Wesmac 42 Guide: the Downeast Hull With Chesapeake Chines

Wesmac boats for sale start with the 42

Anyone browsing Wesmac boats for sale will quickly notice that the listings range from bare lobsterboats to varnished cruisers, often on the same hull. That hull is usually the 42, the design that started Wesmac Custom Boats as a builder rather than a finisher. Fisherman and workboat broker Steve Wessel and his partner Mac Pettegrow, the Wes and Mac of the name, founded the business in Surry, Maine, in 1984 and spent their early years finishing other builders' hulls.

Around 1987 a retired engineer from Virginia's Rappahannock River asked them for something new: a hull with the hard chines of a fast Chesapeake deadrise boat and the stability and efficiency of a Maine built-down hull. The Wesmac 42 was the answer. Soundings and Boating both credit it as the foundation of a company that has since built more than 600 vessels for lobstermen, fishermen, research labs, law enforcement agencies, passenger operators and yachtsmen.

Built-down keel, Chesapeake chines: the hybrid explained

Maine boats have traditionally come in two forms. Built-down hulls have a keel molded into a rounded bottom and are seakindly but slow and prone to roll. Skeg-built boats from Beals Island and Jonesport bolt a keel onto a flatter bottom and run faster. Chesapeake deadrise boats add hard chines. The Wesmac 42 takes pieces of all three.

The keel is molded integrally into the hull, as on a built-down boat, but where its upper edges meet the bottom they form sharp angles, as on a skeg-built or deadrise hull. A flared spoon bow gives a sharp entry, the deep, full forward sections run straight aft to a flattened planing stern, and squared, molded-in hard chines run the full length. The forward third of the chines carries bonded-on spray rails. Aft, the hull tucks in at a curved transom with modest tumblehome, so following seas have less to push on.

Boating described the result as a hull that rises onto plane easily and runs slightly bow-proud, shouldering seas aside. Charter captain Rick Savage, who has run a 42 for paying passengers out of Northeast Harbor since 2003, told the magazine it rides easy with a clean flow of water to the propeller and is very stable, an important quality when guests do not have sea legs.

• Hull length 42 feet 3 inches, beam 14 feet 6 inches
• Can be stretched toward 46 feet on the same beam, according to Boating
• Built-down full keel protecting a single propeller
• Hard chines, spoon bow and tucked transom with tumblehome

Lobster top, sport top or cruiser top

Wesmac's lamination shop produces standard deck and house parts for three directions: a lobster top for working boats, a sport top for fishing yachts and a cruiser top. Beyond that, general manager Bill Grindle told Boating, every hull is stick-built to the owner's wishes after long conversations about how it will be used.

Buyers can choose solid glass or cored construction in the bottom and topsides, using synthetic foam or balsa, Durakore or spruce stringers encapsulated in fiberglass, vinylester or polyester resin, and even Kevlar in the laminate. That flexibility is the appeal and also the reason no two used 42s are directly comparable. Ask for the build sheet.

The 42 as a cruising yacht

Soundings described the original yacht version: a V-berth forward and a stateroom aft below, an enclosed head with a stall shower, and four steps up to a salon with an L-shaped settee that converts to a double. The galley sat to port with a stove, oven and refrigerator-freezer, and the equipment list ran to air conditioning and a teak-and-holly sole.

Even the cruisers kept their fishing roots. The cockpit had room for outriggers, a fighting chair, livewells and in-deck freezers, and the cockpit controls were Chesapeake style, a nod to the client who commissioned the design. That dual personality is the point: the same boat can run offshore to fish one weekend and cruise the coast of Maine the next.

Single diesels from 17-knot cruisers to Cat-powered sleds

The original cruiser spec called for a single diesel of up to 800 hp, delivering a cruise of about 17 knots and a top speed around 21 knots, according to Soundings. That is the shape of a classic Downeast cruiser: efficient, quiet, and fast enough.

Real-world numbers from Savage's 42, Asticou, show how economical a moderate engine can be. It carries a 2003 Caterpillar 3196B of 660 hp and displaces about 27,000 pounds. On Boating's sea trial it cruised at 16.1 mph (about 14 knots) at 1,600 rpm and 39 percent load, burning 11 gph. Savage says the boat runs 21 nautical miles to Mount Desert Rock in 90 minutes with 20 passengers, using less than 20 gallons.

Newer Wesmacs tend to be far more powerful. Boating reported that most current builds get Caterpillar diesels from 800 hp C12s to 1,150 hp C18s, with a few FPT and MAN installations. Higher power suits the fishing market, where big, fast boats cover more ground, but it changes fuel burn dramatically, so judge any listing by its actual engine.

Who owns them: fishermen, skippers and yachtsmen

Part of the 42's appeal is its pedigree. Wesmac co-owner Linda Greenlaw, the swordfish captain known from The Perfect Storm and her own books, delivers boats and sells them, and she has said she ran Wesmacs before she met her husband, Steve Wessel. Asticou is Coast Guard inspected to carry up to 49 passengers. Other Wesmacs have gone to university labs, harbor pilots and search-and-rescue units.

For a yacht buyer, that commercial background is reassuring. The hull has been proven in year-round work in the Gulf of Maine. The trade-off is that a working-boat finish can look plain beside a production Downeast yacht, and that a commercial history may mean high engine hours and hard use.

Ownership costs and buying a custom hull

A moderately powered 42 burning around 11 gph at 14 knots is cheap to run for its size. A Cat C18 boat at 25 knots is not. Budget roughly $25,000 to $55,000 a year for a 45-foot slip or mooring, insurance, hauling and storage, diesel service, bottom paint and maintenance, more for varnish-heavy yacht finishes.

Survey a Wesmac like a custom boat. Get the build sheet, identify who finished the hull, and have the surveyor test cored areas if the bottom or topsides were cored. Check engine beds and stringers on repowered boats, and look closely at the running gear, since the keel protects the prop but a hard grounding can still damage the shaft, strut and rudder.