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Club Swan 42

2006 February 6
By Robert H. Perry

New one-designr

Over the years the New York Yacht Club has commissioned boats to be "Club" racers. I'm not sure if the format was always strict one-design racing but the boats have always been dual-purpose racer-cruisers. In the spring of 2005 New York Y.C. approached several designers and requested proposals for a new one-design class for "sailors to enjoy traditional Corinthian racing." The Frers office and Swan teamed up to produce the winning design and the result is a boat that I can't imagine anyone not saying, "I want one." This design looks to me like it hit the elusive target of comfort and speed right dead center.

Once the design/build team was chosen the club members assembled to decide on the final design parameters and the boat we see here is the result of that committee approach. Primary on the list of parameters was boat speed. The D/L of this design is 133 using the "light" displacement. The L/B is 3.3 and draft is 8.86 feet. Members debated over the style of the keel fin with some opting for an L-fin/bulb configuration and others wanted the T-keel. In the end, with pressure from the design team, the T-keel won. It's a shapely hull with plenty of topsides flare and a narrow BWL. The forefoot knuckle is clear of the DWL. For fun let's check the half angle of entry at the deck: 16.5 degrees. The rudder is a very deep, high aspect ratio blade that to my eye looks to have about 25-percent balance, and that's a lot of balance. A shallow-draft keel drawing 6.63 feet will be available to owners to be retrofitted for cruising.

You have the choice of a single-head interior layout or a two-head layout. If you go with the single head you get three staterooms with an extra quarter stateroom to starboard, i.e. more people but fewer heads. If you go for the two-head layout you get two staterooms. There is no shower stall in either head. The galley is small for a 42.5-footer but you have to consider that in order to keep the boat fast the designers have tried to keep all the weight centralized in the boat. The nav station is as big as the galley. I would not call this a schmoozy cruising layout but all the components are there to make short cruises comfy and fast. The bulkhead forward of the forward double berth is watertight. We have come to a time when we expect interior layouts to extend from almost the tip of the bow to the face of the transom. This is not a good thing. Fo'c'sles and lazarettes disappear and every pound that goes into the expanded interior is a pound out of the ballast.

The two-spreader rig shows a fractional rig with short overlapping headsails. The mainsail overlaps the backstay by about 12 inches but without full battens this should be no problem. The SA/D is 26.63. The old S&S NYYC 50 from 30 years ago had an SA/D of 17.98. In fact, the rigs were close to the same size but the old 50-footer weighed 31,000 pounds. This rig is all carbon fiber with Navtec discontinuous rod rigging. The bowsprit is carbon and retracts into the hull. It's a good-looking boat.

The deck layout features twin wheels and a long cockpit for racing efficiency. The cockpit seats have low coamings and seat backs, and the seats look long enough to stretch out on. There is a flush hatch in the foredeck for ground tackle and a dedicated locker aft of the wheels for the life raft. The primary winches are forward and the mainsheet is the "German" style led under the deck port and starboard to winches within easy reach of the helmsman. This will be handy when cruising short-handed.

Of course with all this it's unreasonable to expect tankage too. So the 42 has 32.3 gallons of fuel for its Volvo 40-horsepower diesel, 60.8 gallons of water and 15.9 gallons of holding. From talking to my clients these days it seems to me that 15.9 gallons of holding is on the shy side. Finally something to complain about on this design!