Little boats with big ideas
Long keels have their enthusiasts and their detractors. But whatever you think of them, few would deny that they’re attached to some jolly good boats. Take the Folkboat, Twister and Rustler 36 as well-known examples. Neither of the first two could be described as a slouch, while the Rustler… well, there’s a good reason why more entrants in the Golden Globe Race chose a Rustler 36 than any other boat.
The problem with long keels is that they’re not easy to find on cruisers of less than 25ft (7.5m) or so. The Folkboat is on the slim and sporty side for some, who might equally find the Fisher 25 (tested in PBO July 2020) not quite slim and sporty enough. Then we have the Contessa 26 and assorted Folkboat derivatives, along with motor-sailers like the smaller Colvic Watsons. Apart from these, and unless you can find a well-maintained Elizabethan 23 or Samphire 23, there’s really not an enormous choice in the smaller sizes. If you want a new boat it becomes smaller still.
All of this leads us to the Yarmouth 22 and 23, because they’re among the few long-keelers of this size currently in production. Let’s start with the 23, because she came first and the 22 is essentially a simplified, modernised and slimmed-down version.
Yarmouth 23
Designed by Gordon Wyatt and David Freeman of Fisher fame, the Yarmouth 23 started life as a concept sketch that spent several years in a drawer before being put into production in
