Nordic Folkboat, the 1942 Committee Design That Outlived Its Critics

A wartime contest, 58 entries and no winner

The Nordic Folkboat began with a problem. In 1941, with neutral Sweden surrounded by war, the Scandinavian Yacht Racing Union wanted a small, affordable, seaworthy keelboat that families could cruise and race. Shipping magnate Sven Salén, an Olympic bronze medalist in the Six Metre class, pushed the idea and promoted a design contest that drew 58 entries. The judges could not pick a winner and awarded several, including designs by Knud Olsen, Jac M. Iversen, Alfons Kvarnström and O. W. Dahlström.

Salén then asked a young naval architect, Tord Sundén, to merge the best features into one set of plans, which were published without a designer's name. Construction of the first boat began at the Arendals yard in Gothenburg in October 1941, and it was launched on April 23, 1942, dodging ice floes in the harbor. Sundén later claimed the design as his own, a dispute that followed him until his death in 1999 and was never fully settled.

Classic Boat has called the Nordic Folkboat a nautical Volkswagen Beetle and the most influential sailing yacht of all time. Danish champion Paul Elvstrøm admitted that at first nobody seemed to like them, and that it took a while for people to discover how seaworthy they are and how well they perform when it is rough.

Lapstrake planks, a long keel and half the weight in iron

The original boats were built of clinker (lapstrake) planking, typically larch or Douglas fir, over a long keel with a cut-away forefoot. The stem is spooned and raked, the transom sharply angled and the rudder hung on the keel and steered by tiller. Typical boats displace 4,255 pounds and carry 2,205 pounds of iron ballast, a ballast ratio just over 50 percent, which explains the class reputation for carrying full sail in 20 to 25 knots.

By the mid-1970s, timber costs and competition from fiberglass boats were killing sales. Erik Andreasen and Sven Svendsen created fiberglass Folkboats molded to the exact shape of the clinker hull, with the same weight and weight distribution, so plastic and wooden boats could race together without handicap. Purists objected, but Andreasen, nicknamed Mr. Folkboat, is widely credited with saving the class. More than 950 fiberglass Folkboats had been built by 2001.

Slow on paper, steady when it blows

Nobody buys a Nordic Folkboat for speed. The 7/8 fractional sloop rig carries about 220 square feet of sail, a 159-square-foot main and a 61-square-foot jib, on a 19.7-foot waterline, so the theoretical hull speed is only about 6 knots. Sailboatdata calculates a sail area to displacement ratio near 13.4, firmly in the under-canvased category. Soundings described the boat as old, small, heavy and under-fast, with no spinnaker in the class.

What it does well is behave. Richard Sherwood noted that Folkboats have raced in 40 knots of wind, and the long keel tracks straight when lighter boats are reefing or running for cover. Classic Boat's Theo Rye praised its seakindly manners, deep cockpit and nicely balanced helm. The Portsmouth Yardstick number of 103.2 gives handicap racers a benchmark, but most Folkboat racing is strict one-design with two or three crew.

Racing a Folkboat in the United States

Sweden, Denmark and Germany remain the heart of the class, with branches of the Nordic Folkboat International Association there and in Australia. In North America, Scandinavian immigrants started fleets, and the most active by far is on San Francisco Bay. Its short waterline, long keel and small rig suit the Bay's stiff summer westerlies and strong currents.

The San Francisco fleet was constituted in 1957 and Wednesday night racing began in 1961. Soundings reported about 80 members in 2012, roughly half of them active sailors, and an International Cup held every other year since the late 1960s that draws European crews. Because new boats are not built locally, the fleet relies partly on Europeans who ship boats over for the regatta and sell them afterward. A 1994 count put about 110 Folkboats sailing in the US.

Small boat, outsized voyages

Folkboats were never intended for ocean crossings. The original cockpit is not self-bailing, which Practical Sailor flagged as raising the risk of offshore ambitions. Yet the hull's seaworthiness has tempted sailors for decades.

Blondie Hasler raced Jester, a heavily modified Folkboat with an enclosed deck, junk rig and his own self-steering gear, to second place in the first single-handed transatlantic race in 1960, finishing in 48 days behind Francis Chichester. In 1965 Sharon Sites Adams sailed the wooden Folkboat Sea Sharp alone from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 39 days, becoming the first woman to single-hand that route. She added lifelines, pulpits, extra winches, a self-bailing cockpit with scuppers, stronger rigging, bilge pumps and rudimentary self-steering first, which is a useful checklist for anyone thinking of doing something similar.

The cabin is for elves

Practical Sailor joked that the headroom was ideal for the elves of Scandinavian folklore, and that is close to the truth. Interiors vary widely. Race boats are kept bare for weight, while cruising boats usually have two settee berths and sometimes a V-berth forward. The head is often a bucket, cooking is camping style, and the usual way to add space is a boom tent over the cockpit.

Plenty of Baltic sailors still cruise Folkboats for weeks at a time, so it can be done. Just treat the Folkboat as a weekender and daysailer with a cuddy, not a pocket cruiser like a Contessa 26 or Cape Dory 25.

International Folkboat, Contessa 26 and other offspring

Do not confuse the Nordic Folkboat with its descendants. Sundén redesigned the boat for fiberglass as the International Folkboat, which appeared around 1967 to 1969 and became known in Europe as the Marieholm IF. It has a more modern profile, more interior space and more sail area. The Marieholm 26 followed in 1976. In Britain, Jeremy Rodgers and David Sadler used the Folkboat as the basis for the Contessa 26 in 1965, and Kim Holman's 1959 Stella was a Folkboat-inspired design for the North Sea. The Knarr is often listed as a successor.

Buying a Folkboat for sale in the US

Most Folkboats for sale in the US are on the West Coast, particularly around San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound. Fiberglass boats are the practical choice for most buyers, with simpler maintenance and the same racing status as wood. Wooden boats are cheaper to buy and lovely to look at, but they demand regular varnish, plank and fastening work.

Keel bolts are the big issue. Soundings reported that corroded keel bolts are a common malady of wooden Folkboats, and Sharon Sites Adams's old boat nearly sank on its mooring when its bolts started to let go. Budget roughly $2,500 to $9,000 a year for a slip or trailer storage, insurance, sails and maintenance, with wooden boats at the top of that range.