September 2024  Santiana

By Charlie Hood

Santiana is a converted Freedom 30 which was originally built in 1982.

I have owned her for coming up to 10 years now and she was adapted prior to me buying her.

I chose her on the spur of the moment. She was about the right length, shallow draft; as my mooring in Newlyn only has one and a half metres at LW springs.

Also, I knew Freedoms were heavy and robust enough to cope with the Celtic sea. Indeed at over seven tons she handles both the Lizard and Land’s End races with relative ease.

Why I chose a junk was and still is a mystery. I thought why not? They look great, had a reputation as being easy to sail single handed, which is most of my sailing and are fairly forgiving in fluky winds. It took me a couple of years to get to grips with all things junk and many hours were spent re-rigging and making tweaks until finally I was confident to make longer journeys away from safe haven.

The sails were fairly old and after five seasons they finally gave way. I enlisted the help of Alan Boswell to design me a pair of new sails. I wanted to get the maximin sail area we could and also to make them as efficient as possible. He came up with about 15% extra sail area and we ditched the old plastic tubing battens and went for sail pockets to house hinged aluminium battens. I got a local sail maker ‘Lodey Sails’ in Longrock to make them. He had never made junk sails before but he was confident his knowledge of luggers would be sufficient. And it was. I now have two beautiful sails and can sail in around six knots of wind. Previously anything less than 10 knots was a struggle.

Being heavy Santiana likes wind. Indeed 10-15 knots is perfect. At 15 knots I put one panel down in the mizzen and at 20 knots two panels down in the mizzen and one in the main and so on. I’ve sailed back from Scilly while taking part in the PASAB in 40 knots with just one panel in both sails, maintaining around seven knots which was invigorating and Santiana took it in her stride. I don’t think I’ll plan to do that again though! I generally can control all sheets and halyards from the generous cockpit, although initially raising the sails can require me to go up and sort bits of string out.

I removed the tiller steer and reinstalled the wheel helm back. This gave much more room in the cockpit and also allowed me to install an electronic auto-helm which is essential for single handed sailing. I have AIS and GPS with connections to a MacBook for navigation with a small Montana plotter as a back-up.

Up forward there is a double berth, my wife joins me a couple of times year for trips to Scilly, Helford, Fowey and up to Salcombe. I’m hoping to get to France next year as the rules of entry appear to be easing. The central cabin is huge and around six feet three in height complete with double burner cooker, grill and the all import fridge for cold tonics. One of the port under-seat lockers is great for keeping the IPA at sea temperature as well.

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