This is where I will put my own personal observations about the boat. I have a lot of experience sailing, but none of it recent. While I list a few criticisms first, let me state clearly: I absolutely love this boat. Easy to rig, easy to sail, a good boat for training in the family/crew. My wife is adverse to "tippy" boats, the the P-18 provides just enough iron down below to keep the boat manageable to move around on and on her feet under sail.
While some will lament the lack of tracks for jib control, for example, I think the simplicity will make training in the crew a simpler proposition. I haven't decided yet if the vang is enough, absent a main sheet traveler, to shape the main. Frankly, I don't know how one would arrange a traveler on this boat. The transom is already a fairly busy place, and it would have to be under the tiller (Ugh!).
First off, about that "big boat look and feel" so popular as a description of pocket cruisers. This is a small, relatively light boat. Stepping outside the shrouds will heel the boat significantly (but not enough to get a line through the flag halyard if you forgot at launching). The P-18 sails like an smaller, sporty boat. And one can't complain about that.
The boat does has relatively high free board and a cabin sticking up into the wind. These combine, in my view, to make the boat very difficult to point into the wind long enough to get the mainsail up, at least if alone or with an inexperience crew on the tiller.
This isn't really a defect in any sense, just a fact of life with a light boat with some non-sail windage above the cockpit sole. I plan to experiment with leaving the boom free to swing the width of the cockpit, with the tiller lashed to it. At least in theory, if the boat starts to fall off while I'm forward raising sail, it should pull the tiller with it to leeward. The boat should tend to point back up, whether with the motor in gear at low rpm or idle, or just drifting.
The Y-harness arrangement of the back stay is a royal pain in the, uh, shoulders if you're trying to fiddle with the motor, raise the rudder, etc. The Y union should be carried higher and the lines closer out to the hull and off the transom, to make for more working space in the center of the boat. I found this really annoying on my launch day, when I was motor-sailing the boat from the launch to the marina alone wearing a cheapo kapok life PFD.
The cockpit drains could use flaps or some sort of back-checking, as when the motor is running the stern of course tends to go down and the cockpit sole takes a bit of water. To me, this means that the boat is probably not as buoyant as it could be at the stern, given that the cockpit is large enough to hold four adults in relative comfort. In practice, relative comfort will have to mean wet feet for those at the stern end of the cockpit.
If anyone at Precision were asking my opinion (and perhaps this is resolved in the later models), I would raise the cockpit sole (and the seats with it) an inch, even at the loss of some ergonomic support from the coaming, in exchange for dry feet.
Based on all of the pictures one finds on the Internet and the comments on the Precision Internet mailing list, I think my boat is the only one to get out of the yard without lifelines. Going forward is a bit of a stretch for the kids to get from the mast/side stays to get a hand on the pulpit. I'm planing to experiment with some jack lines to see if they are more of a bother or interfere with the jib or not.
If not, I would consider retrofitting a single stanchion forward with the lifelines lead down to the deck at the genoa sheet/midship scupper (where the second stanchion would go on a factory install). Since the safest path forward in inside of the stays, the lifelines are only really needed as one gets down low to move onto the fore deck.
The fractional rig is wonderful. In 15 to 25 winds, the boat will sail well balanced, point decently and tack easily under the reefed main alone. For just messing about in boats as opposed to going fast--especially with an inexperienced crew--this is great.
We found the boat comfortable on all points of sail, and in all the winds (0-20+) we've encountered so far. While I was quick to ease the main in puffs, the boat will clearly set up at a strong angle of heel, then dig in and sail. I can't give the actual angle, as the glued on inclinometer has fallen off, and trying to level it on the water is probably a fools errand. But with my inexperienced wife on the tiller (who was very concerned about the tippiness of sailboats), she never reported being uncomfortable with the heel, even when the wind starting singing in the rigging and the boat started to put the rail down.
Because of the boat's tendency to fall-off if the helm is unattended (essentially to tack rather that just point up and stall), I have ordered a Tiller Tamer from Davis Marine, so that I have some ability to solo sail. I did not get to test lashing the tiller to the boom, although in theory this should keep the boat very close to the wind if the sail starts to catch wind while the main is going up. (I think that if the boom is sheeted tightly enough to stay inboard, the tiller lashed to the boom, and if the boat starts to make way, then the rudder can bring the boat back around). I will test this along with the tiller tamer and post some results.
Let me begin this section by stating clear: after a month on the water, I absolutely love my Precision 18. It is a purchase decision I would make again unhesitatingly, and it is a boat I recommend to you.
However, I think some of my more alarming findings below point up some design points, the consequences of which can be resolved (in at least the first two cases) by better seamanship.
First, we experience a knockdown the other day. It was due substantially the pilot error (got beam to the wind while under power, mainsail up and sheeted home and center, then Wham! along came a nice 20+ gust).
While I admit the pilot error, the maximum wind speed clocked at the local airport (less than two miles away) automated reporting station was I believe 27 MPH. Most sailors mat my level experience are prooven poor judges of wind speed, so I'll assume for how that my gust was somewhere between 25-30.
Even beam to the wind with the sail straight over the center, the boat went over very quickly. It probably didn't help that I was hanging off the leeward transom wrestling with a recalcitrant outboard at the time, or that my daughter (< 80 lbs) was also to leeward and my son (100 lbs) was standing in the hatchway on the centerline.
The boat went over quickly.
Almost as importantly, it stopped with the rubrail in the water but the coamings high and dry.
I jumped instantly to the high-side, any by daughter did the same, and in the same instant released the sheet. It was as if the same giant hand that pushed us over lifted us up.
At the end of the day, I learned two things. With the rounded bilges and high ballast placement of a stub-keep centerboarder like the Precision, "initially tender" should also be interpreted to mean "be careful in high-side situation".
A message posted to the Precision Owners mailing list confirmed that I was not the only Precision owner to experience a knockdown in winds of less than 30. One, on a larger boat, was under bare poles.
But to give credit where credit is due, the boat (in every circumstance someone described to me) quickly righted itself properly when proper action was taken and/or the gust abated.
One owner related that the previous owner--an engineer--undertook with some engineering/sailor buddies to test the self-righting of a 23. They found that no mater how hard they tried, while underway the rudder would stall and the boat round up before they could get the angle of heel anywhere they felt to be dangerously high.
The lesson I take away is the "small boat feel" and "initial tenderness" of the P-18 mean I should remember to sail it like the small boat it is. The fact that is has an leadmine on the bottom is a bonus for safety and comfort which has demonstrated it does its job per design. It does not, however, relieve us of the requirement to keep the boat under command, well trimmed and an eye on the weather at all time.
Here are the messages from the Precision Mailing List discussing my knockdown and some other's experiences: The Knockdown Thread And here is a post from a discussion thread on Heavy Weather Sailing from the Trailer Sailor Precision discussion board worth reading: Heavy Helm. I recommend you read the entire thread, or at least both of Tom Scott's posts.
But I've read two reports on stanchions failing under what ought to be considered reasonable load. One pulled free when someone on dock pushed inward with their weight on the lifeline while grabbing the boat. While theoretically the stanchion/lifeline is there to take a load from inside the boat and not outside, that seems disturbing. This was reported on a P-23
Another owner of a P-21 reported the stanchion/deck joint failed under the snow load of boat cover resting on the stanchion. Wet snow can get pretty heavy, so this one should take into account whether the stanchion was ever intended to take that sort of a vertical, shearing load.
In both cases, it raises questions about the strength and integrity of the lifelines. Remember the old adage: lifelines are a handhold of last resort.
This is not a self-rescuing boat. It will sink. I knew that when I bought it.
But since I'm keeping it in the water for the season, I haven't been able to figure out any good arrangement, short of drilling a lot of holes, to accommodate an automatic bilge pump.
There is really only one avenue of flooding in the P-18: the clamped house leading the painter for the centerboard down from the cockpit and out through bottom. If that hose every goes, I'm going to be looking for my boat in among the weeds of my slip.
Ideally, the boat should have at least a spot to put a bilge pump down in that area, and possibly some limber holes to allow drainage from the area directly beneath the cockpit sole and from the cabin sole, downward. Holes to lead the bilge pump discharge would be optional, but I'd probably put mine on the shortest possible run of hose right out into the cockpit.
Damn, I love this little boat. If I've said anything on this page to give any other impression, drop me a line and I'll look at what I've written and try to make it more clear.
If you're thinking about this boat (and I've had the Precision in mind since I first saw one at a boat show over 10 years ago), I heartily recommend it.