The BayCruiser 20 was the second cabin boat design built by Swallow Yachts, then known as SwallowBoats, the Cardigan Bay Lugger (CBL) beating it to the water by a couple of years. The CBL was a development of the Storm series into a cabin boat, whilst the Baycruiser grew out of the water ballasted BayRaider 20.
The first BayCruiser, Daisy Grace, was launched in July 2009.
Subsequently the class name morphed into BayCruiser 20, to reflect the developments of the larger 23 and 26 foot designs, and Daisy Grace‘s sail number evolved from BC01 to BC20 001, which, if little else, shows a fine sense of commercial confidence on the part of SwallowBoats.
The BayCruiser 20 shares many of the distinctive features of the preceding BayRaider, but with a few specific modifications:
Rig: the twin masted ketch/yawl/kawl(?) arrangement is maintained, but the mainsail is Bermudan on a full height carbon fibre mast with a boom plus kicking strap along its foot. This avoided any need to clamber onto the cabin roof to reef the sail. It has conventional slab reefing, which is all done from inside the cockpit. The jib is a conventional slightly overlapping one with twin jib sheets and a fore-stay which is there for security. All of the tension is put into the jib stay.
Ballast tank: there are two ballast tanks, one under the cockpit floor and one under the Vee berth in the forward part of the cabin. These are linked by a hose and both are filled from a reverse self bailer in the cockpit tank. This split tank arrangement allows the main cabin floor to go right down to the keel of the boat, giving extra headroom in the cabin. The tanks can only be emptied using a manual bilge pump in the cockpit.
Hull: The hull is deeper than the BayRaider’s, with considerably more free-board. This again gives a higher cabin and a secure fore deck with high bulwarks. The basic layout is large cabin/small cockpit. Four can fit into the cockpit, but you are knee to knee. Two is perfect and one just fine. The later cabin boat, the Bayraider Expedition, is modelled much more closely on the Bayraider, with a small, low cabin, no foredeck bulwarks and a large cockpit. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Nice to have a choice.
