We are building a Phil Bolger designed 25' Black Skimmer for a client in the San Francisco Bay area. Phil Bolger is famous for designing both very beautiful and very unusual boats. This boat is probably in the unusual category, but really only because of the pernicious effects of rating rules. If we were only interested in sailing fast and not in fair sailboat racing, there would be a lot more boats like this one.
I wish I could put in a link to Phil's website, but he doesn't have one. He may not even have a computer. He has a telephone, but only calls out on it. This is a man who believes in the power of hard work, and in few interruptions. Here is Phil's address:
Phil Bolger & Friends, Inc.
PO Box 1209
Gloucester, MA 01930 USA
Fax 508-282-1349
The Black Skimmer's hull design is based on the sharpie hulls designed by Commodore Munroe in the late 1800's. It's a flat bottom hull with lots of rocker. The considerable sail area is set on two unstayed masts, making it a cat ketch. The mainsail is an easily reefed rig called a Solent lug. It's similar to a sliding gunter, except that the sail is only attached to the yard, not the mast.
Here's a photo of the completed boat on her first day outside, getting her sail covers fitted:
She's now complete and was launched on September 18, 2007. Use the left navigation bar to visit the Construction, Exteriors, Interiors, and Sailing pages for more photos.
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