Overview
Jeanneau, still a young company in the late 1970s, built the Gin Fizz as a 37’6” fiberglass production cruiser to a Michel Joubert design, and she’s earned a genuine reputation as an affordable offshore boat despite the cocktail-bar name. Over 500 were built in France between 1975 and 1981, and though she was only half-heartedly marketed in the US, her used-boat popularity has picked up again in recent years. Laura Dekker sailed one, Guppy, solo around the world at age fourteen to sixteen between August 2010 and January 2012, one of the best-documented modern circumnavigations by any boat in this catalog.
Design and Construction
The hull carries her beam (12’6” at maximum) well forward and aft for a roomy interior, while a low-freeboard, nearly flush deck keeps her profile sleek without sacrificing 6 feet of headroom below. A fin keel and partial spade rudder were a modern configuration for her era. Construction is traditional heavy fiberglass laminate at a moderate 15,432 lb displacement, with an iron keel bolted on externally and glassed over, a deck-stepped mast, and balsa-cored decks. Interior joinery is unremarkable by Kretschmer’s own account, and he flags tabbed bulkheads, fabric headliners, and a carpeted glass-over-wood cabin sole as details that don’t age gracefully.
Under Sail
Early boats were mostly ketch-rigged, Dekker’s Guppy among them, before production shifted to sloop rig. Kretschmer argues the sloop is the more practical choice regardless, more maneuverable and with less clutter in the cockpit, despite the ketch’s slightly larger sail area. Owners describe her as solid underway; she pounds going to weather but takes it in stride, and stays well balanced and reasonably close-winded, averaging around 5 knots and 120-mile days even on a 32-foot waterline. Kretschmer’s own family boat, a Gin Fizz named Epoch, backs this up with real mileage: he made his first offshore passage aboard her, a storm-tossed run to Bermuda followed by a passage on to Marigot, and after he moved on his mother and her partner Tim MacTaggart sailed Epoch on an extended circumnavigation. Two further owners circumnavigated again afterward, and Kretschmer credits the boat with more than 50,000 bluewater miles and no hull-to-deck joint issues to show for it.
Buyers Notes
Inspect the main bulkhead for delamination, and check nylon rudder bearings for swelling if the boat has spent extended time hauled out and dry. The original salt-water-cooled engine is prone to rust; confirm whether it’s been replaced. Keel bolts are hidden under the glassed-over externally-fastened keel, Kretschmer recommends having them inspected or X-rayed rather than assumed sound. Gin Fizz boats turn up most often on the European used market, with occasional examples farther afield.
Layout and Interior
The galley sits to starboard with two small sinks, opposite a good-sized nav table behind a C-shaped dinette to port. Forward is a V-berth with its own head and hanging locker. A narrow perspex portlight runs the length of the cabin top for light, though the interior can still feel dark, and two hatches provide only average ventilation.
