Owner Boat Reviews

Thoughts on the Sanderling, Pocketship, Caledonia Yawl, Phoenix III, and San Juan 21

We assumed, when surveying Small Craft Advisor readers about boats they own and enjoy sailing, that the responses would be dominated by maybe three dozen small-boat designs, so it was a shock when 346 readers shared their thoughts about more than 200 different designs!

As a result, with so many boats to consider, we’ve turned what might have been one summary article into a series of Owner Review features.

This time we feature six designs—four that can be home-built of wood, along with two older fiberglass production-boat designs…one that’s been available longer than almost any camp-cruising sailboat.—Eds

MARSHALL SANDERLING

A traditional-looking large-volume boat admired by SCA readers is the Marshall Sanderling, an 18-foot catboat—one of the oldest continuously produced fiberglass boats on the market, with more than 850 hulls finished by Marshall Marine since the start of production in 1962.

Like most catboat designs, the Sanderling offers a huge cockpit and roomy cabin when compared to most other daysailers and camp cruisers in the 18-foot range.

With an overall length of 18'-2,"beam of 8'-6" and draft of 19” with the centerboard up and 4'-4" with the board down, the spacious Sanderling can daysail five or six comfortably, overnight or cruise a couple, and deal with almost all kinds of conditions.