Oday Owner Reviews

Serving sailors online since 1997

Review of the Oday Javelin by Steve Ellis

Year built	1980
Location of boat	Danbury, CT
The boat is sailed on	Bays, sounds, or protected salt water
How the boat is used	Day sailing
Normal wind strength	10-15 knots
Average size of crew	2-4
Liveaboard?	No
Owner bought the boat in	2002
If the clock could be turned back, would owner buy again?	Yup! Great size for trailering, especially when you are at a dock full of impatient motor-heads, and you only take up 14'. Otherwise fast, fun, spacious, but easy to learn on. You can usually find them with a trailer for under or around $1000.00
Gear that's been added	Haven't replaced anything yet, but plan on painting the hull and replacing the sails, for starters, but only because I want to.
Structural or complex improvements	None
The boat's best features	Solid boat, good size, easy to work on, relatively cheap (to please the mrs.)
Problem areas in terms of design, materials, maintenance, etc.	Nothing yet, although the auto-bailer is useless. I just always keep a plug in it while underway. It is nice to have once the boat is out of the water and you need to drain any water in the cockpit.
Sailing characterisitcs	Picks up speed right away, but doesn't get out of control when the sails are pulled in. If it's really windy out, the boat will heel so much, the rudder will start to come out of the water, diminishing it's authority, allowing the bow to point back into the wind, preventing the boat from capsizing. Did ya get all that?
Motoring characterisitcs	I put a 3hp Johnson on the transome, and had no problems.
Liveability	You don't live in a Javelin, unless you are really small!
The owner's experience in dealing with Hunter (if any)	[builder]
The owner's experience with the boat dealer or broker, if any
Other comments	It's exactly as described! If you need something bigger, try a Rhodes (17') or the Mariner (19') or anyone of the long-time-copied Daysailers. They are all great small sailboats. Check out the "Javelin Sailers" group on Yahoo. Great pictures there!

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