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Over the years, the basic hull has been refined into a modern cruiser by a succession of naval architects. "Colin Archers," as the boats are still called, have circled the globe. Suhaili, Eric, Thistle—their names are familiar in far ports. The latest incarnation, the West-sail 32, is a roomy, teak and fiber-glass version built in Costa Mesa, Calif., by a young refugee from electrical engineering named Snider Vick. With his small production line and a fierce de votion to quality, Vick is determined to give fits to competitors whom he calls "the plastic pop-out people"—the mass producers of lightly built fiber-glass boats, few of which are suitable for long-term living aboard, to say nothing of ocean cruising. As testament to Vick's success, a small armada of West-sail cruisers is already fitting out for round-the-world voyaging.
Freedom from Frills. Like Thomas E. Colvin, the naval architect who designed and built the lovely junk-rigged schooner Gazelle, the men who drew the lines of all these boats are men whose restless imaginations were shaped by the same traditions that molded Colin Archer—the traditions and demands of the sea. Simplicity, sturdiness and an utter freedom from frills are the hallmark of their work.
Teakbird, Bolero and Walloon, seen here scudding across Puget Sound, are all from the board of Veteran Designer William Garden. A boat by Bill Garden, says one of his admirers, "always seems to fit into the tradition of the Grand Banks fishing schooner and the opium clipper." Odd combination? Not for the offshore sailors to whom Garden has given long-keeled boats that are easy on the helm. Not on ocean passages, when a snug Garden rig teaches the enjoyment of what the designer calls "chasing off before the wind under boisterous conditions."
"The person we are building for," says Tom Colvin, "is a member of a minority group: he is that one out of a thousand sailors who cannot find what he wants in the catalogues of the big builders." He is a man who shuns complex modern gear that he cannot service himself. He can work with rope or wire or canvas, and the sailmaker's "palm" sits comfortably in his hand. His compass and sextant are instruments to be treated with care and reverence. He can read the tides and the weather, and he knows the movements of the navigator's stars. His library is charts and pilot manuals. His bible is the American Practical Navigator by Nathaniel Bowditch, a one-volume encyclopedia of seagoing wisdom that was first published in 1802 and remains a remarkably complete collection of everything a seaman needs to know.
Minority group the cruisers may be, but their numbers are growing steadily. As summer ends, their boats will be following the season—running down the trade winds from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, perhaps, or heading out to the warm atolls of the South Pa cific. At home, the new cruisers are getting ready to join them. Lighting Designer Len Thornback, 46, and his schoolteacher wife Jane, 48, have al ready moved aboard their Westsail at Newport Beach, Calif. "In a year or so," says Thornback, "we'll simply leave. First the Mediterranean and the Baltic. After that, we don't care where."