Sailboat Reviews

The Triton is vintage Alberg--skinny, long overhangs, low freeboard, large mainsail and small foretriangle. Typical of boats designed to the CCA (Cruising Club of America) rule. Alberg was born in Sweden where people love skinny keelboats with long overhangs, such as the Folkboat. It is easy to trace the Triton's lineage to such designs. Credit is also due to Tom Potter, of Jamestown, Rhode Island, who brought the project idea to the Pearsons, and had a hand in its development.

The Vanguard, designed by Philip Rhodes in 1962, remained in production until 1967, totalling 404 hulls. It was preceded by the Invicta, Alberg 35, Bounty II, Ariel, Rhodes 41, and of course the Triton. This line of fiberglass cruisers and sometime racers gave Pearson a strong position in the market. The pedigree of the designers was odorless, and construction quality was good for that particular moment in the timetable of plastic boatbuilding technology.

While we wouldn't consider the Tartan Ten to be one of the better-built racers, she doesn't have to be. Since she is primarily intended to race against her sisters, consistency between boats is perhaps more important than superior (and hence, more expensive) construction. The major construction criterion she must meet is to be sufficiently seaworthy to endure an occasional short offshore race. She meets this criterion, although, like too many production boats, she barely makes it.

The Tartan 27 went into production in 1961 with fiberglass boatbuilding in its toddler stage; production ceased in 1980, after 19 years interrupted only by a fire in 1972 that resulted in no 27s being built that year. The greatest number of 27s built in one year is 85; the year was 1964. In all, 712 Tartan 27s were built, including a dozen boats under license in California. Remarkably few significant changes were made to the boat until near the end of the long production run, after hull #650.

In 1978, Tartan brought out the Tartan Ten, a 33', fairly light, fractionally-rigged "offshore one design." The boat was a huge success: fast, easy to sail, and unencumbered by the design limitations of a rating rule. But the Tartan Ten had one big problem: limited accommodations with stooping headroom, an interior most kindly described as spartan. A hardy crew could take the Tartan Ten on a multi-day race such as the Mackinac, and you might even coax your family aboard for a weekend of camping out. But cruising or extended racing in comfort? Forget it!

More than 500 Tartan 34s were built between 1968 and 1978. By 1978 the CCA rule was long gone, PHRF racing was beginning to surge, and the MHS (now IMS) was in its infancy. The Tartan 34 had passed from a racer/cruiser to a cruiser, not because the boat had changed, but because sailboat racing had changed. The Tartan 34 was succeeded by the larger, more modern Tartan 37, a boat of exactly the same concept.

Like a lot of people, our first recollection of the Albin Vega was an advertisement in the sailing magazines. In the early 1970s, a time when California production coastal cruisers dominated the American market, this little Swedish import was hyped as a serious offshore cruiser.

The Sanford Boat Co. launched its first Alerion in 1978 and eventually built 20. Edward Sanford says there are still several around, and owners have included such notables as America's Cup winner Bill Koch and singer Jimmy Buffet. In the late 1980s Ralph Schacter commissioned West Coast naval architect Carl Schumacher to draw a boat that combined traditional appearance with modern materials and contemporary "go-fast" thinking. The result brought so many comments and inquiries that Schacter joined with Holby Marine of Bristol, Rhode Island, to build the boat on a production basis.

The Alberg 30 is an adaptation of a 30-footer Alberg designed for San Francisco Bay and was first built in response to a request by some Toronto sailors for a cruising auxiliary that could be fleet raced. By the time the first boat was built, a large group of Chesapeake Bay sailors had also commissioned a fleet. Today those two areas are still the hotbeds of Alberg 30 ownership with more than 100 boats represented in the Toronto association, almost 200 in the highly active and enthusiastic Chesapeake Bay association.

The Bristol 27 is a product of its era and of the traditional bent of designer Carl Alberg's thinking--that is, a combination cruiser and club racer. At 6,600 pounds displacement with 2,575 pounds of internal lead ballast in its full keel, the boat is fairly heavy by contemporary standards.