Bill's Log: Boats Seen at Burnham – Part 1

I should have gone for a sail today. Instead, after taking my wife to a garden centre, I went to Burnham for a walk by the river to see activities associated with Burnham Week. This always starts on August Bank Holiday Saturday.

As usual, when visiting Burnham, I took a look at boats for sale at Clark and Carter. However, this fin keel Freedom 21 doesn’t look as if she is for sale, as I didn’t see a notice to that effect attached to her hull, and I couldn’t find her on the C & C ‘Yachts for Sale’ list.

Freedom 21 sailboats were first built in the US in 1982. Designed by Garry Hoyt, they were rigged with an un-stayed flexible mast and a fully battened mainsail; plus a unique spinnaker system invented by Garry. He calls it the Hoyt Gun Mount. It consists of a spinnaker pole that passes through a tube mounted on a spindle attached to the pulpit. The pole can be shunted to and fro when changing tack. The spinnaker is easily hoisted and taken in by a solo sailor. He can hoist it with a halyard and lower it into a ‘sock’ by means of a downhaul. (See Freedom 21 Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx7bMnQgRoY) This cat rig has the advantage of ease of reefing as with a junk rig, but with the windward efficiency of a Bermudan rig. All control lines are led to the cockpit for speedy and safe handling without the crew having to go on deck.

The boat featured here has a fin keel, but others have been built in the UK with retractable bilge keels. A few had Warwick Collins Tandem Wing Keels. Here’s a good PDF article by Wilfred Bishop with information about Freedom 21 keel types: http://www.freedom21.info/F21KeelOptions.pdf .

Specification

LOA 6.61m

LWL 5.39m

Beam 2.44m

Draught 1.14 (Max)

Displacement 816 kg

Links

Burnham Week

http://www.burnhamweek.com/

Garry Hoyt

http://garryhoyt.com/

Freedom 21 Info