Looking to identify a pocket cabin cruiser I spotted

[Tazling]

My camera battery was flat and I was recharging it when I crossed paths with a very cute little pocket trawler-type cabin cruiser in Calm Channel, BC (just south of Yuculta Rapids).

So I didn’t get a picture (dammit) and have only a verbal description to offer. Length about 30 ft, could well be 28. It looked small. Modest freeboard. White gelcoat all around, no colour. Pilot house takes a halfstep down to a cabin with 3 large square (rounded corners) windows on each side — the most noticeable attribute. Small afterdeck with a gently radiused transom, not square. I think it had a flybridge steering station. Probably a forepeak V berth (the proportions were about right). The overall impression was traditional (not a speed boat), boxy but with radiused corners and edges throughout.

It could have been a Willard I suppose, but it didn’t look like a Willard to me — the aspect ratio wasn’t tall enough and I didn’t think the transom had as extreme a “bathtub” curve as the Willards. Seemed to have an inboard diesel (unless there was a powerful outboard hiding in a well aft).

I’ve been thinking about downsizing as the maintenance burden on my elderly GB32 is getting a bit daunting. This little thing looked just the ticket, but I have no idea what it was.

I am pretty sure I know that it was not a Ranger of any kind, and it didn’t look like the smallest Nordic (other than a vague family resemblance, same general class). It looked kinda like a Ranger Tug and a Willard had a baby...

Any ideas?

 

[Frosty]

Hmmm...

Thought of a Devlin Surf Scoter, but no step down pilothouse. Maybe a different Devlin design? Same with a Rosborough. NT 26 has the step down but only has two windows and no flybridge. 32 has three windows but not typically a flybridge (plus, well, it's 32'). Many of the 32's do have a bimini over the saloon cabintop though (and I have seen one or two with a flybridge where they split the false stack in two, "pulled it apart" and put a flybridge station in between.

Ranger Tugs I don't think have a flybridge until they get up to around 29' ("command bridge").

Could it have been a North Pacific 28 (only two windows in the saloon sides though)?

Outer Reef 26 but.... no three windows.

Camano Troll.... no step down.

Eagle 32? To my eye they look compact for a 32-footer... but only two windows on each side of the saloon.

What was it!?!

I was going to say maybe it was bigger than you thought; but if you have a 32-footer then you have a basis for comparison and obviously it was smaller.

 

[Blissboat]

As Frosty says, it sure sounds like a 32' Nordic Tug.

 

[Barking Sands]

I was just cruising Marketplace and saw this one that sounds similar.

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[Frosty]

@Barking Sands

Can't see facebook; any chance you could show a pic or give a boat brand name? Curious!

 

[Barking Sands]

@Barking Sands

Can't see facebook; any chance you could show a pic or give a boat brand name? Curious!

I dont know what happened. It was only posted like 1 hour when I linked it but its gone now. It was a 1973 Fales Caribe. Had good pics inside and out. Very interesting small boat.

 

[Barking Sands]

I dont know what happened. It was only posted like 1 hour when I linked it but its gone now. It was a 1973 Fales Caribe. Had good pics inside and out. Very interesting small boat.

Sort of like this one.

Fales Caribe 30 Pocket Trawler for Sale | Lighthouse Yachting

A strong, classic Pilothouse full Displacement Trawler based on a bullet proof Colin Archer Fiber glass hull design. This pocket trawler is for sale.

www.lighthouseyachting.com

 

[Frosty]

Thanks! So basically a Willard, but perhaps the different cabin treatment could have made it look less "pointy" in the stern (not that either of them are super pointy but they are double enders).

 

[Frosty]

Perhaps a Sundowner 30? But again only two windows on the saloon sides....

 

[Blissboat]

Perhaps a Sundowner 30? But again only two windows on the saloon sides....

Initially I thought of the Sundowner tug, but their forward-sloping pilothouse windows are so distinctive that the OP would have mentioned that feature, I think

 

[Frosty]

Three windows per (saloon cabin) side
"Broken" cabintop line (i.e. pilothouse)
Flybridge steering (maybe)
Non-canoe stern

Everything I can come up with either doesn't have three windows per side (NT 26, a bunch of others also with two windows per side); doesn't have a pilothouse (Maple Bay 27, plus most of the ones I mentioned above); or has a canoe stern.

The only thing that fits as of yet that I can think of is a Nordic Tugs 32. The three rounded-yet-square "chiclet" windows are so distinctive. I could maybe imagine you thinking it's a smaller boat than your GB 32 even though they are the same size. I mean, they do sit a bit lower to the water than your GB with it's full vertical "storeys." I have seen a few with upper steering stations (and or maybe you saw their typical bimini on the saloon cabin top - usually used for lounging - and thought of a steering station)?

 

[Bmarler]

A devlin design was my first thought also, but I imaged searched them and didn’t find anything with three windows as described.
All rounded corners suggests a production boat of some sort, but I can’t find anything that fits the description. (Besides the Nordic 32)

 

[Tazling]

Sort of like this one.

Fales Caribe 30 Pocket Trawler for Sale | Lighthouse Yachting

A strong, classic Pilothouse full Displacement Trawler based on a bullet proof Colin Archer Fiber glass hull design. This pocket trawler is for sale.

www.lighthouseyachting.com

That Caribe is cute as a button but not the boat I saw…. definitely not canoe stern, no aft cabin hump. Much more in the Ranger/Nordic design family.

 

[Tazling]

The Sundowner is very similar (asks self, could I really be remembering the number of cabin windows wrong?) but I don’t recall the reverse rake front windows — that “expedition/crew boat pilothouse” look. It’s amazing how poor my visual memory is, I sure wish I had got a picture. Also it looks like the sundowner stern is more squared off, less curve.

 

[Tazling]

Well the NT is starting to sound like the best explanation — there was indeed a bimini and I thought I saw the gleam of a stainless flybridge wheel but it could have been something else metallic stored up there.

So maybe it was the baby NT with 2 big square cabin windows and my brain insists on remembering 3 — I recall the word “cute” definitely went through my head. Usually I recognise NTs because of the bold logo somewhere on the sheer, and I don’t recall seeing that, or indeed any paint or stencil or vinyl. It was just all white gelcoat. Almost a workboat look. Anyway, I think my impression of the size is probably more reliable than my memory of the windows. NT 26/28 seems like the correct id.

 

[Frosty]

If it was kinda like an NT 26, but all white..... did you have a look at an image of a North Pacific 28? Maybe? I mean if we're letting the three windows go...