1983 C&C 32 | 31ft

http://www.cncphotoalbum.com/reviews/perry/c&c32.htm

C&C's track record for producing "good boats" is hard to beat. Almost all of the production yachts that C&C has produced have been aimed at both speed and comfort in an effort to appeal to the club racer-occasional cruiser type. While these designs are not state of the art in terms of racing performance, they are not far behind it and can turn in very competitive results in almost any yacht club level racing fleet. If you have been following the development of C&C's designs over the years, I think you will see some interesting differences in this new 32.

Let's begin with the deck. As 1 have said redundantly in the past, C&C designs perhaps the most interesting decks and there are some items of note here. The clean lines of the cabin trunk are unaffected by the slight raised section that extends forward to the mast. This raised portion becomes a boss for mounting winches, incorporates the traveller base and actually increases the headroom below without adding to the visual bulk of the cabin trunk. Note the small hatch over the head and the fact that there are no opening ports. The forward hatch looks a bit small for my taste and I would imagine that it would be easier to carry the number one genoa forward through the main companionway rather than push it through the forward hatch. As usual C&C has used a custom, aluminum casting for the stem fitting that is both attractive and very functional.

The cockpit is large and has been designed to use both tiller and wheel steering depending upon the owner's choice. If you go with the wheel steering, you get a contoured helmsperson's saddle. If you choose the tiller, you get filler pieces to fill in the T parts of the cockpit well and give you full length seats.

The transom carries what I call "conventional rake" rather than reversed rake. While the reversed transom looks racy, it does remove length from the cockpit. By giving the transom conventional rake, the C&C designers have sacrificed a minimal amount of potential sailing length in favor of a more roomy cockpit. This is a very sensible compromise. The loss in boat speed will be negligible and the gain in cockpit space will be tremendous. I think the overall effect of the transom is very aesthetically pleasing and ices the spring of the sheer.

The hull design is very moderate. The perspective profile shows clearly a slight tuck at the girth stations aft, but this is the only blatant concession to the IOR that I can see and it is subtle relative to modern IOR yachts. The plan view shows a full ended hull at the deck level retaining much of its beam to the transom. Note the distinct absence of bustle, which means the distended area below the fair canoe body aft, just forward of the rudder. Bustle was originally used to increase the prismatic coefficient and increase the potential full speed. More and more we are seeing the bustle disappear today. There are some designers that cling to it without realizing that you can achieve the same results without distorting the run. Many of the IOR boats that you see will have what appears to be a bustle, but that configuration is a function of the effort to squeeze the after girth stations together. The displacement to length ratio of this design is 288, which could be considered upper medium.

The rig is a simple masthead sloop with centerline lower shrouds and a split backstay. There is a babystay forward and only one set of spreaders. The sail area to displacement ratio is 16.27. Note that the mast is keel stepped.

The C&C 32 is available with a deep fixed keel giving a draft of 5'8" or in the centerboard model with four foot draft with the board up. The centerboard model carried 805 pounds more ballast presumably to duplicate the stability characteristics of the deep draft model. The configuration of the shoal draft model is a low aspect ratio fin with a small centerboard.

The interior of the C&C 32 follows the basic stock boat layout with the exception of the dinette to starboard. While many purists don't appreciate dinettes, they do offer the advantage of allowing seating for four at the table without blocking the access to the forward cabin area and the head. Of course the table can be lowered to convert this area into a double berth. The rest of the interior is normal and you should be able to read the drawing easily.