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Pilothouse Sailboats

Good for heavy weather sailing, but not so good in hot climates

Pilothouse have an inside steering position – this is the pilothouse. So why buy a pilothouse sailboat? A pilothouse sailboat is ideal if you sail in colder places, or wish to extend your sailing season into late autumn, and start early.

The main advantage is that you can control the sailboat from inside the pilothouse and keep warm and dry. However, the pilothouse must be quite high to give you standing headroom and the ability to see forward well, increasing windage.

Generally, pilothouse are heavier than sporty yachts and are intended for motor sailing as much as out and out sailing. Most do not sail to windward quite as well as conventional sailboats, but they have other advantages. Because Scandinavian waters are so cold, the Scandinavians build many good pilothouse including the Najad and Nauticat ranges.

The pilothouse is aft of the main cabin, and at deck level, and there is usually a small cockpit behind, with an outside wheel. However, you need to be high up to see over the pilothouse. In the normal arrangement, the engine is below the pilothouse, and the main cabin will lead to the heads and hanging locker, with a V-berth in the forepeak.



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Eaton/Clarke on Canaan Win 2010 Little America's Cup
NEWPORT, RI, August 28, 2010 -- If wing technology didn’t have everyone’s attention after BMW Oracle Racing’s victorious 33rd America’s Cup, it definitely does now. The high speeds and almost instant acceleration of cambered foils had members of America’s Cup syndicates, top designers, and all sailors in awe.  Canadian C Class Catamaran Team of Fred Eaton, Magnus Clarke, Steve Killing, Rob Paterson, and Rossi Milev have been along for the entire ride, one way or another. Clarke, Paterson, and Milev took six months off from their C Class program to manage wing protection for the largest wingmast ever built for a race-boat: BMW Oracle’s (223 foot) 68 metre-tall wing. Reunited in March, their team brought four wings to the International C Class Catamaran Championship hosted by New York Yacht Club on Narragansett Bay this past week. “Upwind the camber is moderate, but downwind with the flap set at 40 degrees, the wing will produce almost double the force of an equal area soft sail,” explains Killing. Eaton and Clarke raced Killing’s latest design, Canaan, to a thrilling victory today in the final day of match racing. 




may be an aft sleeping cabin as well, reached from the pilothouse. The smallest pilothouse sailboat is probably the Fisher 25, but there is also a larger model. Fishers are aptly named, as they resemble fishing boats with a tall pilothouse , and a very shallow keel – they do not sail well to windward, but can be motored or motor sailed in bad weathers.

Moody produced a pilothouse version of its 32 and 38 footers called Eclipses, and these are more like ordinary yachts than many pilothouse sailboats. They have either fin or twin bilge keels.

Another interesting range of pilothouse are the Southerlys – 110, 115 and 135 -these are 35 feet, 37 feet and 45 feet LOA with a shallow pilothouse. They are remarkable for their swing keels which provide shoal draft for exploring rivers, yet have a deep keel when sailing. The 115 has a draft of 2 feet 4 in (0.71 m) with the keel up, and 8 feet 2 in (2.48 m) with it down; the figures for the 135 are 2 feet 9 in (0.84 m)and 9 ft 9 in (2.56 m). These pilothouse are beautifully equipped but have a fairly low ballast ratio.

Pilothouse – they are sometimes called motor sailers – include:

Designs by Ted Brewer and Bruce Roberts Colvic 33 and 35 Cooper pilothouse 41 Corbin 39 Cromarty 36 Fisher Gulf 32 Moody Eclipse 32 and 38 Nauticat 515, etc Pacific Seacraft 32 Pilothouse Roamer Motorsailer 38 Southerly Vancouver 36 pilothouse Voyager 35 Westerly Konsort Duo (29)




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