I have been getting a lot of emails of yachts for sale. Maybe the used boat market is more active at the moment. The Clansman’s are my favourites but I also like the Viking 30’s (like this one) and this Herreshoff H28 looks fancy.

The Clansman was built and designed by Bruce Fairlie. It is a roughly built yet tough fibreglass boat with a full keel. The popularity of these boats has no doubt been boosted by YouTubers, Troy and Pascal. Under their old moniker @FreeRangeSailing (they have since moved onto land and continue to share their stories as @FreeRangeLiving). Clansmans also have a community of owners over on Facebook. If I lived on the coast I would have bought one by now.

The Viking 30 was designed by Ben Lexcen. Ben was the Legend who came up with the keel that won the America’s cup in 1986. He was a competitive chap and the Viking was a ripper for it’s time. It would be lots of fun to sail but would not be as comfortable in a steep sea as a full keel boat (like the Clansman or Herreshoff) which puts me off. It is nevertheless beamy and looks like a spaceship and who doesn’t want a spaceship?

The H28, designed by the Naval architect L.Francis Herreshoff. Herreshoff was dyslexic and relied on his artistic and practical sensibilities to design beautiful boats and write about them. He also found fibreglass to be unlovely. I am a bit wary of wood in this sunny country and the only reason I noticed the Herreshoff was because I found one which had been sheathed in fibreglass which might be a good idea?

If you love and cherish her you can learn to draw sweet melodies from her and she will carry you through all the scale (Beaufort scale) of gales and calms, for she is based on well proven principles. She will lay well into the wind, under the mizzen, or steer well in a following sea and ghost along in light weather.

L. Francis Herreshoff’s design philosophy for the H-28