UK-Halsey Sailmakers has been collaborating with the brain trust at Hunter Marine on a skunkworks kind of a project. The Hunter design team and all the people behind them at the factory have been creating a �turbo charged� small, affordable, fun, good performing, as well as pleasing to look at version of their already successful H-27.
The new concept has no official designation yet, but is being referred to as the H-27x (the X is for experimental). This will be a pocket cruiser on steroids.
The departure from the cruising version is pretty obvious. It�s lighter; uses Harken hardware and components; has a tiller instead of a wheel; a Carbon Fiber bowsprit and is propelled by a sail drive with a folding propeller. Instead of Dacron sails, the boat comes with true racing sails. UK-Halsey made a set of Kevlar/Carbon fiber Tape-Drive sails and has an inventory of asymmetrical spinnakers.
Kerry Klingler of UK-Halsey New York designed the asymmetrical deep running spinnaker based on the shapes that he used to win numerous J/80 championships. UK-Halsey Texas was responsible for the maximum roach main and non-overlapping genoa.
Two prototypes have been built and they have the standard interior so that the boats can be cruised as well as raced. The difference is that the interior of the H-27x is made of light-weight materials to make the boat faster. There is a fully enclosed head, a cooler, and stove. The forward cushions can be stowed or removed to provide a sail locker type bow area for the crew to work from.
In the boat�s first race, an informal Wednesday night race run by the St. Augstine Yacht Club, the boat moved along well and finished two boat-lengths behind a C&C; 99 � which rates nearly 100 seconds-per-mile faster. The boat may not keep its current rating for long, but the good news is that the H-27x is FAST! And as Bill Lee says, �Fast is fun.�
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