Beneteau First 31.7 UK Fleet Racing

When we first converted Electra from a cruiser to a racer back in November 2004, I remember being baffled by loads of minor details that now in hindsight seem obvious.

These pictures and comments are intended to help the novice understand what modifications are possible and why you would do them together with the little bits of information that make the jobs easier.

Electra is primarily an inshore race boat and these are the ones we have implemented as we have become more involved with the racing or have encountered specific problems. I have indicated those modifications which I think are priority to get you off with the right things, but bear in mind this is my individual opinion and others may have a different sequence for prioritisation.

Simon Brady of Sonic Boom has added his personal take on some of the modifications with an emphasis on offshore sailing.

Where possible we have also included variations to demonstrate that there is never just one way to do a job.

Please get in touch if you have any questions on the modifications or want advice on how to implement them. Please let us have any pictures of modifications you have done yourself.

Floor Boards Grip Strips
This self adhesive tape is not that expensive and is very easy to apply – makes life bearable when you’re out in rough weather with a wet floor and a lot of heel. Some folks have said to me that the aggressive surface might damage the spinnaker when it’s being packed, but I think the risk is higher of skating across the floor and dragging it with you and tearing it.

Simon: I have to say we’ve done the full offshore season on Sonic Boom and not had a problem with this. But if you epoxy the boards, which we’ve done with the front ones, then although it does make them indestructible, it also makes them an ice-rink so use the tape then.

Companionway Steps Anti-Slip
Having fallen down the steps a couple of times I view this as THE priority modification. If you only do one mod to the boat this is it. Again it is just self-adhesive grip tape available from any chandlery. Put it on upside down and score it with a pencil to mark the edge profile of the step for cutting a perfect fit.

Spinnaker Packing Hooks
One each for the head and the two clews – clip on the head, work your way down each edge to ensure there are no twists and then clip on the clew. Guarantees a twist free pack every time.

Chart Table Elastic
Two loops of shock cord – 2-3 mm should be fine. Keeps the charts where they should be.

Simon: I’d add a chart table strap and a galley strap. Offshore you’ll be thrown around like a rag doll without them and on starboard in a blow you won’t physically be able to stay at the nav station without them.

Extra storage
Simon: There’s a lot of wasted space on a 31.7. Beneteau may have changed this, but Sonic Boom’s locker doors – the small ones that hinge downwards – had a lip that kept things nicely on the shelf formed by their top when the doors were closed. Open the lids though and the lip is removed and everything falls on the floor. Put small lips on and you’ve 3 decent little shelves.

Simon: Get some halyard bag-type webbing material and Velcro and run a six-inch high strip along behind the port and starboard settees (and also along the forepeak and aft cabin shelves). Small metal clips hold the two top corners and the bottom sticks onto the wooden lip behind the settees with heavy duty Velcro. This will keep all your kit in place. Add a length of shock cord with a plastic clip on each end connected to the two clips you’ve hung the webbing off and you’ve additional storage, a place to hang/dry gloves and also a flexible support to clip your kite bag onto when you’re struggling to keep it open when packing it. (The head/tack clips Andy mentions are vital).

Simon: In the heads, behind the nav station (and along the starboard side of the aft cabin) get some 2 or 3 tier pig bags with elasticated tops. All those little things that you need quickly but which fly everywhere (knives, torches, Leatherman, handheld white flare, hand bearing compass, spare batteries and winch handles, binoculars, extra wooden plugs, handheld GPS and VHF) fit into these on Sonic Boom and it makes the boat uncluttered, easier to use in a blow and easy for new crew members to figure out).

Anchor Bag
Get the anchor out of the bow. We now use an alloy Fortress anchor with 3 meters of chain and approx 30m of 14 mm rope. Two eyelets secure the bag – make sure you use a simple knot, as you may need to get this out in a hurry. Note the bowline ready for quickly securing over a cleat. Some people worry about having the anchor below decks, but from a racing perspective this is where you need the weight, and in practice we have found it quicker to deploy the anchor from the bag than from the bow, as you tend to end up battling with the pole in the heat of the moment.

As an inshore boat we only carry this anchor and it has proved very effective in the current of the Channel Islands. You need two anchors if you are going to race Cat 3, but they should still both be lashed over the keel.

We have a second pair of eyelets in from of the mast for the second anchor – in an old Musto bag this time. The make of the bag is irrelevant.

Clever Trevor
Make mooring and tying up the boat simple. Pre-spliced at both ends to the correct length this is my favorite piece of kit on the boat. When we come back to our berth this is always the first line thrown over the cleat. You know you won’t hit the end of the berth and you can motor against it as a spring. Go on – practice your 3-plait splicing and make your life a lot easier. The tubing is standard water pipe from a chandlery to protect the teak toe-rail from the rope.

VHF Deck Speaker & Switch
This is an invaluable addition for racing. This was a simple kit that plugged straight into the back of the main VHF radio. The on-deck switch is a needed to let you keep max volume but get rid of the noise if it is annoying you. The switch doesn’t turn off the internal speaker so the navigator can take down the course, while the tactician can still hear the time signals.

Cleat Boots
When you are not tied up the cleats are just sat there waiting to grab the first line that comes their way. We use these off-the-shelf cleat boots on both bow cleats, and when I get round to it we will probably put them on the centre cleats as well.

Pole up haul clip
To keep the pole up haul out of the way we get our bow person to place it in the end clip. See the picture from Sonic boom for alternative approach.

Simon: On Sonic Boom we just attach a piece of shock cord to the mast base and use a clip on the end of this to keep this out of the way.

Guys and Blocks
We sail Electra with Guys and Sheets rather than just sheets. The use of Guys makes gibing a lot easier for the bow person, especially in stronger winds and more than makes up for the extra rope in the cockpit. Our guys and sheets are currently all 20m long with simple snap shackles and donuts on the end. The line is braid-on braid to make the splicing easier, however, I am about to upgrade the Guys to Marlow Braid as a cost effective attempt to reduce the stretch in the Guy especially when we are reaching. You could use Spectra here but the stretch in the guys is not as critical as the main and genoa halyards so it is probably not worth the extra money.

Simon: On Sonic Boom we try not to use guys until the apparent wind downwind is above 12 knots. It’s additional weight on the kite, additional string in the boat and these boats are very kind through the gybes end to ending. When the wind gets up we end to end with guys. We have had crew on board who dip pole gybe but I think that’s only necessary in big wind and big seas.

Spinnaker Blocks
The spinnaker loads are not great so you don’t require specialist kit here. We have recently upgraded to a larger block just to make the sheeting easier and have gone with the becket so we can keep the block clear of the deck and prevent it damaging the gel coat.

Simon: You can always buy carbo-blocks as they allow you to shock cord them to the guardrails.

Sail Netting
Don’t lose you sails overboard. On Electra we have screwed lacing eyes into the teak toe rail. Other boats have drilled holes through the toe rail. We use clove hitches on the lower guardrail and a round turn on the eye to prevent movement and reduce wear on the rope. Use a tough line like a 3mm Marlobright.

Foot Rests
I have never been a fan of the standard Beneteau man traps and so we had foot rests made up to match the toe-rail profile. These are through bolted and secured with penny washers and nuts. Talk to the mantrap fans as I am sure they have their own take on this.

Simon: The mantraps – the adjustable metal bars that fold down into the cockpit – are, functionally, the best solution, especially offshore where you’re thrown off anything else (and it’s a long way down when the boat’s at 30 degrees). The adjustability is also great when you have watch systems running and have tall and short helms – the case on Sonic. However in-shore Andy’s solution is far more elegant and unintrusive. The man traps can trip you up.

Headsail Tuff Luff, Feeder & Pre-Feeder
If you spend the money on laminated sails then it is probably worth upgrading to a tuff luff from a roller-furler. We have only ever peeled once in the Solent on a round the cans race, and so for inshore racing it may be preferable to go down the hanks route. For offshore sailing though you can’t beat the ability to peel your headsails. Fitting your own tuff luff is fairly straight forward, if a bit brutal. We set the pre-feeder up at 24” and the feeder at 36” from the deck. All our headsails sails are cut with the boltrope starting at 30” from the tack. Talk to your sail maker to confirm, but most seem to work around these numbers.

Mainsail – Slugs vs Boltrope.
Make sure you talk this through with your sail maker. We use slugs as they make the luff tension easier to adjust and help contain the sail during a reef or a drop. It also means you don’t need to modify the mast and fit a feeder. Again talk to other skippers before making your decision. This also affects the boom cover shape you order – if you just get a blanket cover then you will either need a front-piece to cover the slug flakes or you will need to re-feed the slugs each time you hoist.

Simon: On Sonic Boom we’ve gone for bolt ropes for reasons of weight aloft, strength offshore (with only one main you don’t want to face a sail with half the slugs blown off) and also because – let’s face it – they look nicer. However, you do need to get the mast tweaked and they are a pain to get up – and shaking out reefs inshore is not an option. Inshore I’d go for slugs.

Anti-Flapper
You need this to stop you Tuff-Luff destroying itself when you leave the boat.

Pole Strops
Strops on Electra are Kevlar fibre and over size as I didn’t know any better. Spectra would be fine. As we carry an Asymmetric Reaching Spinnaker we have quite short strops on the downhaul side of the pole so we can fly it at pulpit height. Note the use of shackles and seizing to project the strops away from the release pin.

On Deck Charts
Laminated charts taped to the hatch make cockpit navigation easier. Taping charts to the coach roof gets the crew involved.

Navigators Bag
When I have the luxury of dedicating myself to Nav/Tack I sit at the back of the boat behind the main and the helm. This little bag contains all of my navigation goodies. Tidal Stream Atlas, Laminated Race Card, Handheld GPS etc.

Simon: See above for my “stick bags everywhere on the boat” theory. Andy’s guardrail mounted handbag is very sexy though.

Polars
Keep the Polars on display to check your sailing angles and nag the crew if you are slow.
This formatted Polars file is available under the technical section.

Simon: But make sure your speed transducer is clean (remove it after every race and put in the blank plug – you race for a few hours, but left in the wheel will turn 24 hours a day in the tide) and calibrate your speed and wind and electronic compasses at least twice a season. Otherwise the polars are useless.

Traveller & Backstay bitter ends
To avoid having the bitter ends of the traveller and the backstay ending up on the floor of the cockpit I have tied them into the end-loop of the traveller so the mainsheet can reach them. Other boats tie them into the eyes that secure the man traps.

Simon: On Sonic we leave these free and have no issues. Having the end of the backstay available with a big bobble on the end makes that last big bend of the mast easier.

Simon: On ropes, get your sailmaker on board and when they’re happy with base sail settings mark them on the halyards, jib cars, tuff luff. Then you have a good point from which to experiment.

Backstay 32:1
The backstay on the 31.7 as supplied is 16:1 and is not really powerful enough to bend the mast. It was very difficult to pull on the backstay enough to blade out the top of the mainsail, and then found the line slipped through the cleats once we had the desired bend. Adding an additional purchase and reducing the length of the existing cascade lines is fairly straight forward and worth the effort. Note the adjustment marks on the system to help reproduce settings

Simon: On these boats the backstay is as crucial an adjustment as the mainsheet. On Sonic I’m thinking about doubling the purchase again to make playing the backstay easier. So if you see my mast fold you’ll know we’ve overdone it.

Tape up your bottle screws
You should tape up your bottle screws to prevent anything catching on the split pins. Remember though to leave a gap at the top and bottom to allow any water to escape otherwise you may end up rusting the unit solid.

Number Dodgers
Simon: You have to have these for Cowes week, JOG racing and RORC racing. Your sailmaker will make you a set. Make sure they are sized for easy clipping to stanchions. And fit the clips. Tying them on is a real pain.

From an inshore perspective I would suggest that you only implement the following modifications when you have done all the Priority modifications or have a specific requirement or a problem to solve. Get in touch if you want specific details as there is not the supporting text for the pictures.

Spinnaker Track
Simon: For dip-pole gybing and to give your foredeck more options, fit a kite pole track to the mast. The economic option has stoppers set a couple of centimeters apart. On Sonic we went full-gadget ahead and got an all singing all dancing ball bearing track. It’s great but complex – people pull the wrong adjustment rope at the oddest times. It’s a gadget too far.

Ball bearing jib tracks
Simon: Not necessary but lovely. Being able to adjust the jib car position under full sail loads is great. Of course it is much cheaper just to tack and change the lazy sheet position. But then you can’t dynamically look at different leech profiles.

Lee Cloths
Simon: On Sonic we view these as a primary modification. We have the obvious saloon berth cloths, which are vital for any offshore passage but we also have clever cloths that divide the forepeak and aft cabin into two discreet berths each. This gives us 4 true seaberths (so an 8 man crew can go 4 on 4 off) as well as 2 places for mad people to sleep (the forepeak).

Spinnaker Tack Line
You only need this for outside gibing an asymmetric spinnaker (not recommended on a conventional pole boat) or for peeling spinnakers.

Forepeak Door Retainer
Simon: This is a primary modification unless you’d rather just have a piece of scratched and splintered laminate. A strong piece of shock cord from door handle to port chainplate will do though.

Forestay chain plate or bottle screw
Simon: The bottle screw makes rake and rig tension adjustments easier but is not necessary. You tend to get the bottle screw if you’ve upgraded to rod forestay.

Genoa halyard mast foot turning blocks
Simon: On Sonic we’ve pretty much blown up every block at the mast foot that came with the boat and so have gone for the highest spec blocks that will fit. There’s nothing like being at the helm and feeling the insides of a block fire past your head at 1,000 miles an hour to persuade you of the virtues of the strongest, highest load-bearing thing you can find. Ditto the shackles.

Halyard/Mast sheave upgrades
Simon: Most people end up buying vectran or spectra running rigging. Bear in mind that this stuff doesn’t give and the normal plastic masthead sheaves can’t take the increased shock loads. If your halyards are not running freely you’ve probably blown the sheaves and they’ll need to be replaced. Also, the clutches are used to the give and without it they will slip a little. This is also because the ropes themselves are more slippery and harder to grip than conventional materials. This is also noticed by my crew as they pull in on 8 mm spectra jib sheets.

Traveller Modification
Having adopted the Twist-Off Mainsheeting style (see article on the website) we were struggling to fully up-track the traveler. This was our solution.

Simon: You could invest in a windward-sheeting traveler. This is a cunning Harken device that automatically tacks your traveler for you. Go to the Harken website for a better description with diagrams. Again it’s nice to have not must have, but it makes a big difference, especially if racing short-handed.

Topping Lift Removal
I removed the topping lift and cleat from Electra as the guys from Quantum said they had seen many a mastman smash their knuckles on the topping lift cleats. As long as you remember you don’t have a topping lift everything is fine. When you don’t …

Simon: Watch your heads in reefing manoeuvres and at the end of the race if you’ve done this. It’s easy to forget when you’re tired, elated or despondent (depending on where you came). Infrequent crewmembers also often assume you have one.

Main Sheet 4:1, 5:1 or 6:1 & Main Sheet Fine Adjuster
Simon: This is where the boats differ most I’d say. The first thing to figure out is how strong your mainsheet man is. These boats when raced require a lot of mainsail adjustment and at 4:1 it’s hard work. On Sonic we’ve experimented and reckon that the ideal system is a 4:1 mainsheet with a fine-tune with plenty of travel in it which you use for leech tension adjustment upwind. We tend to sail with the traveller well up and use backstay and the fine-tune to de-power the main, rather than playing the traveller the whole time.

Jackstays
Simon: Vital offshore. Change them once a season as they degrade in sunlight and are destroyed by being trodden on.

Coach roof winch turning blocks
Simon: On Sonic we would regard these as vital. They allow you to cross-winch when, for example, you’re flying the kite on one coachroof winch and need to raise the genoa and drop the kite using the other one.

B&G Network Tack, GPS Repeater, Mast Repeater, Digital Compass
Simon: The equipment you need depends on the type of racing you want to do and the standard at which you race. Doing well in our kinds of fleet is about avoiding the large errors rather than getting minor or technical things right. I do think having a digital compass and a masthead repeater makes getting basic things right – such as steering the right course and being able to see tidal offsets by comparing heading/COG and boatspeed/SOG. It’s also nice to have a big masthead depth reading when you’re messing with the Bramble bank or Ryde Sands. Repeating the GPS info is useful offshore – for example you might be tacking on a Lat or Long line – and most will also repeat waypoint data. If you’re using polars then you need a system that can calculate and display True Wind Angle and True Wind Speed. Again you need to be able to see these clearly. And at that point you want depth, heading, SOG, COG, TWS, TWA displayed as a minimum so you need repeaters. Where you have to be careful is in spending too much time (or money) investing in things that will distract you from the primary objectives. If you spend too much time looking at VMG, TWD, AWA or headings on last tack or, frankly, downwind polar angles, then you’ll miss obvious things like the fleet is going right to get out of the tide or that sailing the rhumb line downwind is usually the fastest way these boats get places (they don’t hot up enough on the angles to make reaching off work.).

Simon: If I were to recommend one piece of kit to add to a basic set-up it would be a colour plotter. Whether you’re inshore or offshore being able to see clearly where you are with heading and COG lines coming off the boat icon gives you real confidence when you’re unfamiliar with an area and its features. We made places off Les Hanois light by dodging right in amongst the rocks navigating by eye and colour plotter and a black wet night coming back through Les Ecrehous was made straightforward by our Raymarine kit. We could have done it the old way – there are lights everywhere – but if you’re tired (and we were 3 days into a passage that had included a race to St Malo) these things really make a difference both for cruising and racing.

Simon: PS When my B&G kit went wrong out of warranty they replaced the lot. They’re good guys.