Shoal-water cruiserr

I came a couple of days early this year and took an afternoon to meet with the legendary guitar builder Paul Reed Smith and to tour his nearby guitar factory. Talk about being a kid in a candy shop. Walking around his guitar factory I probably had about the same feeling that you'd have wandering around the Annapolis Boat Show. So little time, so many toys.

At the show, I was happy to see Walter Schulz sitting on his newest project, the Shoalsailer 32. Now if you are reading this on the West Coast I can assure you that you probably do not have a clear appreciation of just how important shoal draft is to East Coast sailers. Shoal-draft keel versions will outsell their deep-draft brothers four to one. On the East Coast the primary cruising concern has to be "is there enough water there for me to get in?" The Shoalsailer 32 is designed to eliminate that concern.

The patent-pending hull shape was drawn by Walter with help on the rudder and daggerboards from George Carter. This hull is no whim or arbitrary attempt at something different. There are more than five years of testing prototypes behind this final hull shape. A lot of this testing involved chined versions of the hull that had disastrous handling characteristics. The basic midsection that slowly evolved is a flared shape above the DWL, with a deep center section. The extremely slack and narrow bilges rise to a very hard turn (but not a chine) just above the DWL. It's kind of like a beamy light hull sitting on top of a deep and narrow light boat.

The L/B of 2.54 indicates a very beamy boat. From maximum beam to the transom there is almost no taper. All the ingredients are here for a really ugly boat. But surprise, once you get over the beam at the transom this is a very handsome and conventional-looking boat. Bow profile, entry, sheer and cabintrunk contours are artfully drawn. The D/L is 157.

There are two daggerboards well off center and raked forward. These are short, low-aspect-ratio boards that do not increase the sailing draft of the boat when down. Walter said that you do not even need them until the breeze gets over 18 knots. This means you can really forget about draft most of the time. There are twin lifting, beachable rudders that work well with the shoal-draft approach.

The photos of the boat under sail show a good portion of the transom dragging and this is never fast. However, compared to other shoal-draft boats, I think this boat will do better than hold its own. Walter tells me that they hold their own against a deep-draft C&C 30, but they are not as fast or close-winded as a J/30. I think that indicates very respectable performance against recognized benchmarks.

The interior is well laid-out and pretty comparable to what you would find in any 32-footer. The big difference is that this boat offers 6 feet, 5 inches of headroom. There are three hanging lockers in this boat and a good-sized galley.

The deck takes advantage of the ultrabeamy stern to use a two-wheel cockpit configuration. This allows a clear walk-through to the transom swim step. Under sail you can sit well outboard and get a clear view of the jib luff.

Shoal-draft boats usually don't excite me. I know their limitations despite brochure claims. Walter and George may have a new, successful breed of shoal-draft boat here. I predict success for this effort.