Just heard recently from Jay Paris, N.A., who has been SAIL magazine’s technical advisor since before time began. He sent drawings and details of an intriguing upscaled version of the 32-foot centerboard yawl he designed and built for himself. (For details on that boat be sure to check this post here.) He calls this new design the Green 37, as he claims it “reduc[es] the environmental impact of construction and operation in terms of accommodation, payload and performance.” I’m scratching my head over that a bit, but in all other respects I find this a fascinating concept and would love to see one of these built someday. Knowing Jay, there are all sorts of clever details in here that won’t be readily apparent until they are fully realized in three dimensions.
Jay’s fundamental idea for these boats–a narrow, very carefully shaped hull that maximizes the efficiency of a low-aspect centerboard, combined with maximum accommodations–I think will work better in a somewhat larger hull like this one. Construction is either cold-molded or foam-cored with a Dynel-sheathed foam-cored plywood deck.
One question to ask: is this really a yawl? Lots of people believe a yawl has to have its mizzen stepped behind the rudder post. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jay believes something else, and I am sure he could tell you why at some length.
Draft is 3’9″ board up, 6’9″ board down. Waterline length is 32’6″. The beam is 9’9″. Displacement is 12,696 lbs. lightship with 5,600 lbs. of ballast. There are watertight bulkheads fore and aft, plus, as you can see, there’s room aft to stash a hard dinghy on deck. Don’t ask me about the boarding well. Jay hasn’t explained that to me yet.
The accommodations feature an aft saloon table behind the companionway with narrow settees and pilot berths outboard on either side. The table, when not needed, can be slid aft under the cockpit. There’s a full-size nav station, a galley with a ventilating hood over the stove, plus a full head with an aft-facing toilet and a separate shower stall. One very nice Jay-like feature is the wet locker right by the companionway (marked OL on the plan) with a changing seat (CS) right in front of it that has storage for sea boots directly beneath it.
Having sailed the smaller version of the boat, I can tell you the hull is extremely slippery and very easily driven. The smaller boat is also very closewinded with a very clean wake.
Jay also sent me this a photo of the clever system he devised for running the engine on his 32-foot boat when it’s out of the water. The sheetrock bucket below the exhaust catches the exhaust water, which is then plumbed via a garden hose to the raw-water inlet, which is tapped with threads to receive the hose.
Let me know if you’re interested in learning more about Jay’s design and I’ll put you in touch with him.
That’s a very interesting design-I like it. I sort of get the ‘green’ part. This is pretty light for 37′, both in build and needed power to move it. That power being the wind or an auxiliary engine, less needed of either, will save costs up front(rig/sails, engine size), as well as per mile.
Clever layout of the aft berths and table. I think that would work nicely. The centerboard trunk usually defines the whole layout on boats like this. Here the trunk is nicely worked into the galley.
For me, I would nix the nav station and fit it with a usable seating for one or two. I see more electronics moving onto wireless tablets making the nav station less useful for how I sail.
I would guess it would be lightly sail-powered because of the narrow hull and shoal draft(ballast high)? Still, the hull form looks pretty stiff for the beam.
I say it’s a yawl, just on the scale of the mizzen, despite the rudder post,…being too far aft.
@Tom: Yes, I sort of get the “green” thing in the same sense you do. I’m just not sure I would make that the boat’s identity. I’d love to see the aft saloon area in three dimensions!