Who doesn’t love a schooner? I sometimes ask myself why schooners pull so strongly on the heartstrings of so many sailors. Is it simply the name, or is it a deeper, less-tangible quality? Whatever the reason, I, for one, would like to own just one more schooner before weighing anchor for that final voyage. A couple of good friends feel the same. But schooners tend to be big and therefore costly and time-consuming to build and maintain. My friends and I no longer possess the stamina that in our youth allowed us to lavish energy on big boats.
For us, the obvious answer is, “Let’s build small, easy-to-manage schooners!” This idea has been tried before, but schooners under 30′ LOA rarely perform well, especially to windward. Squeezing comfortable accommodations into a small hull requires volume, which means heavy displacement. It takes a tall, powerful rig to drive such a short, chunky hull to windward in a choppy sea, which is why most successful small cruisers are rigged as sloops, cutters, or yawls.
24′4″ Round-bilged PLUM DUFF Schooner.