Stephens Waring and White Yacht Design is delighted to be working again with W-Class Racing Yachts, LLC, to create another in the well-known company’s line of classic racing yachts. The two firms have a relationship that extends back more than a decade, when W-Class president Donald Tofias asked Joel White in 1997 to design a fleet of 76′ world-class yachts to bring back big-boat one-design racing to the Eastern Seaboard. The W-76 was followed by smaller sister W-46 designed by White’s protege Robert Stephens following Joel White’s death.
The new 37′ day racer follows in the path of her predecessors in combining classic good looks, traditional yacht joinery, and cold-molded wood composite construction. She takes a different tack with her hull shape. Where her larger sisters are long and lean with gracefully sweeping overhangs bow and stern, the W-37 leans more heavily upon 19th-century inshore craft like sandbaggers and sloop-boats for aesthetic inspiration.
Like today’s current crop of cutting-edge race boats, the W-37 is lightweight, relatively beamy, with a plumb stem and near-vertical transom. But where out-and-out race boats sacrifice grace and beauty in the name of performance, Stephens Waring and White have carefully crafted the bow and stern to show subtle curves and attractive camber.
From above, the yacht shows her carefully laid-out and efficient deck plan incorporated with spare, elegant traditional joinery. When the comfortable upholstered couches are removed and stowed below, she’ll transform from a luxurious daysailer to a racing machine, with her crew well outboard on the sculpted teak side decks. Viewed from beneath, her connection with today’s fastest racers is evident, from her steel-finned T-bulb keel to her high-aspect carbon spade rudder, both showing off her sleek, slippery hull. A tall, powerful carbon rig supports her huge square-top mainsail and blade jib, while a laminated teak bowsprit stretches her off-wind sails (asymmetrical spinnaker and “Code Zero” type reacher) to exciting proportions.
When she rolled out of the building shed at Brooklin Boat Yard (Brooklin, Maine), varnished mahogany topsides agleam in the sun, a passing sailor described her as “Just like a dry martini—clean, classic, simple—what you see is what you get!” Let’s hope what we get is a fleet of these craft, thrilling today’s sailors with their blend of classic styling, fine craftsmanship, and thrilling performance.
For more information contact: w-class.com