Now in production: A tribute to a visionary

Two men standing next to me on the crowded dock, each holding a plastic bag overflowing with boat show literature, are discussing the somewhat strange-looking sailboat tied alongside. "This is an all-out racing boat for sure," says one, "one of those extreme IMS designs." The other says, "It's radical all right, but I think it's a concept boat, something experimental, a millennium thing." I say to myself, here is one of the most practical, sensible, safest boats I've ever seen, and these guys and probably a good part of the rest of the sailing public think it's an extreme rendition of a radical concept.

Not that I fault the two boat show browsers. They came to the floating display at last fall's sailboat show at Annapolis to see Hunters, affordable, conventional Everyperson's cruising boats. What they saw instead, smack in the middle of the Hunter show fleet, was this wild thing, 50 feet long and fire engine red, flaunting a reverse sheerline, a mast mounted on a tripod, a boom that looked like a spare part from a space vehicle and, of all amazing things, a tiller. It's no wonder they didn't know what to make of it.

It was a Hunter all right, the HC50 Long-Distance Express Cruiser. I laid my eyes on it for the first time at Annapolis, but the boat seemed as familiar as an old Topsider. I had heard all about it from Lars Bergstrom. The HC50 is full of the ideas of this brilliant designer who was killed in the crash of a motorized sailplane in 1997.

Some people called Bergstrom "Lars from Mars." I don't know how Lars felt about that, but I always thought it was a sad comment on the state of the enlightenment of the world of sailing when ideas as sound as his were considered so far-out he was likened to a visitor from a faraway planet.

Perhaps those ideas will seem less foreign now that more sailors will have access to them in a production-built cruising boat, thanks to Warren Luhrs, head man of Hunter and Bergstrom's old friend and shipmate.

Bergstrom's ideas for a fast cruising boat, developed with his longtime partner Sven Ridder, were tried successfully in a prototype named Route 66. And now, with some additions by Steve Pettengill, who raced the Bergstrom-Ridder designed Hunter's Child in the 1994 BOC, they are manifested in the HC50.

You know that Bergstrom, who preached that light boats were safer in their ability to maneuver over and around seas and handle rough weather with less load on hull and rig, was involved when you see that this 50-foot cruising boat weighs but 16,000 pounds.

The hull shape derives from semicircular sections that increase in radius from bow to stern, yielding a hull that wants to plane but doesn't want to broach in surfing conditions. The waterline beam is narrow, the beam on deck is wide. The resulting flare deflects spray and provides a place to put water ballast where it's needed when it's needed.

The mast sits on the aforementioned tripod, which absorbs the compression loads of the rig, eliminating the need for heavy hull reinforcement around the maststep, resulting in more weight saved. Compression on the hull from the mast is further minimized by a B&R (Bergstrom and Ridder) rig, which transfers mast bend loads to a complex network of stays. Variations of this rig appear on even the most prosaic boats in the Hunter line, but it's used to its maximum benefit on the HC50 by eliminating the need for a backstay, allowing for an ultraroached and thus enormously powerful mainsail.

At the foot of that mainsail is a wide, curved boom that looks exotic but in use is simplicity itself. Supported by a permanent, fixed vang, the boom remains at the same level in all conditions. Mainsail angle is adjusted by the mainsheet; twist is controlled by a line through a block at the outhaul.

Other nifty wrinkles include a gimbaled nav station and a windlass system that guides anchor chain into a storage place in the keel sump, where its weight, unlike in its usual place in the bow, is beneficial or at least harmless.

Construction materials, including Kevlar, carbon fiber and laminates used for cabin furniture, contribute to the boat's lightness, which when combined with a 45-foot waterline length and 1,274 square feet of sail will provide passagemaking speed that should convert some dubious bluewater sailors to the Bergstrom school of cruising thought. Still, the boat comes with a few esoteric touches that may give them pause.

That tiller, for example. This has the stamp of Bergstrom, who saw no need to add the weight and vulnerability of a wheel to any size boat, all over it. A tiller is an acquired taste on a boat this big, but at least it can be said that on a serious ocean cruising boat manual steering is so rare that the method doesn't matter that much. The HC50 comes with a special trim tab dedicated for autopilot use. Besides, wheel steering is optional.

Another rather odd feature (though Steve Pettengill, a minimalist like Bergstrom, would disagree with that characterization) is a jib that is raised on hanks. The boat has a permanent roller-furling staysail. To set the forward headsail, which would be used in light and moderate weather, someone has to go to the bow to hank it on the headstay, as in the old days. The idea is that eliminating a second roller furler saves weight aloft. Only a concern for the truly pure at heart, I'm afraid.

Maybe these little idiosyncrasies are tests to qualify buyers, to ensure they have the proper mindset to appreciate the unconventional wisdom encapsulated in this remarkable boat. I have to think that the number of sailors ready to venture out of the steady mainstream of sailboat design to buy the HC50 will be rather small.

This boat, so sensible and well thought-out under its "millennium thing" skin, deserves commercial success, but it certainly would not be a failure without it. As far as I'm concerned, it's already a success as a tribute to Lars Bergstrom, one of sailing's true visionaries.