Perry Design Review: Brewer 45

My wife's fifth grade class is using a unified curriculum approach this year called clipper. It uses clipperships as a vehicle to work the students through a variety of subjects from math to social studies. She asked me to come and talk to her class about sailing ships. Years ago I could have rattled off the names of all the sails on a full rigged ship, but today that memory is a little dim so I turned to the book that got me started, Royce's Sailing Illustrated. It's a little blue-green book crammed with information from clippers to El Toros.

Sketching on the blackboard, I watched the book move around the room, student to student. There was a noticeable slowdown in this movement as the book reached two of the students and I am sure I saw the light in their eyes flare up a little as they thumbed through the pages. There is so much information packed into this book that it accurately imparts both the knowledge and mystery of sailing simultaneously. After class, the two students approached me, both asking if they could take the book home. "Sure guys, I'll send another copy up tomorrow." If you want to light the fire of yachts, yachting and sailing in general to someone, hand them a copy of Royce's book. It will do more to interest them than all the glossy hype you could collect. I don't think we make sailors, we just discover them.

This handsome cruising yacht comes to us from Ted Brewer and has just been launched for her shakedown in northwest waters. The client is an East Coast sailor who plans extensive passages. The builder of the hull and deck was Longheed Machine and Welding Co. of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, and the boat was finished by Paul Sorenson of Bellingham, Washington. Longheed is known for meticulous metalwork and Ted took advantage of this talent by giving the client a boat with steel hull and aluminum decks.

The Brewer 45 hull form is the radiused chine type that combines pleasant lines with ease of construction. The freeboard is high enough to provide standing headroom under a flush deck forward. The ends are short and sheer spring is minimal. The plan view reveals a boat with full ends at the deck and a broad transom. Ted has cut a large boarding platform into this big transom.

The keel is a long fin with plenty of volume to keep the ballast very low. There is sufficient volume in the top of the keel to allow the engine to be tucked down into the fin far enough to keep the shaft near horizontal. The prop is guarded by a strut connection to the three-quarter skeg. The rudder is a big barn door type with a small balanced portion below the lower bearing. The D/L ratio of this design is 317. You can draw and calculate all you like, but I have yet to see a light steel boat. Ted has given the design sufficient volume to keep it on its lines, even fully loaded for cruising.

This yacht is rigged as a tall cutter with a SA/D ratio of 16.04. The foretriangle is big enough to carry two headsails and Ted has wisely shown runners to support the staysail. This is a handsome profile brought to life with Ted's skill with pen and ink.

The interior layout shows a boat designed for a couple with occasional guests. There is only one head and it is forward. The pilothouse has a raised dinette to port with dropleaf table. There is an inside steering position to starboard with more swivel chairs. "Here, Bob, sit in this swivel chair and let me put on my favorite Barbra Streisand tape. There, that's yachting!" I tell you one thing, I wouldn't send a potential client packing just because he wanted swivel chairs. "Swivel chairs? Oh, nothing? What color do you want?" The nav station is nestled next to the inside wheel. The owner's stateroom aft features a double berth with a desk to port.

As usual, a thick drizzle is shining down on the Puget Sound area today. It's pilothouse weather.

Boat Specifications

This story originally appeared in Sailing Magazine, and is republished here by permission. Subscribe to Sailing.