The Worst Boat You've Owned

Falling in and out of love, and other confessions

Even now, more than 20 years after I sold her, it’s difficult for me to say a bad word about my old Fantasie 19 sailboat. She wasn’t the first boat I’d fallen for, but it was definitely love at first sight, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted any boat as much since.

I first spotted the fire-engine red, Robert Tucker-designed, bilge-keeler at the Morro Bay State Park Marina. At a glance she was pretty much everything I then desired. She looked something like a West Wight Potter 19, but was less boxy and somehow more salty—and certianly unique. She was only 19 feet in length, but her small cockpit and sturdy rigging suggested she could handle anything coastal cruising might throw at her.

Anika and I sailing the bay on our Fantasie 19

I didn’t know much about twin-keelers (two appendages) or bilge-keelers (two appendages plus a center stub keel) at that time in my life, but even if she’d had five fins below I’d have wanted her. She was perfect. After a deal that included swapping my Potter 15 and some cash, I was finally able to pull her from the water and drag her home for some clean-up and a closer inspection.

In retrospect there might have been a few early red flags. The Fantasie 19 had some rather unusual features, and although unusual doesn’t always mean bad, there’s a reason most popular sailboats share a lot of common characteristics.

Upon first pulling the Fantasie from the water I noticed that, because of her fixed keels, she sat quite high on her trailer. Not a huge problem, I figured, I’d just employ a tongue extension or, if necessary, detach and winch the trailer into the water at shallower ramps. That won’t get old.

Seeing her out of the water for the first time also exposed her less photogenic side—her underside. The twin keels were thin steel plates with a narrow fore and aft T-strip welded along the top where they were bolted to the hull. There was also a rounded center keel drawing the same two feet of depth. All three appendages were caked with rust and deeply pitted, despite the fairly new zincs the previous owner had bolted on—further destroying whatever limited hydrodynamic efficiency the flat steel plates offered. The bulk of the 545 pounds of ballast was in the beefy stub keel, so I didn’t worry much about it, but the rapidly dissolving twin keels would flex alarmingly when pushed against, and I always wondered if the next time they took the ground might be their last.

The rigging was, as they say, hell-for-stout—with a heavy mast, a roller-reefing boom, two forestays, double side shrouds with spreaders, and a backstay. Quite the little ship, I thought. But of course rigging her, with all of these wires, was something of a production—especially perched so high above the asphalt.

The Fantasie’s cabin offered decent headroom and some intriguing features, but the three bunks were all the austere British seagoing type, at about 18-inches wide. I played around with different filler boards, but was never able to devise anything practical. The big rounded windows offered a signature look and lots of light below, but the old automotive-style rubber gaskets had badly deteriorated, so she leaked in any kind of rain.

The Fantasie looked great under sail, it’s just that you weren’t going anywhere. Her modest 150 square feet of sail was forced to push a 1568-pound boat, three keels, and the outboard motor (in an inboard motor well) through the water. (Her SA/D ratio was less than 18, categorizing her amongst the “heavy offshore cruisers”)

With her inboard rudder she was actually quite maneuverable, but I never felt especially comfortable with that huge through-hull, with its tube and fittings, in the bottom of the boat. Definitely not something I wanted to scramble to deal with if it sprung a leak. I think I’d have preferred a twin keel snapping off.

An old review of the Fantasie 19 from Practical Boat Owner begins: My first impression of this delightful little resinglass boat was quite, quite wrong. At first I thought she was far too tender and narrow… I would suggest the writer’s first impression was actually quite, quite right. Her narrow beam (6’3”) reduced wetted surface, but it also made her alarmingly tender. I can vividly recall feeling both under and over-canvassed in the span of sixty seconds. She didn’t seem to have the horsepower to really get moving, but then you’d suddenly find yourself on your ear and reaching for the winch handle to (painstakingly) roll more of the mains’l around the furling boom.

Sailing in a group of trailersailers we were always the slowest in the fleet, and the Fantasie didn’t point well. Based on tank tests and in theory, twin-keelers ought to do quite well, but I ended up agreeing with writer Tony Gibbs, who questioned twin-keeler adherents’ contentions that their boats somehow offered bettered stability without much reduction in windward ability. He wrote: This seems to me largely wishful thinking because a twin-keel makes a lot of leeway when close-hauled…

I’ve heard it said that “Robert Tucker didn’t design a bad boat,” but then don’t we say that about every good boat designer? And haven’t most of them hit a few singles (if not struck out) amongst their home runs? Still, I can’t quite bring myself to call the Fantasie 19 a “bad boat.” She gave me some wonderful memories and brought us home safely from a few ill-advised adventures.

That old Practical Boat Owner article says the Fantasie 19 was “free of bad habits” and was “remarkably steady on her helm…” Maybe I judged her too harshly. Maybe I was too inexperienced to know what I had. Maybe I was quite, quite wrong. Part of me wants her back so I can try again. •SCA•

Let us know about your "“Worst Boat Ever” either by sending your text to josh@smallcraftadvisor or in the comments below. —Eds