Classic Boat — November 2017

SPIRIT OF TRADITION

58 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2017

C/O JEREMY ROGERS

FIRST LIGHT BOATWORKS

Drascombe Lugger

The humble Drascombe Lugger, first built in 1965, has sold

more than all the other boats on this list: a lot more – 2,000

and counting. The 19-footer (5.8m) was designed by John

Watkins to be light, commodious and seaworthy. These days

built in GRP by Churchouse Boats, she’s perhaps the perfect

family boat, of a size to take six adults, beachable with a

plate-up draught of just 10in (25cm) and rigged with a safe,

boomless gunter yawl set-up. At less than 400kg, you can trail

a Lugger with an ordinary car. Plenty of built-in buoyancy

completes this capable open boat for river, lake or sea.

Price £17,500, drascombe.co.uk

Contessa 32

Is she a Spirit of Tradition yacht? Perhaps she wasn’t built as

one, but it’s true that at her launch in 1970, she balanced

traditional hull characteristics with what was then a very

modern underbody of fin keel and skeg-hung rudder. She sold

well from the start and has gone onto become a legend: fast,

sweet-lined, tolerably commodious for her era and her

reputation for seaworthiness was cemented after surviving

the notorious 1979 Fastnet. She’ll win around the cans and

cruise around the world. The 32 is still built today in GRP by

the same family, the Rogers, in Lymington.

Price £189,000, jeremyrogers.co.uk

Botin 22

The latest launch from Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine is Toroa, a

22m cruiser/racer designed by Botin Partners of Spain. A

single layer of cedar strip planking half an inch thick became

the mould, followed by a layer of carbon, foam, then carbon.

The wooden deck beams were laid up with a layer of carbon

in them and the deck itself was constructed of a thin layer of

V-matched plywood (to appear as a painted wooden deck

from below), followed by carbon, foam, and thin teak decking.

Pushing the envelope of modern construction and design in a

community of boat builders rooted in the traditional, this is

the very outer point of the Spirit of Tradition.

Price $POA brooklinboatyard.com

First Light 26

The First Light 26 (a 36 and 24 also exist) from Cape Cod

builder First Light Boatworks will appeal to anyone with an

eye for a pretty, utility-style runabout that goes like stink. At

26ft (8m), it looks the part (with or without sprayhood) with

workboat styling, wooden clinker topsides and your choice of

layout. The Suzuki 140hp outboard (mounted inside the

hinged engine box visible) gives 30 knots flat out, with a

20-knot cruising speed and draught of 2ft 2in (66cm) or just

1ft 3in (38cm) with the motor tilted, which makes her very

beachable. Add a swim platform and space for 12, at a push,

and you can see why she won a 2017 Classic Boat Award.

Price from $135,000, firstlightboatworks.com

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