Review of Columbia 24 Challenger
Basic specs.
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The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.
The Columbia 24 Challenger is built with a masthead rig. The advantage of a masthead rig is its simplicity and the fact that a given sail area - compared with a fractional rig - can be carried lower and thus with less heeling moment.
Full keel
The Columbia 24 Challenger is built with a long keel. A full keel provide a better directional stability than a similar boat with a fin keel; on the other hand, better directional stability means also that the boat is more difficult to handle in a harbour with less space.
The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 1.01 - 1.11 meter (3.31 - 3.61 ft) dependent on the load.
An outboard motor is often used on this boat. In that case the boat will typically require a power of 0 - 1 hp, alternatively 0 - 1 lbs thrust if you prefer an electrical motor. Electric outboards are becoming popular for sailboat owners who want clean instant power with less noise and no exhaust fumes.
Sailing characteristics
This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.
What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?
The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 5.7 knots. The term "Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed" is widely used even though a boat can sail faster. The term shall be interpreted as above the theoretical speed a great additional power is necessary for a small gain in speed.
Sailing statistics
This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.
The ballast ratio for Columbia 24 Challenger is 46%.
Maintenance
Dimensions of sail for masthead rig.
Are your sails worn out? You might find your next sail here: Sails for Sale
If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.
| Usage | Length | Diameter | ||
| Mainsail halyard | 21.9 m | (71.8 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib/genoa halyard | 21.9 m | (71.8 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Spinnaker halyard | 21.9 m | (71.8 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Jib sheet | 7.3 m | (24.0 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 7.3 m | (24.0 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 18.3 m | (60.0 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 16.1 m | (52.8 feet) | 10 mm | (3/8 inch) |
| Cunningham | 3.4 m | (11.3 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Kickingstrap | 6.9 m | (22.6 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Clew-outhaul | 6.9 m | (22.6 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
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