Nor'Sea 27 World Crusing Trailerable

Trailer Boats

The Magazine for today's boating

July 1977

Note: This is a July 1977 reprint - for background information only. Over the years we have made many changes and improvements in the boat and its equipment.

You can trailer her around the country or sail around the world

By Gene Esquivel

Boats and boating have born out some interesting concepts. More often than not, it's someone's dream to find that perfect boat of perfect adventure.

Such was the case with Dean Wixom who had a dream of something that may not have seemed feasible to the average boat builder.

The Nor'Sea 27, according to Wixom, was conceived nearly four years ago over a campfire in Baja California's Comcepcion Bay.

"We were on a motorcycle trip at the time", said Wixom, "and my brother Stan and I were wondering. How could we bring our boat down here? We figured it would take at least a month. There wasn't a trailerable on the market at the time that would provide the cruising features that we wanted. So, at that point in time, we decided to build one of our own."

For the next year, the Wixom brothers known in the world of motorcycles for their fairings searched for a year to find a naval architect who could duplicate their concept of a true trailerable cruising sailboat.

"We never had a true meeting of the minds with many of the designers," Wixom said. "That is until we met Lyle C. Hess. We told him what we wanted and in less than an hour, he sketched the genesis of what was to be the Nor'Sea 27. It was to be double ender that would be capable of handling big seas. Because it was going to be a double ender, we knew that we'd have to give up some space. Lyle then came up with the idea of an aft cabin which would provide more berthing space and still be a solid 27-footer with immense load-carrying capacity."

Unlike some long-distance cruisers with full keels, the Nor'Sea has a "cut-away" full keel which is one reason behind its good performance. There is a bulbous entry on the keel which also is distinctive for a boat this size.

According to Wixom, the company spent twice as much tooling the boat as another boat its size because of the lapstrake hull.

The Nor'Sea was built much like a wooden boat with careful tooling and strict construction techniques. It took three months of hand-sanding before the finished plug was completed.

"It was our objective from the start to build the finest, most costly boat of its size range," said Wixom. "We knew that there wasn't a trailerable of this quality in the market today and that we felt it necessary to be very careful in the construction phase."

"We also knew that we would be appealing to people who would be stepping down from a larger boat so it was necessary to spend the equivalent time of tooling a 40-footer."

Due to a strong advertising campaign, the Nor'Sea was made known quickly to cruising markets throughout the United States.

"Twenty boats were sold before the second boat hit the water," Wixom said. "We kept boat No. 1 for a while, but it has since been sold to R.E. Montague of Tomales Bay, California. He's planning to trail the boat to several Western rivers that are currently thought to be unnavigable for sailboats. He'll probably startle quite a few farmers in the process."

The trailerability of the Nor'Sea is accomplished with a custom trailer built by Trail-Rite. The rig is built to handle 10,000 pounds gross weight. It has double surge brakes on all four wheels and comes with a 10-foot extension tongue and a large ramp wheel.

For those who don't plan to trail, the rest are would-be world cruisers, Wixom said.

"One thing we've found among our current buyers is that there are big boat sailors who now can trail their boats to places they were never able to go before such as the Caribbean, the San Juan Islands and Baja California," Wixom said. "For example, one of the Nor'Sea owners out of San Francisco will trail the boat to Maine and back in the summer."

The Nor'Sea comes in two versions short and tall rigs. The short rig is designed for areas where the wind blows a consistent 20 knots or more such as the San Francisco Bay area and Hawaii. For our evaluation sail, we had a short rig and later on had a chance to test her against a tall rig once out in the open ocean.

Dimension-wise, the mast on the short rig is 30 1/2 feet and 34 1/2 feet for the tall rig. The difference in overall sail area is 376 square feet for the taller version compared with 335 for the short model.

The test boat was located in Newport Beach, California and moored in Newport Bay. We motored the Nor'Sea out on the 9-horsepower Faryman diesel. A Yanmar engine also is available.

The first time on the tiller prompted the remark: "It sure doesn't feel like a 27-footer," a statement often stated by skippers who sail the boat for the first time, according to Wixom.

In the early going, the Nor'Sea ghosted along smoothly which certainly wasn't indicative of a heavy boat. Part of the reason for this is her precise lap strakes which push the water away from the hull.

For a boat that displaces 7000 pounds, it was difficult to find any fault in steerage or tacking. We tacked just outside the mouth of the Newport jetty and headed up the coast toward Huntington Beach. The wind came up a bit and for a few "pipe dream" moments we tried to catch an Ericson 27, better noted for racing than cruising. We were surprised to be gaining on her, although Wixom, beaming like a proud father over one of his children, took the whole matter quite lightly. Naturally, you'd expect to get a heavy amount of a boat's promotion from the president of the company, but we were experiencing a cruiser sailing nearly hull-to-hull with a racer. Less than 20 yards from the Ericson, she tacked, so we'll never know if we could have taken her in an honest-to-goodness race.

The fact remains, however, that in medium winds, the Nor'Sea was clipping right along. During the photo-taking session, the winds were much stronger with the boat nearly rail down. The Nor'Sea went well under the choppier conditions and according to our test crew, was clocked at 9 mph.

From bow to stern, the Nor'Sea represents quality and class that isn't available in your every-day small cruiser. The cabin area with six feet of head-room is light and airy. The reason for the open look is that the company didn't fall into the "all-teak-interior'' syndrome. Instead, there's a combination of sugar pine and maple in addition to complementary uses of teak. All of the deck hardware is bronze. Nor'Sea had to have all of the bronze cast and tooled and made all of its own ports, plus many of the cleats.

The cockpit area is great for a party of four since the traveler is aft and completely out of the way. Shaped in a 6-by-4 1/2 foot rectangle, the winches and mainsheet cleat, plus most of the other lines are easily accessible. There are 6-foot-6 berths both in the main and aft cabins to easily sleep four. The galley and range are conveniently placed near the companionway with a chart table just forward of the bulkhead. A couple of extra conveniences not often seen are a dinette table that slides both up and down and a backrest that separates the vee berth forward from the main cabin.

At this point, it goes without saying that the Nor'Sea 27 is a very complete boat as it comes from the factory. However, the boat comes in kit form at several stages of completion from a hull only to the finished boat.

When asked if a larger Nor'Sea is on the drawing boards, Wixom only smiled and said:

"Every boat builder plans to build a bigger boat ... at this time, however, there are no definite plans."

And with the success that Nor'Sea has had in one short year, it's going to be a tough act to follow.