YORK 18 SAILBOAT

YORK MARINE is proud to announce its new day-sailing and racing yacht, the YORK 18. It is the largest of yacht designer Chuck Paine’s new series of elegant, Herreshoff-12 ½ inspired keelboats for the no-longer athletic sailor. With this series, Paine combines homage to Nat Herreshoff’s exquisite topside aesthetics with a fully modern fin keel and balanced spade rudder and a freestanding carbon fiber mast. In her racing role, she will provide plenty of fun for a three or four person crew to get the most out of her spinnaker, while she can easily accommodate five adults and a dog for coastal sightseeing. Best of all, she can be easily sailed without any crew at all. Her fiberglass hull is seamless and unsinkable and is trimmed with highest quality varnished teak so as to beautify any harbor in which she is kept.

The YORK 18 is hand-built in Maine. It is our intention to source all materials from the USA, even when Chinese parts might be cheaper. Her beautifully varnished sculpted teak wale strake, inlaid teak transom, teak seats and other cosmetic trim demand highly skilled labor, providing good, stable jobs for American workers. We anticipate that many owners will see her as the perfect replacement for an end-of-life family legacy yacht, and that whole fleets will emerge for racing and comradery at your local yacht club.       

The YORK 18 is the perfect size, as it is extremely simple to get going and put away for a short sail, and it can be easily owner-maintained. She lacks an engine, electronics, and plumbing… the aspects of larger yachts that balloon the maintenance. Of course, you can if you wish fit a removable Torqueedo battery powered kicker, put Navionics GPS on your cellphone (cost $9.95 for all USA harbors), or take along a Porta-Potti, but none of these require appreciable maintenance. Her outside lead ballast makes her very stable and exceedingly difficult to swamp.

With an all-up weight no greater than the Herreshoff-12 ½/ Doughdish, the YORK 18 is trailerable behind a reasonably powerful automobile, and she can be owner launched and retrieved without needing a boatyard. No crane is involved to put the lightweight carbon fiber mast in place- it can be swung up into its Herreshoff-pattern bronze mast gate by one healthy person. The mainsail is attached to the mast by Velcro straps, eliminating the tedium of a track and sail slides and reducing the time it takes to get the boat rigged. The full-length vertical jib battens prevent the top of the high-aspect jib from twisting off and losing drive.

It is our intention to build the YORK 18 to the very highest standards so that she will be a prestigious testament to your good taste and one that will retain its high initial value. It will deliver the highest performance that can be gotten out of any family-safe keelboat, so you can see a lot of territory in a short amount of time. The jib is entirely self- tending so no winches are needed and she can be short-tacked up a narrow channel without touching the sheets. She is literally impossible to capsize, and if swamped has ample flotation to remain afloat and upright so she can be bailed out and gotten going again without assistance. Her seats are ergonomically comfortable and there is no need for hiking out or other athletics to get the best out of her. With her ample sailplan and carbon mast she is very fast and close-winded- a true joy to sail.        

The YORK 18 is the largest of Chuck Paine’s recent series of unprecedentedly high- performance, Herreshoff- inspired fin keel/ carbon rigged sailing yachts. These consist of the PAINE 14, designed in 2007, the PAINE 15, designed in 2017, and our own YORK 18. The first two 18’s are currently on order and we invite your inquiry to add your own masterpiece to the growing fleet of the world’s finest small sailing yachts.

DIMENSIONS

L.O.A                                                   18’ 1”

L.W.L.                                                  14’ 7”

BEAM                                                  6’ 3”

DRAFT                                                 2’ 9”

SAIL AREA                                           160 SQ. FT.