What do you get when you cross an Ideal 18 with a 505...? After two action-packed test-drives on Lake Ontario last summer, my answer is speed, excitement, convenience - and the new Electra Sport 20. Hot of the drawing board of the design team of sailmakers Hubert Raudaschl of St. Wolfgang, Austria, and Heider Funck of Toronto, this sleek sport-boat made its Canadian debut as it screamed around the race course in Toronto's Humber Bay this past summer. Four years ago, Funck began to dream about building a small performance-oriented, One-Design keelboat that would be fast, easy-to-handle and also simple to pack up at the end of a day's racing.
If you have been a faithful reader of Canadian Yachting, this boat will not appear new to you. I reviewed it in June, 1989, and Paul Howard sailed it across our pages in a performance review in January, 1990. Since my review, over 50 boats have been built. The reason the Dragonfly returns to CY is a very significant design change.
The Ticon T-30 is a roomy, comfortable boat -- surprisingly big for a 30-footer. With 9,600 lbs. of displacement, 11 feet of beam and relatively high topsides, the T-30 can be characterized as "beefy," compared to other boats from 29 to 30 feet. This interior layout makes effective use of the greater than average space and includes some intriguing and different design features. Although we were slightly disappointed with the finishing details of this yacht in a number of minor areas, overall we judged the T-30 to offer solid sailing performance without sacrificing the comforts of a home away from home. The T-30 was designed by Halsey Herreshoff in 1979 for Texas Marine Industries, an American Company that built 48 T-30s between 1979 and 1981...
It has been more than 10 years since the CS 36 Merlin was first introduced in the boating market, but despite its age, this design is still one of the most popular boats in its class. With the CS 36 Merlin, CS Yachts became one of the first builders to bring the euro-style of yacht design to North America. Large aft cabins and aft cockpits provided good carrying capacity, and a generous beam all the way back to the stern kept the helm spacious and created truly usable swim platforms. The new plumb bows extended waterlines and created better value per foot. All of these changes proved positive for CS, and remain popular with many boat builders and buyers even today.
At Toronto's Dockside in-water boat show September 1989, CS Yachts unveiled its new 34 – so new that it didn't even have an interior. The new Tony Castro design had first been put into production by MG Yachts in England, and CS had yet to sort out its own accommodations plan and detailing. Nonetheless, consumer reaction was positive. Fueled by an innovative marketing concept (introductory price under 90 G's) and some interesting features, the design gained an instant following: ready buyers. (Nothing succeeds like price point.) "We wanted," said newly installed marketing manager Stuart Robertson "a 'show stopper' to introduce what we believe is the only quality 34-footer in today's market at an affordable price. Our strategy was to target second-time owners and at the same time pitch first-time buyers with a true-value bargain. "The strategy appears to have worked and Robertson was happy to display affidavits from satisfied owners championing the qualities of the new yacht, above and below the waterline.
Are you searching for a second-hand boat for under $20,000, with a diesel inboard, a comfortable interior, standing headroom and good club-racing performance? In my opinion, there are few well-known production boats that meet this description. The Mirage 26/27, for example, has a gas OMC Saildrive inboard; the C&C 27 has the Atomic IV (also gasoline) inboard. And although the Bayfield 25 has an inboard diesel, it falls short on headroom and club performance. Camper and Nicholsons’ design The Cs 27, designed in 1975 by Raymond Wall, is a boat that fits this bill perfectly. Wall, from the respected British design house of Camper and Nicholsons, drew the lines of three cruiser/racers – for CS Yachts Ltd. in Brampton, ON. The first of Wall’s boats for Canadian Sailcraft, the design brief of the 27 called for a family cruiser, with racing performance under the International Offshore Rule (IOR).

"She was a good little boat from day one," said George Cuthbertson of the Corvette, which he designed back in 1965. In those pre-IOR days, boats designed to the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule were in vogue. The rule favoured heavy displacement and shoal draft, and produced family cruisers that were also adept on the race course. Ian Morch, owner of the Belleville Marine Yard, wanted to build a boat with shoal draft which would be in demand in the Bay of Quinte, and perhaps further a field in Montreal and Chesapeake Bay. He commissioned Cuthbertson and Cassian (C&C) Limited to come up with a suitable design.
"I was looking for a boat that could take me safely and comfortably around the world," writes Marius Corbin, the founder of Corbin les Bateaux Inc. in 1977. At the end of an extensive search for a serious long-distance cruiser, Corbin chose a design by Robert Dufour of Dufour Yacht Design in Montreal. Dufour’s Harmonie – the prototype of the Corbin 39 – had a canoe stern, a long, shallow fin keel with a vertical, skegg-supported rudder. Corbin and Dufour agreed to modify Harmonie by adding higher topsides and a flush deck to increase the boat’s interior volume. These modifications gave birth to the Corbin 39, and shortly after in 1979 Corbin les Bateaux pulled their first boat from its mould. Corbin elected to use encapsulated ballast in his hulls – a common boat-building method, but one that can make a hull vulnerable in a serious grounding as there is no external ballast to absorb the shock of a big bump. Corbin boasts, however, that he has added eight layers of fiberglass between the ballast and the hull so that his boat will not sink if the fiberglass keel is damaged.
When British naval architect, David Sadler, drew the lines of this design in 1972, he gave the Contessa 32 a unique profile. At a time when cruising boats sported springy sheer lines, this racer/cruiser appears at least at first glance, to have a reverse sheer. In fact, the bow is higher than the stern, with the lowest part of the deck just forward of the cockpit. Other distinguishing features of the Contessa 32 are long overhangs, a narrow, tucked-up stern, low topsides and a narrow beam to length ratio. Below the waterline, Sadler has penned a moderate fin keel, with a skeg-supported rudder on a deep vee cross-section. In Britain, the Contessa was built at the Jeremy Rogers Boatyard, and was voted "Boat of the Show" at the 1973 Boat Show in London, England. Based on this initial success, the Rogers yard in Lymington went on to manufacture over 700 boats between 1973 and 1982.
Destinations
How to be as Polite as a Canadian at Gulf Island Marine Park Anchorages
Story and photos by Catherine Dook
One summer I sold ice cream and knick-knacks at Montague Harbour Marina. I was standing behind the counter one day, when the phone rang. “There’s a boat at anchor in the middle of the bay that’s been playing loud music for three hours,” complained an irate-sounding male voice. “Can you make them stop?”
“Um, no,” I replied. “The marina has no jurisdiction over the anchorage. Besides, my only weapon is a till.” The man hung up on me.
Now when you think about it, you can understand why the poor fellow was annoyed.
Read more about the Gulf Island Marine Park.....
Lifestyle
Hogtown to Hogfish
By Greg Nicoll and John Armstrong
A couple of Galley Guys on yet another culinary adventure…
The Galley Guys had a plan - get out of Toronto, jump on a boat, sail to Cuba, then wine and dine on some great Cuban cuisine. However, just before boarding the plane, we were informed of some technical problems with our boat charter. The Cuban part of our trip was just not going to happen, bummer. OK, let’s turn lemons into lemonade!
The closest we could get to Cuba was some 90-plus miles north in Key West, Florida, a most unusual and entertaining town.
Read more from the Galley Guys...
Cruisers Yachts Cantius 42
By John Armstrong and Andy Adams
The latest new model from Cruisers Yacht sis the Cantius 42 and this yacht made its debut in the fall of 2017, at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. We had the pleasure of going all through this newest Cantius there and clearly, the Cruisers Yachts people continue to refine and expand on all the features that have made the Cantius line such a success.
The new 42 continues the Cantius family resemblance with handsome and distinctive lines including a big section of hull side glazing port and starboard that makes the full-beam mid-ship master stateroom feel very bright and open.
Read more about the Cruisers Yachts Cantius 42...
DIY & How to
Marine Products
Smelly Boat?
We have all had the experience of heading down below on a nice boat only to encounter an unpleasant odour. This can come from a wide variety of sources, the most common being the head and sanitation system. We will deal with the issue of heads and holding tanks another time; however, there are plenty of other causes of a musty and off-putting smell.
Too many boats spend long winters shrink-wrapped with inadequate ventilation. The resulting condensation is a wonderful spawning ground for mould and general mustiness, especially if there are a few warm spring days before the boat is opened.
Read more about freshening up your boat.....