Review of Mermaid 270

Mermaid 270 anno 1987. LM Mermaid 270

Basic specs.

The Mermaid 270 aka LM Mermaid 270 is a sailboat designed by the Danish maritime architect Bent Juul Andersen in the mid eighties. Less than 100 boats have been produced. The Mermaid 270 is built by the Danish yard LM Glasfiber A/S.

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Hull

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.

Interior

The interior is like many other boats made of mahogany.
The boat is equipped with 2 cabins, 5 berths, a galley and toilet facility.

Rig

The boat equipped 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.

Keel

The Mermaid 270 has been built with more than one type of keel.

One option is a fin keel. A boat with a fin keel is more manoeuvrable but has less directional stability than a similar boat with a long keel.

The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 1.25 - 1.35 meter (4.10 - 4.40 ft) dependent on the load.

Engine

Mermaid 270 is typically equipped with an inboard Bukh 20MD diesel engine at 20.0 hp (14 kW).

The transmission is a saildrive.

The fuel tank has a capacity of 70.0 liters (18 US gallons, 15 imperial gallons).

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 Mermaid 270 is 1.96, indicating that this boat could - if evaluated by this formula alone - be accepted to participate in ocean races.

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 Mermaid 270 is 2.83.

Compared with other similar sailboats it is more spacy than 76% of all other designs. It seems that the designer has chosen a significantly more spacy hull design.

Ballast Ratio

What is a Ballast Ratio?

The ballast ratio for Mermaid 270 is 41%.

This ballast ratio shows a righting moment that is higher than 54% of all similar sailboat designs. A righting moment (ability to resist heeling) just above average.

RSP (Relative Speed Performance)

What is Relative Speed Performance?

The Relative Speed Performance for Mermaid 270 is 24

The relative speed performance is 24 which means that a it is faster than 24% of all similar sailboat designs.

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	8.1 m	(26.6 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Genoa sheet	8.1 m	(26.6 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Mainsheet	20.3 m	(66.6 feet)	10 mm	(3/8 inch)
Spinnaker sheet	17.9 m	(58.6 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.

Do you have changes/improvements you would like to share? Upload a photo and describe what to look for.

Finally

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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.