Taken from: Crusing World - November 2000

Written by: Keith Hancock

A Classic is Back

The wineglass hulls of the 1970's-era Spencers are back. And they're as slim, seaworthy and beautiful as they were when John Brandlmyr designed them and Hal and Margaret Roth made them famous aboard their 35-foot version, Whisper.

The molds and tooling have been bought by Malcolm and Darcy Wilkinson of Vancouver, British Columbia. After a thorough search throughout the pacific Norhtwest for the right yard, they chose Independent Shipwrights of Coombs, Vancouver Island, to build complete boats and kits.

Malcolm Wilkinson, past commodore of the British Columbia-based Blue Water Cruising Association, is a retired labor-relations mediator and arbitrator. Darcy manages one of the University of British Columbia's cancer-research laboratories. They sailed the South Pacific in the 1970s in a 1330 Spencer, then came back and tried a modern, wider beamed boat. But they were so disappointed with the down-wind performance that they set up a search for the Spencer hulls. They found them in Fort Langley, B.C., in the chest-high grass of a farmers field. They bought the molds and the business and created Spencer Yachts Ltd.

Under their leadership, there are four models of the Spencer available: the original 44-foot 1330 in both center and aft cockpit versions and a 46-footer in center-and-aft cockpit configurations. The revised 46 (46 feet 2 inches in the center cockpit version) comes with a new reverse transom and straight stem instead of the original Spencer spoon bow. The aft-cockpit version of the 46 has been given a sleek truck cabin, allowing the cabin sole to be raised to take the 70-horse-power Isuzu engine. This provides more cabin space by eliminating the engine housing.

To improve steering and lateral stability, the 46's rudder size is increased by 15 percent. A new skeg-rudder configuration has an aerofoil section: it hangs vertically from the skeg, eliminating the original 16-degree fore-and-aft slope.

The redesign of the new 46 was done by Brandlmayr Marine, now run by John Brandlmayr's son, Grant. All the boats have the original 13-foot beam, a draft of 7 feet and a displacement of 25,000 pounds, with 10,000 pounds in the lead keel. The 1330's mainsail is 360.5 square feet, with a total sail area of 522 square feet.

The hull is built to be "bulletproof" (that's 1.75-inch solid FRP in the keel stub). Vinylester resin is used in the skin and first layer of mat and roving and in the deck skin out. Isophthalic resin is used for the balance of the layups.

The boats are available in kit form, at about US$83,000, including hull-and-deck bonding, five fixed bulkheads, four fuel and water tanks, engine, rudder and keel.

"Spencers are good sea boats." Says Malcolm. "With a waterline length of about 36 feet 8 inches, they go like stink in light air. We went from Cape Flattery to San Francisco in five days, with a two-and-a-half-day gale gusting to 70 knots pushing us downwind under bare poles. We felt very safe."

Once they get the yard on its feet, the couple plans to take one of the new Spencers cruising while their son, Geoffrey, runs the business.