C&C 1988 30 Foot


   A 30-foot boat is big enough to excite expectations yet small enough so they're hard to fulfill. George Cassian, one of the original C&C designers, used to say, "The mid-sized boat is the true measure of the designer." With this new 30-footer, the C&C design team has measured up superbly. She offers more-than-generous accommodation, a cockpit for racer or lounger, and decidely sporty performance. This new entry in the ultracompetetive mid-boat range is likely to make a long career for herself living up to the greatest of expectations.

   A long waterline (nearly 26 feet), a fair underbody, and lots of form stability help the 30 keep the promise of her big sailplan. "Keeping weight low in the keel was a major priority," says C&C's chief designer, Rob Ball, "and it paid off in stiffness enough to let her carry a full sailplan well up into the higher wind velocities." Volume distribution was managed (as it was in the successful C&C 33) so as to make the 30 mannerly as well as fast without flats to pound or corners to tilt her ot of sailing shape. In addition, the signature C&C spade rudder contributes both exceptional control and laudable lift/drag efficiency. And she is the lightest boat for her size that C&C has ever built.    Belowdecks there is more light and air than you'd expect in a boat with a deck. The "privacy panel" forward is one design achievement that creates the open effect; the jumbo light-admitting hatch in the salon overhead is another. Wide-open thinking about the shapes and placement of accommodations details (such as the angled head door and mirror-image galley front) have made this "little" 30-footer into a place big enough for two state-rooms, a central "living room" with dinette and couchlike settee, and all the rest of the basics.
   Among the pleasant surprises that you might not expect are a stowaway boarding platform with a ladder that folds out of a pleasingly clean transon, rod rigging as standard equipment, a Harken mainsheet system, a standard propane stove/oven, and a 12-volt vacuum cleaner. The standard boat with a Yanmar 2GM20F diesel, less sails and electronics, sells for just under U.S. $63,000.