The View from the Helm

I launched my new Paine 15 earlier this week. She is a spectacular performer- stiff and fast and perfectly balanced and super safe. You can find out more about her, and see more photos, on this website. Just click on PAINE 15.

Had my 75th birthday this past week. Happy to report that I seem to be thriving, and am back to work designing and promoting new sailboats. It looks to me as if the interest in sailing old, completely depreciated sailboats is at an all time low, with prices for thirty-year or older fiberglass boats near zero. At the same time I have been sought out by a number of highly committed, admittedly wealthy folks whose greatest joy is a brand new, necessarily hugely expensive, small sailboat. In the past two years I have sold three such new designs- the French and Webb built Paine 14 and Paine 15, and the Michael York built York 18. Two of the former have been sold and built, and two of the latter are on order nearing completion. A third boatbuilder will be meeting with me later this month whose intention is to commission a 22-foot version of my upmarket Herreshoff inspired daysailors. The vast combined product of the now essentially defunct fiberglass sailboat building industry is now depreciated to scrap value and nothing but a bother for anyone to own, but a new fleet of elegant, high performance, easily maintainable new daysailors seems to be rapidly emerging, all designed it appears by me.