We have always had a hard on for boats with big bulb keels, non overlapping jibs, asymmetrical kites on sprit poles. The Aerodyne 38 is no exception. We first saw the boat at the 2000 Sail Expo. While the interior did not blow us away we liked what we saw everywhere else. Big wide open cockpit with a giant wheel. A big, fun-looking 38' that didn't look like every other R/C on the market Later that year we watched in disbelief as the Aerodyne 38 "Matador" finished boat for boat behind Antrim 27 "E.T". in the Pacific Cup. Now let's jump ahead to 2001 and were racing in the Singlehanded Sailing Society East Bay Race. Conditions are light, I mean flat water with about 5 - 8 knots breeze sailing upwind towards Raccoon Straight. The Aerodyne is being sailed double-handed while I was single-handed. Unbelievably, were much faster than the Aerodyne in our little sportboat which is not considered a stellar upwind performer certainly not without the aide of tons of crew weight. Never was able to figure out why this supposed A-38 speedster was so damn sticky in light air, flat water. We finished over an hour ahead. Jump ahead to today, were out walking around the boat yard and what do we find? The Aerodyne 38 is hauled out. Christ look at the bottom of this boat. The bottom line is there is way too much wetted surface. Great when the wind pipes up, but hard to break free in the light stuff. What's the word? Yeah Pig that's it.

Sportboat.

07/31/2002