Review of Ballestron 8.50

Basic specs.

The Ballestron 8.50 is a sailboat designed by the maritime architect A. Gatti.

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Hull

The hull is made of wood.

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.

Stability and Safety

What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?

The capsize screening value for Ballestron 8.50 is 1.99, indicating that this boat could - if evaluated by this formula alone - be accepted to participate in ocean races.

Immersion rate

The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level. The immersion rate for Ballestron 8.50 is about 172 kg/cm, alternatively 963 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 172 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm. Alternatively, if you load 963 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.

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.

L/B (Length Beam Ratio)

What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?

The l/b ratio for Ballestron 8.50 is 2.85.

Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 73% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a slightly more spacy hull design.

Maintenance

Rig

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.

**Guiding dimensions of running rig**
Usage	Length		Diameter
Jib sheet	8.6 m	(28.1 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Genoa sheet	8.6 m	(28.1 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Mainsheet	21.4 m	(70.2 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Spinnaker sheet	18.8 m	(61.8 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)

Boat owner's ideas

This section shown boat owner's changes, improvements, etc. Here you might find inspiration for your boat.

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Finally

We are always looking for new photos. If you can contribute with photos for Ballestron 8.50 it would be a great help.

If you have any comments to the review, improvement suggestions, or the like, feel free to contact us. Criticism helps us to improve.

References

[Ref 1]: ISO 8666 Small craft — Principal data.
[Ref 3]: ISO 12215-5 Small craft — Hull construction and scantlings.