The Performance Sailboat from Island Packet: Blue Jacket 40 Boat Review 

I like this. Heading to Annapolis this year and hope IP has one for viewing. On a completely different topic, I wonder why no manufacturer other than Hunter (Marlow-Hunter) ever picked up on the cockpit arch with end of boom mainsheet and track. In my opinion it’s a perfect arrangement and offers end of boom sheeting, a functional traveller and the added easy to add solar panels and dingy davits and attachments for a bimini. Never understood why Hunter didn’t offer the solar arch and davits as an option because you always had to find a stainless steel guy to do this professionally with often mixed results when you look around at older Hunters for sale. But I digress 😊

Heresy ! With cores, bolt on keel, exposed prop, spade rudder, it's no longer the safe ocean going cruiser.

I’ve taken colege couraes that included less unformation than this 14-minute video. Best boating channel on RU-vid be a wide margin

“Reliable as a word burning stove” lol…you can tell you are Canadian. Awesome show mate!

I like how the chainplates and standing rigging are pushed all the way outboard. Drives me nuts when a nice wide walkway is interrupted with plates sticking out dead center where my feet should be! 😅

Very neat design but that spade rudder is a deal breaker for me (no skeg protection whatsoever). Thank you!

$369,900 for a 2014 Blue Jacket 40. 😱

wish these were still made. just checked blue jacket's site and it looks like newer models are in design right now.

Great design and construction. I’ll take the Blue Jacket across the Atlantic any day, and with a minimal crew to boot. I’m not a fan of Beneteau or similar designs, but I think this boat has the right combination of design/build attributes and amenities of a true blue water voyager. I’d ditch the job boom but otherwise I like the rig and rigging to manage the sail size and power this boat. Go IP.

I remember going aboard one of these at a show quite awhile ago. I can't remember what it was I didn't care for but I recall not being too impressed. I do remember thinking there were no sea berths. The saloon settees were curved and not very long.

Nice. Need to review Krakens next.

Looks interesting, obviously the bolt on keel and unprotected prop and rudder are a big departure from IP. The bigger rig and lower weight promise to increase performance. I’ve chartered an IP 47 and as well as Beneteau, Bavaria and Jeanneau in the 36-45 ft range. The IP definitely felt like a ‘tank’ going through 10 ft rolling seas, you felt you were above it all with the center cockpit. I’m not an ocean crosser of even long range cruiser but this boat seems to have potential. Another boat that tries to do it all is the Hylas 54 but it’s in a higher price range by far.

I understand THREE Blue Jacket 40's have lost their rudders due to inferior quality Carbon Fiber rudder posts built by a 3rd party. Make sure you're not buying a BJ-40 with original rudder build. The problems continue when the builder sends you a new upgraded rudder with a larger diameter post, thus making all your connections KAPUT! It's a mess! And worse, your insurance may not cover it because the rudder post was flawed in the original build. So now you're out of warranty and are looking at a $30,000 out of pocket problem.

I like it! I want one! But at 83yo I ain’t gonna get one.

After 45 years sailing on my 31footer full keel hallberg rassy and over 50000 miles,Blue Jacket would be wholy out of my dreams,while I still consider very interesting, expecially for a relaxing sailing, traditional IPs

As an ocean racer with 40 years of experience, including nine Newport to Bermuda races (including one on a Blue Jacket 40) and two Marblehead to Halifax racers, I have a fairly negative perspective after our rudder sheared off 90 nautical miles from Bermuda. I owned a C&C 34 for more that 30 years, and now live aboard I Hylas 46 for the past four years4 and sailed more than 10,000 offshore double handed miles up and down the east coast, Bahamas and a Newport to Bermuda race. The Blue Jacket is not an offshore boat by my standards, it has a flat bottom that pounds while going upwind, is lightly built and experienced multiple failures during the two Newport to Bermuda races. We raced Bailiwick in the 2018 race, it was fairly light and the boat handled it, but at midnight on the fourth night, there was a huge bang, followed by an all hands call because the steering was gone. Not only was it gone, both wheels spun round and round, and the rudder, which we found had a carbon fiber stock, sheared off at the hull. I confirmed because I went under the hull after the drogue we were trying to steer by in the morning following the accident, wound up into the prop. I saw voids in carbon structure and don't believe it was vacuum bagged or put in an autoclave. You can search and find the video about this under Bailiwick on the Newport to Bermuda web site. The boat did the race in 2022 and during the long stretch of 25 knot winds, the Hoyt boom tore off the deck. There were only four smaller sized machine screws holding it in the deck, it was not though bolted. I think they are vastly overpriced and like many of the production boats that think they can go offshore these days, definitely not up to the task. Captain Mark

Love how many times they mention the rudder without mentioning how weak the design is, and that as of Oct 2024 three of fourteen rudders have failed.

The island cruiser market is huge. The charter market is huge. A lot of wealthy sailors just don't cross oceans. The ones that do go Amel/Halberg Rassey... This boat meets the need of charter companies and island retirees.

Every boat designed is a series of compromises. Personally, I do not like the straight lines of plumb bows nowadays. Fife could get away with it due to the length of the stern overhangs he used. I do prefer a longer keel since, if I were to start blue water sailing, I would stick to the higher latitudes: Hello Svalbard & Ushuaia (rushing through the tropics as fast as I could. I do not like heat). A long, if not full keel allows the boat to track better in following seas. I can say that getting pushed sideways while racing down the face of a swell in a Full Gale is no fun, as fin keels have less 'bighting' power. But, hey, if I were on a VO65 racing around the world, I'm all in. If I am cruising, I do want my comfort & safety, please & thank you. Also, it appears that balanced rudders are the preferred playthings of the Spanish Orcas. I haven't seen any reports of vessels with heavy skegs being assaulted. Down below, I don't like that the settees are curved, making it difficult, if not impossible to sleep on. No pilot berths anywhere, from what I can see. The galley looks good & I like the size of the nav station, but the berths in the stern...can they have lee cloths installed? I didn't see any breaks in the mattress for them, making them much to wide for passage sleeping. My personal preferred vessel would be a Hans Christian 43 ketch. Plenty of spars to hoist cloth on in light air, yet capable of handling the worst Cape Horn can throw at it. Regardless of the boat, I like your channel & all appropriate buttons have been pushed.

Wow! I'd heard about this thing, but it is interesting in a really smart way.

Ocean-going spade rudder? Buy a good liferaft and embrace religion!

Trying to learn more of the vessel I’ve been sailing on very good video

C&C 376 (1982) please review!

A third of a million dollar production boat with the IP brand ü

I would compare this boat with the J40

Is the spade rudder bulkheaded off from the rest of the hull? Maybe I missed it, you were talking pretty fast. Without that, the rudder is major source of potential risk compared to other "blue water' boats. My uninformed opinion is this bulkhead could be implement in the design. Any why still no folding transom? Makes boats so much more livable. Maybe this is a water ingress issue risk, requires higher cockpit sole?

Nice change for IP, although cheaping out with the aluminum spar and no Leisure Furl boom is a bit of a negative. Also just think how much more weight they could have saved by going to honey comb cored interior components.

Spade rudder and bolt-on keel - yikes! Foam core hull - yikes! The spade rudder and foam core under the waterline are deal breakers for me. As solid as quadraxial fibreglass may be (and yes, very fun to say!), the Divinycell worries me. Have they managed to overcome the issue of hydraulic erosion? I note they say “water ingress, corrosion and decay RESISTANT,” not “proof.” For my money, I'd like the best chance of surviving an iceberg strike, and I’d like to see my hull not disintegrate in 20 years. It sounds like they’ve done as good a job as is possible with a bolt-on keel, so not a deal breaker, but not ideal IMO either. I love the BJ40’s (unfortunate acronym) improved performance in lighter wind, but it seems to have been at the cost of some safety. By the way, have they done anything about the chain plate access or the water and fuel tank inspection/removal access, or do you still need to rip the boat apart to do that maintenance? Where do you hot bunk now that they've made the settees round? It kills me that they’ve done so many right things with this new version and yet just a couple of basics make it a deal breaker. Not to be the negative Nelly, I’d like to show appreciation for keeping the bulkheads structural; the galley is fantastic (I don’t say that about many boats); the interior is lovely; and I’m glad there’s an option for a massive cockpit locker instead of a third cabin. I love the mast, rigging, and sail plan. I also love the well written and researched job by PY.

I would love to own a Blue Jacket 40! With that said, I would like to share something about the beige hull color of earlier Island Packets. As you know, beige decks and beige hulls was the only color IP offered for years. But several years ago, I believe in the late 90s/early 2000s, Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a very famous attorney, ordered an IP 44 from Turner Marine in Mobile, Alabama. At the time Turner Marine was the IP dealer for this part of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Dickie wanted the hull to be a midnight blue color but Mr. Johnson flatly refusted the request, instead shipping the IP 44 to Turner with the standard beige color. Dickie instructed Turner Marine to paint the hull midnight blue, which they did. When other Turner IP customers saw the midnight blue hull, they had to have one. Chaos followed. In the end, IP now offers the midnight blue hull, all because of what Dickie Scruggs wanted so many years ago. I suggest you Google Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who just turned 78 years old, to see how he made his billions. That in itself is an interesting story.

A giant leap forward with so many compromises. So much for the ICW with that mast height 😂 and displacement isn't always an indicator of performance in blue water. True blue water boats benefit from broader fin keels, not bulbs. A skeg helps keep the rudder attached when being eaten by orcas. That jib boom is and always has been an obstacle on the foredeck, too bad. But it's hard to call her an Island Piglet!

Interesting - and beautiful. But I dunno… for safety on the open ocean, bolted-on keels and blade rudders without a protective skeg kinda give me the willies…

Frickin' cool!!! This was well overdue I think. We have a race oriented boat, and we cruise it, and many of the race features, including the deep lead keel with a bulb, lend themselves to more comfortable cruising than the traditional cruising boat. LOL, it's a J/133 with more cruising amenities!

It’s not what I would go for, it’s neither one or the other, and in my opinion it’s engine is to small, and accessibility leaves a lot to be desired. The forward vberth looks too small, and the rear cabins look squashed. I didn’t see any room for a generator, and it would need a solar arch and davits which would interfere with the cockpit cover, however on saying all that I have not seen one of these before, and seeing for yourself might actually erase some of these qualms. Looks nice though.

Hmm. I remember when Larsen Marine had a stock boat and it took forever to sell. Not because boat was bad but rather the price point was almost extreme. Similar quality to Tartan but more expensive. Any idea how many were even built?? Not many I'm guessing

I've just watched a couple of your old cruising videos which included passages under 54 foot bridges. Ft Lauderdale and Cape May. This boat gotta go around. 😊

Hopefully my retirement fund will rise meet the Blue Jacket on its way down in 20 years. This boat has "Me" written all over it. Great looks and fantastic design. I can see myself getting the shallow draft and cruising the ICW and island hopping in this beauty.

Making both settees curved means the best place to ride out a bad storm can't be easily used for sleeping. In addition to the other bad design decisions, this makes me think the best years for this company are in the past.

hi Tim thanks great watch for blue water yachts, be great to see in 4k video

I have always like IPs but didn't want the full keel. Really like this boat.

This is the first time I was interested in a boat from island piglet. They may convert me with this one.

Damn, another dreamboat I’ll never be able to afford!

Ah they F it up !

Performance is not to be downplayed

If only fit my budget, I would take it in a heart beat!

Thanks Tim. Great review

A nice Coastal Cruiser.

Congrats Lady K🎉

Nicel boat

The boomkin is for the staysail, not the jib :-)

Anything but keel boats.

Complete betrayal of what island packet was designed to be. Highly disappointed