CONTROVERSY 27 (MOUNT DESERT 27) 



While Mount Desert 27 is now the official name, she is known to many 

 by her former name, Controversy 27, and we are thus including our story 

 here. Like E. Farnham Butler's other designs, this one isn't conventional 

 and piles in an unusual amount of cruising room for its size. The first of 

 the class, the Rubicon (note the "con"), took the water in i960. While 

 she is strip-built, her design is also suited to fiber-glass construction. There 

 is a movable housetop, a Butler characteristic, and by using the cockpit 

 she can sleep six, with four berths below. Besides these there is an en- 

 closed head, a galley, and a surprising number of conveniences for a boat 

 of this size, ingeniously planned. Her sheer is almost straight and over- 

 hang is very slight. 



As usual, Butler had trailing in mind when he designed her; her beam 

 is one inch less than the 8-foot limit for unrestricted travel on U.S. high- 

 ways. She is built of wood on a semicustom basis by the Mount Desert 

 Yacht Yard ( Mount Desert, Me. ) and by the Marriott's Cove Yacht Builder 

 (Chester, Nova Scotia). Boats are also built of fiber glass in England by 

 Miles Marine and Structural Plastics, Ltd., and imported by the Mount 

 Desert Yacht Yard. The boat has a combination keel-centerboard. 



Price of the fiber-glass model is about $9300 on the East Coast of the 

 United States. This does not include an inboard engine costing $900 to 

 $1100 for 10-h.p., $1300 for 25-h.p. 



VITAL statistics: L.O.A. 27'6"; waterline 22'6"; beam 7'ii"; draft 

 2'io" (without centerboard ) ; sail area 316 sq. ft.; displacement 4600 lbs.; 

 power, 10- to 18-h.p. outboard (inboard motor optional). 



CORSAIRE 



According to its importers, the 18-foot sloop Corsaire is the world's largest 

 stock class of auxiliary sailboats. With a total of fifteen hundred built to 

 date, this estimate cannot be far off. Like the Cap Vert, the Corsaire was 

 designed by the well-known French naval architect Jean-Jacques Herbulot, 

 and the boats (which are built by Cidevyv) are imported from France by 

 the Nautica Corporation (P. O. Box 26, Paramus, N.J.). 



A reverse sheer provides extra cabin room, as does the fact that both 

 mast and centerboard are taken out of the cabin, the mast being set into 

 a tabernacle and the centerboard put inside of the keel. A raised deck with 

 the cabin extending to the side of the boat aids in providing more space 

 below, besides making it more comfortable for those sitting on the bunks. 

 I once made the circuit of New England and Nova Scotia in a 26-foot 

 raised-deck sloop and know what a difference it makes to one's comfort 



CRUISING CLASSES 247 



