The best trailerable offshore cruiser in the world?

The 22ft Falmouth Cutter

The Falmouth Cutter, together with her sister ship the 28ft Bristol Cutter were designed by Lyle Hess and most were built by the Sam L. Morse yard in California. They are presently built by Cape George Marine in Washington.

Ferenc Matte in his book “The Best Sailboats in the World” said “I might as well start off by telling you that the Bristol Channel Cutter and the Falmouth Cutter are the most beautiful 28 and 22 foot fibreglass sailboats in the world”.

You might be able to start a good debate in the club on this assertion, but if you like solidly built traditional yachts you’d be hard pressed to disagree

Lin & Larry Pardy

Lin and Larry Pardy sailed Seraffyn, their engineless Bristol Cutter, around the world for eight years. I had the pleasure of meeting Lin and Larry at the Cruising Yacht Club in Sydney many years ago and can attest to the fact that Seraffyn had no engine – there was a large tin bath were the engine would normally be! They had a pair of sculls to move the boat when there was no wind – and they could have a bath whenever it rained.

Outstanding Quality

The Falmouth Cutter is a trailerable, medium displacement traditional ocean cruising yacht. The construction quality is outstanding.

Her seaworthiness in heavy weather is legendary and the bowsprit allows the use of cruising spinnakers and large genoas which gives her remarkable light air performance for such a traditional boat.

Of course there are several downsides to all this. The Falmouth Cutter is expensive for such a small boat and used boats are also expensive and only a few come onto the market each year.

But there are a couple of upsides to the downsides.

If you can stump up the $50,000 or more for a good used Falmouth 22, you’ll have a beautiful, fast, ocean-going pocket cruiser that will take you safely anywhere in the world you want to go.

And she’ll go to windward at 80mph with a big enough tow vehicle!

And if you ever want to sell her, (perish the thought!) you’ll probably get more than your money back – so you’ll have had all your sailing as close to free as sailing will ever get.

Falmouth Cutter specifications

Falmouth Cutter links

Sam L. Morse Co.
Builder’s website
Owners forum
Facebook Group