Brooklin Boat Yard Center Harbor 31

MAJOR PRICE REDUCTION AS OF MAY 6, 2013
NEW ASKING PRICE: $112,000 

A Little History
The idea behind yacht designer and Brooklin Boat Yard founder first boat of the Center Harbor 31 series, Grace, was to update L. Francis Herreshoff’s Quiet Tune to improve that boat’s performance and make use of Brooklin Boat Yard’s skill at cold-molded, wood-epoxy construction. She’d have the same short-ended hull with low freeboard and a low trunk cabin, but her under water profile would be very different. The ballast keel and rudder would be more modern and separate appendages and not the traditional full keel, keel hung rudder of her inspiration. This underbody configuration would allow her to move through the water with less resistance than Quiet Tune and because the hollows of the hull shape would be minimized the more modern fin / bulb keel and balanced spade rudder would lend themselves well to the cold-molded building process.

The owner of Grace, the first of the Center Harbor 31 series, requested a ketch rig similar to Quiet Tune and a relatively shallow draft, long cord length keel. Before Grace came to full fruition a second boat was ordered. The owner of this second boat having come from a background of racing sailing had very different ideas of how he wanted his boat not only to appear from an aesthetic point of view but also he wanted to optimize the boat as much as possible for speed and pointing ability. This second boat named Linda would be rigged as a sloop with an increased sail plan giving her all the horsepower she could handle and balanced by a deeper, and even more modern foil-shaped fin / bulb keel. To date all of the Center Harbor 31 series boats built since the launching of Linda have followed in her footsteps as sloop rigged boats with deep fin / bulb keels and balanced spade rudders. Linda is now named Petunia (Center Harbor 31, hull #2)

With the exception of a couple of years since being built Petunia has been stored with and maintained by Brooklin Boat Yard for her owner who has had the boat kept in impeccable condition and made upgrades to the boat throughout his ownership. During the summer sailing seasons when Petunia has not been under the care of Brooklin Boat Yard she has been under the watchful eyes of a full time professional captain. Petunia is being offered for sale with our highest recommendations.