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 C&C International's entry into the sport boat sweepstakes is the SR 25 - a slick, sleek 25-footer that expands this builders growing stable of single-purpose, strictly-racing fillies. Following a successful regatta debut at last years Key West Race Week, the SR 25 officially became the fastest monohull for its size built on Canadian shores. And so when C&C's sales manager, Rob Maclachlan, offered CY his demo-boat to race in a local weekend regatta, our staff began to drool over their keyboards in anticipation. The event was Cornucopia, an annual 75-boat PHRF and one design regatta, hosted over the Labour Day weekend by the friendly folks at the Dalhousie Yacht Club in St. Catherines, Ontario. This would be the ideal venue to put our magazine staff and this tricked-out rocket to the test. Real life. Real sailing. Real review, so to speak. Now the only matter left to resolve was, "Who would steer?"
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 For most sailors, the blustery onset of fall weather signals post-season sailing withdrawal, haul-out, and a generally gloomy winter outlook. For a growing group of hardy souls, however, this time of year brings new excitement. At six feet overall length and 36 pounds minimum weight, the Cape Cod Frosty is the world's smallest IYRU sanctioned one design class.Sailed in late fall, winter and early spring, this class is gaining popularity among sailors of all ages and abilities, who are ultimately united by one common desire - to extend the sailing season.
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 Gerry Douglas, the chief designer for Catalina, has hit a home run with the new Catalina 375. It is a fact: they have regrouped and rethought out the concept of a solid family cruising yacht that provides great features, value and performance. Filling the niche previously held by the Catalina 36, this new boat is a product of obvious experience and input from owners and the Catalina design team.
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 While it was launched last year the new Catalina 455 has raised some eyebrows of late with its new hull's boastful waterline. Keen to sail it, we managed to grab a few minutes with Swan Marina's Bernie Lutmer and found this boat so comfortable to sail. It was responsive and sailed well in the moderate to heavy north breeze on Lake Ontario. And to be honest, it is a new Catalina, breaking its traditional look and feel with the lower profile cabin and the twin-steering wheels. Celebrating forty years in building boats and many of them with Gerry Douglas at the design helm, it's nice to see Catalina come through with a balance of performance, design and function; they have done a good job. Neat touches like the squared off cabin top allows easy support to rest comfortably while underway.
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 An Australian America’s Cup designer, Alan Payne, designed the Columbia 8.7. It was one of a series of yachts in the new cruiser line of boats, deemed the "wide body super cruisers", built by Columbia. The Columbia 8.7 has a turbulent production history. The first 8.7s rolled off the line in 1976, but in 1978 Columbia closed down because of labor problems. In 1979 Howard Hughes, from Hughes Boat Works, picked up all the molds and brought them to Centralia near London, ON. Hughes went into receivership in 1982. Aura Yachts then took over until 1986, at which point Hughes took the line back again. After this, Hughes built a few more 8.7s, until a fire destroyed his factory in Orangeville.
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 The Contessa 26 entered production in England in 1966 by Jeremy Rogers in Lymington, with several hundred built. Moulds for the Contessa were shipped to Canada in 1969, with the first of the boats completed later that same year. J.J. Taylor and Sons Ltd. had been building boats on their site overlooking Toronto Harbour's Western Gap since 1904. The Contessa would become the design to help this company change over from wood to fibreglass production. Taylor's yard was later taken over by the National and Alexandra Yacht Clubs when the manufacturer moved to Rexdale, in Toronto's dry-docked northwest quadrant. Other locally built boats from the 1960s, made of fibreglass but based on the lines of the Folkboat, are the Whitby 26 Folkboat and the Alberg 30. The family resemblance of moderate beam without pinched ends, pronounced sheer, long overhangs ñ especially at the bow - a long keel cut away at the forward end and a steeply raked rudder shaft attached to the keel, is obvious in all of these designs.
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 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.
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 A few years ago, Paul Countouris solved the age-old problem of space. Specifically, space at the marina. His Dragonfly 25, with its folding amas or outriggers (see CY, Killing On Design, Jan/Feb 1991), resolved one of the major problems of multihull owners at overcrowded marinas. Following the Dragonfly's success (60 are now sailing North American waters), the designer, mould maker and yacht builder recently unveiled his newest speedster, the Contour 30. Countouris is manufacturing under the P.C. Mould Ltd. logo in an impressive 10,000-sq-ft facility in Erin, Ont. Now trading on his success with the Dragonfly 25, Countouris is building the Cole Beadon-designed Contour 30 for sailing enthusiasts who demand the same thrill of speed, coupled with a greater array of creature comforts below deck.
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 "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.
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 "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.
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