Dream Boats

Some Arguments never die; they just get louder and more confusing—which is how it is with boats, a subject of acute disagreement between sailors ever since canvas gave way to the propellor. All we care to say on the subject is that anyone daft enough to insist that power is better than sail or vice versa stands as much chance of convincing a disbeliever as would a man who insists that vanilla is better than chocolate.

Accordingly, we've chosen five of the very best in power and sail, with the certain knowledge that many people in the boating fraternity will disagree with some of our choices and nobody will agree with all of them. We can hear it now: You left out the Low Down Low Monthly Ocean Motion 35! And Fast Eddie's No Cash No Splash Plastic Fantastic Knotbuster, with the FM stereo and dual speakers!

Well, so we did, but consider the options in today's boat market: According to the National Marine Manufacturers Association, there are about 3700 boat builders in the United States, thousands of imports and almost 14,000,000 privately owned boats. This includes boats with outboards, inboards, inboard/outboards (a.k.a. sterndrives), unpowered sailboats of all sizes, houseboats, canoes and row-boats. Last year alone, those boats generated a retail trade of some 13.2 billion dollars in sales, service and maintenance.

In making our selection, we started with the questions that all prospective boat buyers need to ask: What will the boat be used for and where? To sail around the world or on quiet inland waters? Highspeed offshore travel or gunkholing in a quiet estuary? Cruising, racing or both?

Our choices, therefore, cover a wide range of possibilities, from the Donzi Classic sport boat, for rapid transit on inland waterways, to the Swan 43, which is built for luxury, speed and distance—around the planet, if that's your ambition.

In all five selections, we were guided by resale value as well as by quality, because the resale factor—along with strength, performance, function and comfort—is an essential consideration in appraising a boat for purchase. Always verify the pedigree of designer and builder before whipping out the checkbook; if possible, talk with an owner—or three!

All five of our boats are fiberglass—not that there's anything wrong with other boat-building materials, such as wood, steel, aluminum or ferro-cement; it's just that most new boats are made of fiberglass, and the stuff is strong and relatively easy to maintain, paint and repair.

We took our small armada (except for the Donzi, which was photographed in the waters off south Miami) 55 miles across the Gulf Stream to the island of Cat Cay, the private paradise of the Cat Cay Club and once a favored golfing venue for the duke of Windsor. The membership, which comes mainly from the U.S.A., South America and Europe, currently numbers about 260. For an initiation fee of $7500 and annual dues of $2500—we said it was private—those who are lucky enough to pass this way enjoy golf, tennis, world-class tournament fishing and the kind of beaches found in travel brochures. You can fly to Cat Cay on a seaplane of the venerable Chalk Airline—67 years in the aviation business—or you can do what we did and go by sea. Which brings us to our five selections.

Prindle 19

The Worrell 1000 is a race over a 1000-mile ocean course from Fort Lauderdale to Virginia Beach. This is an unforgiving stretch of water, notorious for currents, gales, big seas and—even worse from the racing sailor's viewpoint—flat calms and windless summer days. Until last year, the only boats eligible for the Worrell were Hobie Cats; but in 1985, the rules were changed to admit any sailboat up to 20 feet, prompting the race organizer to observe, "The boat that wins the Worrell this year will be the strongest, lightest and fastest off-the-beach sailboat on the market." Of the 11 entries in the race, two were Prindle 19s; and they came in first and second, the winner finishing with a five-hour lead.

Of course, not everyone wants to race—and for those who don't, the Prindle catamaran makes an excellent day sailer or, for the adventurous, an inshore cruising boat. All you need are a couple of sleeping bags, a tarp over the trampoline (or deck, if you prefer) and your favorite provisions. No galley, no engine, no head, no complicated electronics just pure boat, fast and sturdy, with minimal costs in maintenance and service.

The Prindle 19 was developed by three of the top catamaran sailors in the country and is built in Santa Ana, California, by Lear Siegler Marine, builders of O'Day, Cal and Ranger boats. We borrowed our model from Barrett & Sons Sailing Center, Orlando, Florida, where the quoted price is $5595, ready to sail.

Donzi Classic 18

You can buy bigger, you can pay less, but Donzi quality, toughness and performance have given this Bradenton, Florida, marque a reputation that's hard to touch. The Secret Service had a fleet of Donzis to protect President Lyndon Johnson while he cut up the waters on Lake L.B.J. The Classic 18 is stylistically comparable to early Corvettes and the MG lines from the Fifties—in short, a beauty to look at and sheer pleasure at the wheel. The model we used, from Donzi in Lauderdale Lakes, was brand-new and hadn't been fully run in, but we got 55 knots, plus, with another ten or so in reserve. Powered by a 350-Magnum MerCruiser, with a deep V hull for stability in building seas, the Classic 18 is a triple threat as sport boat, ski boat and yacht tender, a boat for pure exhilaration.

The hull is laid up by hand; engine mounts and trim tabs are through bolted; standard equipment includes blower, aluminum fuel tanks, through-hull exhaust, V.D.O. instruments (same as in BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce), tonneau cover, adjustable bucket seats and leather-stitched steering wheel from Momo, supplier to Ferrari, Porsche and Lotus. The price, ready to run, is about $27,500. Nice.

Scarab 38 KV

This is the boat that Crockett and Tubbs drive in Miami Vice. Not a replica but the real thing straight from the set, complete with custom paint job that blends 38 colors to produce a high-gloss finish of turquoise, navy, green metal flake and lavender. It's a bit like Crockett's wardrobe, but louder.

This is not a boat for shy guys: It's a high-performance ocean-going beast, 9100 pounds of drop-dead design powered by a pair of 400-hp MerCruiser sterndrives.

At idle, it sounds like the wrath of God—top speed of around 60 knots. Standard layout below includes a V-berth double in a forward cabin and a main cabin with a huge velour couch, a tiled entry, a stereo with four speakers, a complete galley and head. On deck is heavy-duty stainless-steel hardware, plus a full-performance instrument panel, convertible bolster seats for standing or sitting, two hatches in the forward deck and an aft bench seat. At cruising speed of around 40 knots, the twin Mercs burn about 30 gallons an hour, which gives you about seven hours of running before it's time to refuel. Have a nice day. Retail prices from the manufacturer, Wellcraft Marine, Sarasota, Florida, start around $105,000 and peak around $130,000.

H-28

The H stands for Herreshoff, the greatest name in the history of American sailing-yacht design. The founding father was Nathaniel; L. Francis, his son, designed the H-28 in 1942. A man of fixed New England ideas about boats, sailing, clothing and diet (he advised that all food be well chewed), L. Francis knew exactly the kind of boat he wanted:

"I can, or think I can, design a cabin plan for H-28 for those who want to go where the water is clean, the pine trees green, the offshore breezes laden with ozone and where breathing, living and sailing are joys ... a boat that can quickly be gotten under way for a sail on a summer evening, a boat that can ghost along in light breezes as well as stand up to anything she might get caught in." And he did, with the result that H-28s are found around the world, many of them built by the owners from the plans and instructions drawn up by the old man 44 years ago.

L. Francis would probably have enjoyed meeting David Parkins, who has built 20 H-28 hulls for owner completion and six complete boats at Parkins Marine in Fort Lauderdale. An experienced cruising sailor himself and former chief engineer at an aircraft-equipment company, Parkins built his first boat, an eight-foot dinghy, when he was 12. The dimensions of the Parkins H-28 differ only slightly from those of the original, and it's rigged as a sloop (one mast) instead of a ketch (two masts), as designed by L.F.H. Below, it's as snug and as inviting as its predecessors, and its joinery is probably even finer than the rough-and-ready finishes sometimes found in older models. The cabin floor (properly known as the sole) is inch-thick teak, and the panels, doors and trim are mahogany, with lockers lined in aromatic cedar. Six heavy bronze portholes, a forward hatch and an after companionway provide ample light and ventilation; cast bronze is also used on rudder fittings and chain plates (those are the things that anchor the mast rigging to the hull) and in the through-hull plumbing. Nothing but the best materials go into these hand-built yachts, each of which is finished to the owner's specs. Full galley and head are standard, electronics are practical and rugged and the engine is an 18-hp Yanmar diesel with plenty of power for docking and maneuvering and burns less than half a gallon an hour at maximum revs, giving around seven knots in ideal conditions.

The price of a Parkins H-28 varies according to the owner's requirements in the way of electronics options, but the basic model, ready to sail, is around $75,000. Just add water and mix, and, as old L.F.H. said, "You [will be] fortified against a world of war lords, politicians and fakers." And that's what sailing is all about.

Swan 43

You've won the lottery, you want to buy a yacht and you'd like one that's capable of taking you round the world in speed and luxury. If you knew what you were doing, you could choose a designer and a builder and specify your precise needs as to hull size, sails and type of rig, deck and interior fittings. Depending on your knowledge, you'd end up with either a fine custom-built one-off—which is what such boats are usually known as—or the kind of lawsuit that brings joy to the hearts of lawyers. For those of us who don't know a naval architect from a building inspector, the alternative is simple, intelligent and inevitable: Buy a Swan. You can't do any better than that, certainly not in the production—as opposed to the one-off—boat business. Over the past 20 years, the Finnish company Nautor Swan has made a global name for itself, one that few production-boat builders have matched in modern times for performance, strength and quality in every inch of construction.

Stepping down the main companionway (concluded on page 145)Dream Boats(continued from page 68) into the saloon of a Swan for the first time is rather like climbing into the back seat of a Rolls-Royce. It looks good, it smells good, it feels good. This is an interior that was put together by craftsmen, with meticulous attention to finish and detail, and not just crudely banged into shape by a gang with power tools. The saloon itself is huge, with seating for eight around a teak drop-leaf table and panels of hand-rubbed teak. All the wood, from stem to stern, has a soft satin finish that brings out the deep gold of teak's grain.

Forward of the saloon are a shower/head and the forward cabin, or fo'c'sle, with two folding berths and capacious stowage underneath for sails and other gear. At the afterend of the saloon are a fully equipped galley and the navigation station, with chart table, control panel, instruments, gauges and communications. There's a second shower/head aft of the navigation station and, beyond that, the owner's stateroom, with double berth and settees on either side. Here, as throughout the boat, abundant light is provided by ports and hatches—and these, like everything else aboard, are built of strong and durable materials for long life and hard usage. In short, Swans combine two virtues that are rarely found together: elegance and rugged strength.

As a Swan owner, you can compete in the Robert Swan Atlantic Regatta at Newport, Rhode Island, or at the Robert Swan World Cup in Porto Cervo, Sardinia. Or you can enter the quadrennial Whitbread Round the World Race (a Swan 65 won the first Whitbread in 1973-1974), compete in the Southern Ocean Racing Conference series in south Florida (better known as the S.O.R.C.) or enter any one of dozens of ocean races, from the Sydney-Hobart Race to Antigua Race Week. And compete with a strong chance of winning, because that's what Swans have built their name on: coming in first. Our Swan 43, a Ron Holland design, was provided by Nautor Swan of Miami and is delivered in sail-away condition on the East Coast for around $340,000. For those who'd sooner take delivery at the source in Pietarsaari, Finland, and bring it home themselves, the check comes to $320,000 or thereabouts. Anyone who says that money can't buy happiness has never owned a Swan—which, come to think of it, is something that can be said about any boat, be it ever so humble.