeks worth of ‘sailing’ as part of our Dream Easy charter allowance with Dream Yacht Charter, this time on a Bali 4.3.
Sinatra, one more musically inspired name in the DYC fleet here at the Airlie Beach base, was launched in 2017.
It has the standard charter fit-out with four main cabins, each with ensuite and two forepeak spaces which are good for storage of suitcases etc.
Effective air conditioning, a big generator and a watermaker, which was installed but not connected, nor advertised as being there for that matter.
But most of all, there was space. A lot of space. The huge barn door at the back of the saloon opens all the way up in its unique, Bali way and, el presto, saloon, forward-facing galley and rear deck are one, open outdoor space.
Then there is even more space out front and up top.
This cat has more space than my Hong Kong flat, which, for a Hong Kong flat, already has a lot of space.
The good thing about the Bali is you can take it to all the beautiful destinations around the world and enjoy a great outdoor lifestyle.
My flat in Hong Kong will, by nature of being part of a giant high-rise building, stay just where it is, in Hong Kong.
My flat in Hong Kong and the Bali 4.3 do have somthing in common though. Neither sail too well. As a matter of fact, my flat doesn’t sail at all, although it moves a little from side to side in really strong winds. Pointing the Bali upwind was a bit the same, it just moved from side to side.
That’s not to say the Bali 4.3 didn’t sail at all. Quite the opposite. Downwind, in 25kts, as long as you didn’t sail directly downwind, it actually moved forward without any assistance from its engines.
But then, even the palmtree we passed floating in the water moved downwind…. until the tide changed. Then nothing moved anymore, but that was just bad planning on my behalf.
They did install a particularly tiny looking mainsail very high up the mast.
If you look at the cat side on, there appears to be more overhead clearance between the boom and the waterline than underneath Sydney Harbour Bridge.
If you wanted to get to the sail, you had to climb up the mast and traverse on the sail to get to where you wanted to be… unless you dismantle the bimini structure to lower the topping lift, which still doesn’t get you to where mast meets boom and all the important bits are.
There is no topcover on the sailbag to zip up and protect the sail from the elements when not in use. Even if there was, you couldn’t get to it from the coachroof.
Finally, they added a big, self-tacking jib, with carts really close to the centre of the yacht, which didn’t help very much when sailing deep downwind.
What was I doing wrong here? I just couldn’t work out how to trim the sails to make this 4.3 sail in any other direction but downwind!
Maybe I need the good people from Catana to come and give me some lessons before I try sailing one of these cats again.
What the good people at Catana did get right though was the ability to compensate for lack of sailing ability with some very good engine performance.
This cat motored and it motored well. It didn’t have any davids to haul up the giant dinghy we had to tow all across the ocean.
Nor did it have folding props, so the poor folks at Catana did have all the odds stacked against them when it came to sailing performances in this case.
The Volvos, in contrast, took us around the Whitsundays very well. Last year I sailed a very similar route with very similar winds. That’s the good thing about this area, the winds are fairly reliable. Then I used 35 ltrs of diesel, this time around I used 125 ltrs. And we weren’t in a rush.
It was a good thing that we motored so much because the giant domestic Samsung fridge with giant freezer and ice maker needed a lot of power. Power, which the few token solar panels had no chance of supplying. We did give the ice maker a worthy workout!
I have to remind myself that this blog wasn’t set up to review a boat’s performance. Let alone weigh into the deep controversy of which cat is best for what, production cat versus custom made etc.
But I love to sail, not to motor. If I can sail onto a mooring at the end of the day it was a successful day sailing. That’s why I bought a sailing boat, not a motor boat.
So the lack of sailing performance, whether due to the cat’s design or my inabilities on this particular model, were disappointing.
Having said all the above, we did have a great time. Sinatra was a great shape and the family loved it.
While the dingy, contrary to the Bali, was underpowerd for its size and load capability, it was, like the Bali, very spacious and in excellent condition. The yacht was clean, well maintained and everything worked.
The only problem we had was a ‘generator fault’light on the right hand engine above 2200RPM. We notified the base on VHF and just kept the RPM below said value as advised.
For all it’s worth, the sails and all related gear, including a total of two winches, were in perfect shape. Strangely enough, there was no windspeed / direction indicator on the flybridge.
Anchoring was a breeze and held very well in varying conditions. Not a single drift!
Pleasantly, there was no smell from the toilets at all, the hot water remained hot even until the next morning, the gas BBQ on the back could feed a small army and the underwater lights added a nice touch. As usual, raincoats were provided!
DYC staff at Airlie Beach were again very helpful and accommodating. The generator fault was already noted on the sheet.
Happy Easter.
Thank you Moamar Nardone for your invite to some sailing lessons in the Philippines. I will definitely take you up on those …
Hi, sounds great 😀 looking forward to join a catamaran trip with you 😊 greetings to all from Corfu. Hella
Hi Nils, great review, we enjoyed a lot reading it. You have a great sense of humor!
Our experience is very similar with Bali 4.0 built in 2016.
Here is a report I published on FB:
Last week I had a first time experience on Bali 4.0 (2016), a 39’ catamaran, sailing along Corsica shoreline.
It has 4 cabins and 2 heads, so for our team of 8 persons it was an exact fit. The cabins are spacious, with plenty of storage space. And the heads have separate shower cell, which is nice. Water tank capacity of 800 liters makes it possible a week passage without need to refill.
The saloon is very spacious and pretending to be luxury, but there are many small things that are ok when you stay in a marine, but absolutely wrong for sailing at sea:
• All the horizontal surfaces (table, kitchen working surface, etc.) don’t have a skirting, so your plates and glasses are free to fall on any wave. At the same time these horizontal surfaces have sharp corners.
• The floor has several deep “channels” across the saloon, without any exiting path for water. So if you wash the floor, the water and dirt is trapped there, with no way to escape.
• The boat batteries compartment is just under the saloon floor, without any protection from water to get into it, so washing the floor inevitably floods this compartment, again without water escape path (!)
• The steering bridge doesn’t have any cover, so a captain shall withstand the sun and the rain.
• The rig is terrible if you want to use sails and not just the engine: the self-tacking jib can’t be tuned, the mainsail halyard has a swivel running block, making the rope twist multiple times, so you just can’t take it to the mast top. All the ropes organization around just 2 winches is very inconvenient for sailing.
• The spinlocks when open expose sharp spikes (for no reason!), and we had a crew member injured by accidentally stepping on it.
• Don’t even try to go upwind – the best you can do is ~120 deg between tacks…
A general impression is that the boat was designed by one who never been sailing…