 When I review a new boat from an established builder or designer, I try to compare it with other boats they have produced. With Abbott, the boat I know best is the Abbott 33, a fast, sleek racing boat that you can still cruise on. I learned something interesting about the philosophy of the new Abbott 27 when I compared it with the 33. Although it is six feet shorter, their weights' are the same. Bill Abbott Sr., the designer (and builder), and his son Bill Jr., have kept their small shop purring along building international class Solings and Wayfarers. The Abbott 22, 33 and 36 are interspersed in smaller numbers but nevertheless make a significant contribution to their success.
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 That's the lilting refrain from old Abbott and Costello shows. It's also how some Abbott sailors hail their competitors on the start line. Abbott sailors are a fun-loving fraternity. They enjoy friendly rivalry and their familiar cheer is their way of not taking themselves too seriously. Abbott Boats of Sarnia, Ontario produced four sizes of Abbotts: the Abbott 28 in '64, the Abbott 22 in the early '70s, the Abbott 33 by 1980, and the Abbott 27. There are also plans for an Abbott 36, although none have been built to date. In the '60s, Bill Abbott built wooden Folkboats and the Olympic class Dragon before he built his namesake. Now, he also builds the Soling.
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 With more than 710 built over two decades, the Alberg 30 is a Canadian success story with American and Swedish connections. In 1962, six folkboat racers from Toronto's National Yacht Club decided that they wanted a bigger boat. They asked Kurt Hansen of Whitby Boat Works to find a suitable design and build it for them. The late Carl Alberg (1900-1986) - Swedish by birth, but a U.S. immigrant - was approached in January 1963. Neither the well-known designer nor the Canadian builder wasted much time producing the finished product. The first Alberg was launched July 7, that same year.
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 June 8…"A nice morning, but a brassy glare gets us worried. By 1130 we have rain and the wind picks up. With a third reef in the main and the genoa rolled back to a number three, we are making seven to eight knots. The boat is awash with breaking seas and spray keeps flying over the boat. My gourmet meal suffers as cutting and cooking have become a lethal exercise."
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 The Aloha 8.5, a sound, comfortable cruiser, has a traditional air. It packs a lot of interior space into its 28 feet without compromising its long, pleasing lines and gentle curves. The $51,800 price tag (March 1985) is even more competitive than it seems because an extensive list of extra features is included as standard equipment -- a steel storage cradle, antifouling, three sails with mainsail cover and a compass, to name a few. Created in 1972 by the Brewer and Wallstrom design office, the Aloha 8.5 has been in production for 13 years and more than 200 have been sold. It was designed to provide cruising comfort and stability along with solid sailing performance. Maximizing racing performance under arbitrary rating formulae was not part of the designer's mandate.
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 Greg Nicoll, our affable Vice President was once quoted “it’s hard being us” and on the trip to British Columbia earlier this year, he was right. Thanks to our great friends at Yacht Sales West we got to test the new Bavaria Cruiser. Designed to replace the 49, this new boat will not disappoint in function, feel and it’s great (what I call) rugged looks. This boat was built to sail and sail hard. Comfortable, great visibility and the dual wheel steering all add up to a wonderful boat made for those who want to cruise in style. From the moment I took the wheel, the boat was light on the helm and easy to steer. It reacted well to powering up; it tacked effortlessly, though we were a bit slow bringing the large genoa in,; clearly we needed a bit of practice. The boat moved well in the light to medium conditions on our test day reaching 5 knots easily in winds that may have topped 7 knots true.
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 The Bayfield 29 is a cruising yacht with traditional styling and design features. Hull shape and sail plan are oriented toward safe and stable handling in all conditions, rather than high performance. Although it can sleep up to five, in our view the Bayfield 29 is most suited to comfortable living aboard for a smaller complement. It might particularly appeal to the long-distance cruiser who often single-hand or sails with a minimum of crew. The Bayfield facilities in Clinton, Ontario, experienced a near disastrous fire last January that damaged or destroyed numerous molds for its product line. (In addition to the 29, Bayfield produces the 25, 32, 32C, 36 and 40.) Lost to the fire were the deck, liner and hatch molds for the 29. The losses have meant a costly and formidable retooling period for Bayfield, but the company is expecting to have its entire product line back in full production by midsummer.
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 In the early 1970s, most boat builders were developing fin-keeled racer/cruiser lines of production sailboats. Bayfield Boat Yard, in southeastern Lake Huron, bucked this trend by producing a line of long-keeled cruising boats. The distinctive shape of the Bayfield range of models designed by Ted Gozzard (with the exception of the Bayfield 36) was the clipper bow, wood trail boards with scroll work and, on some designs, additional wood trim and wood taff rails to give a traditional appearance.
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 The Bayfield 36 favours old-time and modern conveniences which give this popular cruiser the well-earned title of a contemporaryclassic. Although Bayfield Boat Yard of Clinton, Ontario, builds sail boats that are traditional-looking, there is nothing outdated about the marketing finesse of this firm. Rather than compete with innumerable other sailboat builders, each offering a line of racer/cruisers, Bayfield has identified a unique market niche and stuck with it faithfully over the years -- long enough that in Canada the Bayfield name has become synonymous with clipper bows and trailboards. Paradoxically, the differences between the Bayfields and a majority of those other, more modern-looking cruisers are largely skin deep. Contemporary materials, construction methods and equipment are an integral part of the Bayfield formula.
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 It must be a yacht designer’s nightmare to be commissioned to create a replacement for perhaps the most successful 50 footer ever manufactured, the Bruce Farr designed Beneteau 50, of which over 400 hulls were produced between 1996-2004. The French team at Groupe Finot took the challenge to heart having had several other designs selling well on the French builders line including the 323, 423 and 473. On a recent trip to France, we were lucky enough to not only sail the new 523 but we also had a terrific tour of two of the Beneteau production facilities there.
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