Wide-transomed sailboats have been around since the mid-90s, and are born from the French ocean racing (VOR and Vendee) boats. Typically these boats will have a ‘pizza-slice’ hull-form with a very flat aft underwater section. The rig is very typically a 9/10s fractional with the mast set quite far aft for a fractional boat. The design offers several benefits.
It’s not surprising that the European builders (Beneteau, Jeanneau, Elan, Pogo, Bavaria etc) started this wide transomed cruiser craze, as unlike US builders that use internal designers, the European builders use the same famed yacht design firms (Finot, Farr, VLPP, Humpreys) that design these race boats. Although most are NOT resigned to race, to the average cruiser, a wide transom boat will have immense interior volume, which often gets put to use as dual aft cabins in boats as small as 32 feet. It also creates a boat with very high initial (form) stability, meaning the boat will resist heeling and sail flatter and more comfortably in most conditions.
To a high performance sailor, the boats are a total treat. The wide flat aft sections make a boat much more likely to plane. Also due to the hull increasing in beam over most of its length, the water flow will stay laminar for longer, resisting drag. In addition, the wide transom gives much better resistance to ‘death-roll’ when sailing fast downwind. The reserve buoyancy in the transom area with is lifted out of the water resists being submerged, and keeps the boat on its feet.
If you can get enough sail area downwind, and crew weight back, the boat will lift out of the water and plane, and the ‘bow wake’ starts to build not at the bow but under the mast. We call this ‘sending it’. The so-called transom wake is 10 feet off the back of the boat. A traditional boat just digs a hole in the water and rolls.
Potential downsides? Normally wide transom boats have more wetted surface area, so they are ‘stickier’ in very light airs. And as a rule they do not point quite as well as an equal boat with narrower beam.
We sail 3 high performance boats regularly, a
Pogo 12.50 (40 feet), a
First 36.7 (35 feet) and a
First 260 (24.5 feet).
Both the Pogo and the 260 are wide transomed boats (LOA / transom beam ratio <3) and are VERY fast and stable off of the wind. The Pogo is good for 17+ knots in a blow, and in more than 20 knots of breeze, the little 260 is FASTER than the vaunted 36.7 as it will readily plane.
People talk about the wide cockpit being unsafe but its mostly perception and getting used to the space and the lifelined open transom. We have had the Pogo in crazy 15 foot+ seas in Greece and never felt unsafe or in danger. Its sea manner and motion was different to a traditional hulled boat, but not worse.
The vast majority of people that knock the design have NEVER been on one sailing, or more tellingly on a boat that planes. In many ways it is the way of the future. Even Hinckley believes so. Have you seen the brand new Bermuda 50?? Go take a look.
