Hunter 50

2000 July 5
By Robert H. Perry

Performance cruiserr

This 50-footer from Hunter Marine surprised a lot of people at the last Annapolis Boat Show. Essentially, I think people were not expecting Hunter to come out with such a specialized cruising boat. This project actually started several years ago and was connected to one of my stereo-gear heroes, Julian Vereker of NAIM Audio fame, who died recently. Working with Hunter, Julian developed a very similar boat based upon a B&R design, which he called the Windex 49. Although Julian didn't live to see his version of the boat completed, Hunter has gone on to produce the 50, which it is offering as a stock boat to cruisers looking for something a little different.

Unfortunately, I am working from very scant drawings and I have nothing that shows the underbody of the hull and nothing at all that describes the current keel-shoal and deep-configurations. It's kind of like trying to appreciate a centerfold model from just a head shot.

Warren Luhrs has the first boat of this series and his boat has a custom keel with a canting wing on the back end of a long bulb. The production boat will have a no-bulbed 8-foot, 6-inch draft keel or a bulbed 6-foot draft keel. Neither will have the movable wings.

The Vereker version featured the mysterious B&R venturi-effect hull slots. Based upon the light-ship displacement, the D/L is 78.38. Stability will be enhanced by 2,700 pounds of water ballast on each side.

This is an interesting rig. It uses the B&R-style spar with the tripod support struts at the deck level going up to the gooseneck. The boom height is fixed by a solid vang. The mainsail is loose footed and has lots of roach made possible by the absence of any backstays, standing or running. The boom is scalloped in profile to help the deep foot of the mainsail flip over in tacks. The mainsail sheets to a traveler on top of the aft radar arch.

I don't understand why the clews of the jibs are so high. I like jibs to be deck sweepers. Maybe the clews are high so the clew rings don't beat up the forward rig strut during each tack.

The extreme sweep of the spreaders may make chafe a problem on long offshore passage, but Hunter assures me that this has been addressed by using rounded spreaders and well-placed chafe patches. The SA/D is 25.5.

The interior seems to work well. I'm not so sure you need what the brochure calls a "day head." Is the other head a "night head?" Is there a photo-sensitive lock to prevent you from using the day head at night?

The galley is very well-laid-out and adjacent to a comfortable dinette that actually has some corners. Considering that the water ballast takes up a lot of room and this boat weighs only 16,000 pounds, there is quite a bit of useable interior volume. The nav station is gimbaled, allowing the navigator to stay level up to 20 degrees of boat heel. The chain locker is aft at the base of the mast where the weight of the ground tackle will do the least amount of performance damage. There is a small cuddy or covered area aft of the house to provide shelter for the on-deck crew.

This is a specialized vessel from its reversed sheer to its unusual rig. It's so different that I think a two-dimensional design analysis probably does not do it justice. This is a boat you would have to live with a while to fully appreciate. Julian Vereker's NAIM stereo gear looked strange too. I own a bunch of it and you certainly would not buy it on style points alone. But it sounds fabulous. Julian was a bit of a rebel, a free-thinker, and I think this new Hunter conveys that spirit quite well.