Bluewater cruiserr

The Eastsail yard is a little bit like this. As a builder, it has a vision of the type of boat it wants to build. Now the trick is to find buyers who want that type of boat. The little cabintrunk Offshore 25 model has not taken off like the company would have liked so it has modified it into this "all-weather" model with pilothouse.

While this little sloop isn't exactly a custom design, it is a semicustom boat using a stock hull and deck and an interior to the owner's specs. Designed by Eliot Spalding, this little full-keel cruiser weighs 7,500 pounds for a D/L of 413. It's a very traditional looking design with a raised quarter rail and clipper bow. Outboard rudder, boomkin and bowsprit complete this aesthetic. Draft is 3 feet, 8 inches. That's just not enough draft for me, but this is not the type of boat in which you would attempt a long and challenging beat.

Look at the sailplan. This is a strong sheerline. You can get away with it on a design like this where such an exaggerated element seems almost apropos. I don't know if it's right to call a design like this "traditional" because I can't think of any specific tradition that it builds from. Maybe you can draw a faint line from this boat to the Friendship Sloop. But even that's a stretch. It's a character boat.

Now the styling trick is to make that pilothouse with its baseball cap coachroof blend with the clipper-bowed hull form. I know only one designer who could do this successfully and that's Bill Garden. Old Bill has some magic in his pencil. To my eye Mr. Spalding's blend looks a little awkward. But putting an aesthetically pleasing pilothouse on any boat is a challenge, let alone a 25-footer.

The interior features an inside steering position and a very small head. I once took my tape measure into the head on a commercial jet. I figured Boeing should have head minimums down by now. I measured the distance from the front of the toilet seat to the bulkhead and door to be 22 inches, which works, just barely. I don't see 22 inches here.

Maybe, as the builder points out, you would be better off moving the head to a place under the V-berth. It's not an elegant head solution, but it does open up the pilothouse area. This would allow another quarter berth. The dining table fits between the V-berths and the small seats aft of the berth. Headroom forward of the pilothouse is 5 feet, 4 inches.

As these are semicustom boats, you can arrange your layout any way you like. Note that the mast is deck stepped on a "bridge" that eliminates the support post interfering with the interior. Certainly the big windows of the pilothouse would open up this interior.

The auxiliary is a 20-horsepower diesel that should push the Offshore 25 along at 5.25 knots with ease burning around .25 gallons an hour.

I hope this different boat finds an appreciative audience.