Contessa 32, the Small Boat That Finished the 1979 Fastnet

Assent and the 1979 Fastnet, the race that defined a boat

The Contessa 32's reputation was made in a single night. In the 1979 Fastnet, a storm capsized about a quarter of the 303 starters and 15 people died. Of 58 boats in the smallest class, only one finished: the Contessa 32 Assent, owned by Willy Ker and sailed by his son Alan. She was knocked down past horizontal and righted herself in about ten seconds.

Willy Ker went on to sail Assent more than 100,000 miles, often singlehanded, through the Arctic, Antarctica, Easter Island and Hawaii. The Fastnet inquiry that followed reshaped thinking about stability in offshore yachts, and the Contessa 32 became the reference boat for what a small, seaworthy yacht looks like.

David Sadler's refusal to design to a rule

Sadler drew the 32 in 1969 and 1970 as a bigger sister to his successful Contessa 26. Hull number one, Contessa Catherine, was built for Sadler himself in 1970, and a new boat sold for 5,950 pounds in 1971. The racing world was moving from the RORC rule to the IOR, and Sadler and builder Jeremy Rogers deliberately chose not to shape the boat to either.

That decision aged well. IOR boats of the era, pinched and tender, became obsolete as soon as the rule changed. The Contessa 32 kept racing under IMS, IRC and ORC, still has its own class at Cowes Week, and has been called the most successful one-design cruiser-racer of all time.

Close to fifty percent ballast in a narrow hull

On a 32 foot hull with a 24 foot waterline and only 9 feet 6 inches of beam, the Contessa carries about 2 tons of lead, close to half of its roughly 9,500 pound displacement. The ballast is encapsulated in the molded keel, so there are no keel bolts to fail. The angle of vanishing stability is about 155 to 157 degrees, against about 117 for a typical Half Tonner of the same period. The STIX number is about 33.

Several Contessas sailing in rough conditions have dipped their mast tips in the water and come back up with the rig standing. John Kretschmer and Ty Techera survived a 130 degree knockdown while rounding Cape Horn in Gigi in 1984. The hull shape, a long fin keel with a deep forefoot and a fine entry, shrugs off a head sea without slamming.

• Angle of vanishing stability about 155 to 157 degrees
• Ballast about 2 tons of encapsulated lead, close to 50 percent ratio
• Displacement to length ratio about 310
• Theoretical hull speed about 6.6 knots

Tight, wet and quick to windward

Upwind is where the Contessa feels special. Owners report tacking through just under 70 degrees with the original genoa, and the boat has a light, responsive helm that makes ordinary sailors feel like Olympians. Weather helm appears at around 15 knots of true wind and disappears with a reef. One recorded day's run between the Canaries and Barbados was 186 miles.

The price is wetness. With low freeboard and a narrow hull, the boat goes through waves rather than over them, and one long-time owner called it a bit of a submarine. Downwind in a breeze it can roll and become a handful under spinnaker. It also sails remarkably well under headsail alone, which is useful when you are tired.

Living inside nine and a half feet of beam

Below decks the Contessa is snug. Forward is a V-berth and chain locker, then the head and a hanging locker, a saloon with a double to port that is really a wide single and a single to starboard, a U-shaped galley to port and a chart table opposite, with a quarter berth aft. Headroom runs from about 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 1 inch.

Rogers-built boats have full wooden interiors. J.J. Taylor boats from Ontario use white fiberglass moldings trimmed in wood, brighter and easier to maintain. Either way the galley and head are small, the forepeak berths short, and it is not a marina liveaboard. The cockpit, though, is long and comfortable, with high coamings and a strong bridgedeck.

Rogers boats from Lymington versus Taylor boats from Ontario

Jeremy Rogers built over 500 boats in the first run between 1970 and 1982, and the total passed 700 by 1983. J.J. Taylor and Sons in Ontario built 87 under license between 1973 and 1990, with a wheel instead of a tiller, a rig about 3 feet taller and a Coremat-cored deck, and many of them have drifted south into the United States. Small numbers also came from MacBar Marine and Mike Slack in the late 1980s and 1990s. Rogers restarted production in 1996 and builds roughly one new boat a year alongside several full refits.

For a US buyer, a Taylor boat is usually the practical choice: closer, cheaper to survey and transport, and with a lighter interior. Rogers boats are the purist choice, and a Rogers refit, which can run 100,000 to 200,000 pounds, produces a nearly new boat.

Small tanks, small engines and simple systems

Water is the main limitation. The original tank, built into the keel, holds just 15 imperial gallons, about 18 US gallons. Fuel is around 12 gallons. Ocean sailors add flexible tanks, jerry cans or a small watermaker.

Engines changed over the years: a 24 hp Farymann, then a 20 hp Bukh, a 28 hp Volvo and a 27 hp Yanmar, and one experienced owner rates the 18 hp Bukh as the best of the factory fits. Boats with single-cylinder engines of 12 hp or less are underpowered against wind and tide. New boats get Beta Marine diesels of 20 to 25 hp, a sensible repower target for an old one.

The corrosion points that sink a survey

The Contessa 32 is simple, but a few fittings need a hard look. Chainplate failures have been reported. The forestay tack fitting on many boats is a 3/8 inch stainless U-bolt that can crack from corrosion. Masts can corrode under deck-level fittings after a dozen or more years. Some side decks use plywood coring, and leaks at the chainplates can soften it.

Rudder work can mean cutting the skeg tip to drop the blade, so check bearings carefully. With all that said, US running costs are modest, around $4,500 to $10,000 a year, because the boat is small, the systems simple and the hull solid.

Voyages that keep the legend current

The Contessa 32's record did not stop in 1979. In 2003, 15-year-old Seb Clover became the youngest person to sail across the Atlantic alone, in the Contessa 32 Reflection. Jo Hunter sailed Chanson de Lecq from South Georgia toward Australia and covered 1,700 miles under jury rig after a dismasting. In the 2018 to 2019 Longue Route, Pierre-Andre Huglo sailed Fresh Herring non-stop around the world singlehanded.