Performance cruiserr

The B&R rig used a light mast section with lots of stays and swept spreaders. Today, the Carter-style rig is gone. The B&R rig is on every Hunter produced. The rig du jour is based upon light spar sections with lots of spreaders and stays. Swept spreaders have become commonplace. I never met Lars Bergstrom and now it's too late. My loss.

Here, to be built by Trinity Marin in Sweden, is the new B&R-designed, water-ballasted 38.42-footer. Even by today's standards, this boat is radical.Beam has been pushed to 12.67 feet for an L/B of 3.03. Combine this L/B with a D/L of 66.4 (including water ballast) and you will get a picture of a wide and shallow canoe body with extreme flare to the topsides and a very narrow BWL. This is the best way to get the most out of water ballast. If you use the displacement of the boat without the water ballast, you will get a D/L of 51.5. Water ballast is one way of giving a ULDB some sail-carrying power. This design will carry 1,650 pounds of water ballast per side. That's equivalent to nine rather hefty crewmembers sitting on the rail.

Of course, the other way of accomplishing this is with a deep keel with the ballast at the bottom. The keel on this design is a pivoting type that is all below the canoe body. I'm sure this created some interesting structural problems.

Believe it or not, this boat was conceived as a cruising boat for the Swedish archipelagos. This is an area known for lots of low-lying islands, flat water and light air. It's important to get the rig height above the topological elevation of the average island. The 38's rig is tall and of high-aspect ratio. The carbon fiber mast features typical B&R detailing along with the lower struts. These struts extend from the chainplates area to a point on the mast just above the gooseneck. This increases the apparent "bury" of the mast and dramatically stiffens up the lower mast panel in both axes. You will have to negotiate your way around these struts as you move forward, but you can easily go outboard of the chainplates. These spreaders are swept 30 degrees. I think we would have to sail this boat to really appreciate the level of innovation in the rig.

Note the furling, nonoverlapping jib on a boom. The boom is beautifully configured to follow the deck shape and, ironically, the ideal shape of the jib foot. Or is it the other way around? It's probably all coincidental. The main boom echoes the same shape; this allows for a lighter boom section while also making it easier for the sailmaker to make the foot more effective. With water ballast added, the SA/D of this design is 33.35. This is using the actual areas of both main and jib, including the generous roach area of the main. There is an articulating bowsprit that pivots off the forward leg of the bow pulpit. How clever and light. This feature will be copied. I guess that's the point. The B&R team has typically been ahead of the game. Even the conservative Ted Hood boat's rig is adapting to principles established in the B&R rig 25 years ago. I don't know a sailor who sails without a B&R Windex wind indicator. We just take them for granted. "What's the Windex say?" "Just watch the Windex." The new 38 is a visionary approach to cruising yacht design.