Pocket cruisers open a door to more manageable, affordable escapes, and are enjoying a bit of a resurgence today. Just as the fascination with loveable micro-homes is growing, cute micro-cruisers continue to attract new followers here. (Although an interest of micro-cruisers have waxed and waned in the U.S., it never really subsided in the U.K., where pint-sized sailboats have been, and remain ubiquitous in the boatyards, harbors and marinas.) While new sailboat sales are still sluggish, smaller scale builders are targeting a niche too small for high-volume production builders to bother with—the niche between performance-oriented daysailers and entry level cruisers.
What is a Pocket Cruiser?
Anytime you talk about pocket cruisers you have to clarify what you mean, for the term is loosely applied to a wide range of small boats, some with very little in common besides displacement. Size is certainly a factor, but size is relative. I’ve seen 26-feet length overall (LOA) being a commonly cited as the upper limit for the pocket appellation, and that seems about right, although a few decades ago a 26-foot sailboat was called something else—a yacht.
While there are a few thoroughbreds among the breed, pocket cruisers generally fall to the lower end of the performance spectrum, the inevitable result of trying to cram the comforts of home into 20 feet of waterline. Comfort—at sea and at anchor—take precedence over tacking angles, so you generally don’t see blistering speeds around the buoys. In my view, there are at least four main types of pocket cruisers.
1. Estuarine Elves
These are the maritime equivalent of the pop-top camper. They are easy to tow, suprisingly roomy, and generally forgiving sailboats. The poster childs are the popular West Wight Potters. The Victoria 18, the Sanibel 18, the ComPac Eclipse and any of the small catboats with any kind of cabin fall into this category. (International Marine also made the West Wights and the Sanibel.)
These are boats that can creep up the lakes, creeks and rivers of North America and still manage bay chop. They have enough cockpit space for family daysailing, but also offer a place to duck out of the weather, sleep, eat and be cozy. New sailors and families are quite happy to putter along in them, but few offer wind-in-your-hair thrills with the wind forward of the beam.
2. Trailer Sailers
These are small cruiser/racers like the Rhodes 22, San Juan 21, Catalina 22, Tanzer 22, that can be Friday-night raced around the cans with other vintage boats, but also cruised. Like the Estuarine Elves, they are easy to trailer fairly quick to rig and launch, but with longer waterlines, more sail area and more efficient hull shapes, they generally perform better. This is probably the largest field of boats that could fit the pocket cruiser name; there are too many boats to list.
3. Auxiliary Pocket Cruisers
These boats can be trailered, but they require vehicles with big towing capacity and take much longer to rig. They usually have more ballast, built-in tanks, and can be equipped with inboard auxiliary engines—something you rarely find in the two smaller categories. Trailerability, in this case, means hauling the boat down to the Keys or Mexico for the winter, not down to the local ramp on a Sunday.
These can be fixed-keel boats like the Contessa 26, the Pearson Ariel, and Cape Dory 25 (both Carl Alberg designs); or swing keels like the Paceship 26 (also available with fixed keel), Yankee Dolphin 24, the Nimble 24, and the Lyle Hess-designed Balboa 26. Although some boats in this category have circumnavigated, doing far offshore work in these boats requires a special breed of sailor-and Posiedons blessing.
4. Bahama-Mamacitas
Multihulls like the Corsair F-24, the Wharram Tiki 21, and the semi-custom trimarans like PS contributing editor Skip Allen’s custom Wildflower, probably could be shoehorned into the above group, but that would surely incite the wrath of Allen and the rest the multihull crowd, so I’ll give them their own group here.
5. Microships
Generally, these are fixed-keel boats with hefty ballast-displacement ratios that make them capable of cruising offshore. They are trailerable, but with displacement pushing 10,000 pounds, they require a powerful tow vehicle. Some, like the “Bill” W.I.B. Crealock’s Dana 24, have circumnavigated. Bruce Bingham’s Pacific Seacraft Flicka 20, or Hess’s Falmouth Cutter 22 are other examples of small boats that pop up in far flung ports.
Voyager 20
So where does the Voyager 20, a more sophisticated cousin of the Potter 19, belong? Its 17.5-ft. waterline and light displacement (1,750 pounds) puts it in the Estuarine Elves category, although it has several of construction features that you see in the Microships: heavy-duty Lewmar hatch and portlights and an encapsulated lead keel. It also has a fair amount of storage.
The layout is nearly identical to the Potter 19, with a small sink, a port-a-potty, and V-berth. The biggest improvement over the Potter is the keel.
Designers Herb Stewart and former International Marine owner Ken Lange borrowed the foil-keel design of the Montgomery 17, a fun little pocket cruiser designed by Hess. Lange and Stewart then added a centerboard to give it better performance to windward (the bugaboo of some shallow fixed-keel pocket cruisers in the 15 to 18-foot category). On our test sail we saw more lift with the centerboard down, although the boat managed fine to windward with the board up.
Performance
With four adults and a cockapoo on board for our sail in 8 to 11-knot wind breeze on Sarasota Bay, the Voyager 20 was surprisingly stable and well balanced. Two sailors with us were downsizing from an Endeavour 40—as often happens, the vagaries of life had conspired to interrupt their cruising dream, but they still had a zest for sailing and exploring, and the Voyager 20 seemed like the perfect platform for more modest adventures closer to home. The conservative ballast-displacement ratio, and hard chine held her upright, and the high freeboard and coamings kept the cockpit dry. With a relatively flat bottom, the boat tended to pound through chop when working to windward, but that is a trade-off for a short-waterline vessel that emphasizes high initial stability. The boat tacked through 90-degrees true on a GPS recorded track (accounting for any leeway), so it will get you where you want to go.
Cost
Built in California, the Voyager 20 was sold direct to customers. International Marine is now closed, so you’ll find them on the used market. The fully equipped boat I sailed (complete with trailer, AC and 12-volt DC systems, galley, canvas, etc.) was listed at $38,000 new, more than three times anyone can expect to pay for a used entry-level trailer sailor on the used boat market with similar amenities. At time of writing, there is a used Voyager 20 going for $16,400.
The original sale price was not out of line with the market for new boats, and it is hard to find other new boats in the 20-foot range that are not strictly daysailors. About the closest comparison that comes to mind in the new boat market is the Com-Pac Eclipse (which also topped $30,000 when similarly equipped, but Com-Pac closed in 2025), and the Norseboat 21.5 ($35,000-plus depending on options).
Conclusion
For those who are boat shopping for a pocket cruiser you’ll find reviews of many of the boats I mention under “Sailboat Reviews” (some reviews are public, but many are for subscribers only). For those looking for something just a little bit roomier, our ebook Entry-Level Sailboats Volume 1 and Entry-Level Sailboats Volume 2 cover 25 popular boats between 26 and 31 feet that are readily available on the used boat market.
This article was first published on 14 January 2014 and has been updated.
