Practical Boat Owner - January 2016

for the colour of the gelcoat) and the well-cut cream-coloured sails from Mike Mac. It’s all pretty minimalist – keeping things light

and simple was the aim – but tastefully done.flat water, so this time it was good In Falmouth I sailed the Kites on

to have 12 to 15 knots of easterly kicking up a respectable chop off Harwich and Felixstowe. For a light 21-footer our test boat, Kite

No3, was smooth and surprisingly dry upwind. In fact, the only time we took much more than a splash aboard was inside the harbour,

when the wash of a passing workboat hit us on the beam. showing unrealistic upwind In open water the GPS was

speeds of 5.5-6 knots. That might have been due to the ebb tide, but it was the same on starboard tack when we should have been

across the stream. Maybe the tides do strange things in these parts. What’s clear is that the Kite doesn’t hang around. Off the wind

she quickly slid past the 10m (33ft) yacht under sail from which I was taking the photos. She also

Bof sporty trailable 22-footers. We had the Evolution 22, Anderson 22, Caravela 22, ack in the 1970s and 1980s, British builders were producing hundreds
Atlanta Catch 22, E Boat, Timpenny 670, Skipper 700, Limbo 6.6, Eclipse and Fox

had the legs upwind most of the time.angle was a consistent 90°. That’s Despite the chop, our tacking

not bad for a small, light gaffer in a seaway. With the sheets eased and the wind abaft the beam she was eager to surf, though our

peak on the GPS of a modest 7.5 knots confirmed that the tide was against us. In any event we would have needed a lot more breeze to

break the designer’s current record of 11 knots.Kite easy

Importantly for a boat designed to appeal to a wide audience, the Kite is easy and forgiving to sail as well as fast. The helm felt

nicely light, and lighter than I remembered from Falmouth. That might have been because this time I jumped straight aboard

from eight tons of steel cruiser with a barn-door rudder. she scored highly. We maintained In the circuits and bumps routine

headway when pinching mercilessly, and she stalled only briefly if brought to a standstill

Terrier for a start, not to mention all the others of similar size including the Jaguar 21 and Parker 21.

boats; trailable sailers rather than trailer-sailers but all quick and capable, most able to give a good These were wholesome little

account of themselves on the race course, and some – such as the E Boat and Anderson – with Atlantic crossings on their CVs. You can

still buy good examples on the second-hand market, sometimes for ridiculously low sums, but where are the new equivalents?

Barring something that we haven’t been told about, there aren’t any. Or at least there weren’t until the RTC 22 came along.

Breaking with traditionAs we discussed in relation to the Kite, most trailable boats of this

size currently on the market are in the semi-traditional style. This makes sense for ease of trailing and launching, because a gaff or

gunter rig eliminates the need for spreaders and keeps the mast short, easy to stow and simple to raise. It also keeps the centre of

Double guardwires are an unusual and practical feature on a 22-footer. They’re more comfortable for racing crew hiking on the rail – who are also helped by the bevel on the hull-to-deck joint – and more secure for cruising

effort low, so more of the ballast can be internal to reduce the weight in the centreplate.This combination of a low CE

and relatively high CG isn’t a recipe for ultimate performance although the Kite, for example, does go remarkably well.

Ultimately there’s still no substitute for a taller rig, tighter jib luff, greater sail area and lower centre of gravity if you want to get the

best from a boat of any given length. That means forgetting the trad and embracing the modern, which is exactly what the RTC 22

has done.appeared at the Southampton The RTC’s slim hull first

Boat Show in 2014. She was there again in 2015, several stages closer to completion and finally ready for sailing – if not fully

finished in every respect – a month or so after the show. Her builder, Warwick Buckley, warned me that he hadn’t sailed her in

much more than a zephyr, so we were both set to experience something new when we headed down Southampton Water in a

gusty and shifty 12 to 20 knots of north-easterly.RTC is very easily driven. The It was instantly clear that the

turbulence from the transom became a clean flow at around 6 knots and she accelerated to an

Boats

Kite surfing: downwind with a few waves, the Kite is eager to get up and go

The RTC 22