Winthrop Warner 35 ft Bermudan Ketch 1979

The kind of little ship one might have dreamed of when browsing the pages of The Rudder magazine, SANDPIPER is living, breathing, beautiful and practical testimony to two of the leading personalities of the ‘wooden boat revival’ that happened around them in the 1970s, Bud McIntosh-trained boatbuilder, Gordon Swift, and pioneering broker and 'boat maker', Bill Page, her first owner. Presently owned by one of that movement’s earliest alumni and major, hands-on grassroots evangelists, Donn Costanzo, SANDPIPER has led a blessed life, pampered and enjoyed by four owners who have given her whatever she has required; so well and lovingly was she built that she has never had or needed a restoration. In her design that could only be American, Winthrop L. Warner achieved perhaps the perfect blend of moderation and comfort in the hull with powerful but manageable adventure in her ample ketch rig. SANDPIPER is truly an American dreamship.

2022-2023
- Engine out of boat for overhaul
- New shaft
- Reconditioned propeller
- New stuffing box
- New rubber shaft gland
- New engine mounts
- Rebuilt fuel injection pump
- New water pump
- New Morse cables

WINTHROP L WARNER DESIGN NO. 36 (& 71 & 101)

THE DESIGNER - Winthrop L. Warner (1900-1987)

"Born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1900, Warner began his own Naval Architecture career there in 1929. An M.I.T. graduate and apprentice at the Electric Boat Company in Bayonne, New Jersey and the Portland Boat Yard in Portland, Connecticut, as well as a draftsman for John G. Alden and William H. Hand, Warner was well equipped to design yachts."

Mystic Seaport Museum - intro to the Winthrop L. Warner Papers

"He has a reputation for precise drafting, and his designs are admired for their strikingly good looks. They typically emphasised strong sheerlines and dramatically shaped ends, with superstructures carefully made to compliment these dominant curves.

Daniel B. MacNaughton - in The Encyclopedia of Yacht Designers

THE DESIGN

Winthrop L. Warner's highly attractive design number 36 of 1932/1933 not surprisingly became built in numbers - in cutter, ketch and yawl versions - from 1934 through 1940 after the drawings were published in The Rudder magazine February 1933 as 'The Architect's Own Boat' and then again in 1936 in both The Rudder and Yachting.

Until SANDPIPER and her cutter-rigged sister TENACITY were built by Gordon Swift in the late 1970's, the last boat built to the design had been SEÑORITA in 1940 by Wilmington Boatworks, California. In the post-war ownership of Louis A. Valier she kept the flame alive as TERE, between 1946-1959 sailing 25,000 miles of Pacific circuits, San Diego - Marquesas - Society Islands - Austral Islands - Hawaii Islands - Santa Barbara. Valier became a lecturer in celestial (and researcher into Polynesian) navigation at the Bishop Museum Planetarium, Hawaii, and in 1961/1962 commissioned the 49 ft replacement TERE (II) from Warner.

THE BUILDERS - Gordon Swift (1925-2014) & Bill Page (b. c1938)

Gordon Swift left farming after giving in to his love for boats and their building by learning his future trade and working with the best possible educator, David C. 'Bud' McIntosh at Dover, New Hampshire - when wooden boatbuilding was still just about the norm. In 1976 he set out on his own, building wooden cruising boats for the next 30 years, and he became a popular teacher at the WoodenBoat school, Brooklin, Maine.

Bill Page's love affair with boats began with his parents and eventually informed his career path. A competent, self-taught boatbuilder from a very young age, he eventually gravitated to brokerage and became a pioneer in re-homing classic boats once they became something special instead of the norm. Bill Page finished SANDPIPER as her first owner.

- Eastern white cedar carvel planking
- Long leaf pitch pine (yellow pine, US) garboards, sheer and broad strakes
- White oak longitudinals
- c 3 Tonnes lead ballast keel + some internal lead ballast
- White oak frames
- Copper rivet fastened
- Substantial hanging knees at mast
- 15 mm / 5/8 in Marine plywood deck
- 2 x Layers fibreglass sheathed
- Long leaf pitch pine (yellow pine, US) superstructures
- 12 mm / 1/2 in v-groove pine / 9 mm 3/8 in marine ply coachroof
- 2 x Layers fibreglass sheathed
- Locust capping rail, grab rails and hatch/ skylight risers
- Virginia cedar companionway and fore hatches

GENERAL
- Attractive 'Down-East' finish: painted surfaces, varnished wood trim
- Custom cast bronze stanchions & bases

FROM AFT
Taffrail
- Mooring fairleads port and starboard with chafe strips
- Ensign staff socket
- Mizzen sheet anchor
Aft deck
- Mooring cleats port and starboard
- Mizzen sheet padeyes port and starboard
- Dorade box and cowl
- Stern light
- Raised mushroom vent

SELF-DRAINING COCKPIT
- Deep, safe and sociable
- Raked and curved coamings faired to trunk
- Raw teak benches port, starboard and aft; stowage lockers under
- Raw teak raised lazarette hatch
- Traditional ship's wheel
- Custom bronze binnacle pedestal
- Mizzen mast position
- 2 x Barient 27 2-Speed bronze self-tailing winches (1989)
- Throttle and engine panel
- Raised bridge deck
- Mainsheet horse and cleat

TRUNK CABIN
- Companionway; washboards and sliding hatch
- Varnished grabrails port and starboard
- Stove pipe socket over galley
- Bronze and locust boom gallows frame
- Butterfly skylight over saloon
- Thick plexiglass panes with bronze rod protection
- 2 x Dorade boxes with bronze cowls
- Low level cabin heater flue
- Forward hatch over lobby; circular port
- Port and starboard running lights
- Rain eyelids over forward opening ports

SIDE DECKS
- Deck prisms port and starboard over WC and lobby
- Staysail sheet and genoa furler leads
- Panama fairleads port and starboard; associated mooring cleats

MAINMAST POSITION

FOREDECK
- Main mast position
- Boomed staysail sheet horse; associated tackles
- Deck prisms port and starboard over forecabin
- Teak anchor chocks
- Bronze 2-speed manual anchor capstan
- Bowsprit bits
- Chainpipe
- Bronze stemhead cap
- Mooring fairleads port and starboard
- Panama fairleads port and starboard through knightsheads
Bowsprit
- Anchor rollers and stowage at bowsprit
- Staysail boom gooseneck
- 2 x Bobstays to forestay and genoa furler

GROUND TACKLE
- 'Yachtsman' (fisherman) anchors
- 60 lb / 27 kg
- 50 lb / 23 kg
- 42 lb / 19 kg
- 2 x Galvanised chain & rode

GENERAL
- Satin finished pine bulkheads
- Locust and butternut joinery and trim
- Off white painted hull ceilings, deckhead and trunk sides
- Locust sole boards and companionway ladder
- Berth and settee cushions upholstered in Sunbrella

FROM AFT
- Down 5 x steps locust companionway ladder over engine box
- Bronze opening port in bridge deck bulkhead

GENEROUS QUARTER BERTH TO STARBOARD

ATHWARTSHIPS GALLEY
To port
- Stainless steel sink
- Concordia bronze fresh water hand pump
- Cherry counter, also athwartships over engine
- Stainless steel top loading refrigerator/ icebox
- Engine driven Sea Frost refrigeration unit recharged 2022
- Icebox drain tap
- Dish racks and stowage under counter
To starboard
- Luke Heritage Gimballed LPG cooker
- 3 x Burner hob + oven
- Ample stowage
- Raymarine chartplotter display on swing-out bracket
- Ship's electrical panels
- 2 x Lamps with shades

SALOON
- Settee berths with pilot berths outboard to port and starboard
- Pilot berths extend inboard to give more width
- Shelves port and starboard at beam shelf
- Stowage lockers under pilot berths
- Cherry drop leaf table with long cutlery drawer
- Book shelves forward
- Gimballed oil lamp
- Clock and barometer
- Butterfly skylight in deckhead
- 4 x Deck prisms

PASSAGE FORWARD
- Forehatch in trunk deckhead with circular port

HANGING LOCKER & CHEST OF DRAWERS TO STARBOARD
- Force 10 LPG cabin heater
- Deck prism over hanging locker

WC COMPARTMENT TO PORT
- Stainless steel fold up washbasin
- Bronze hand fresh water pump
- Linen lockers
- Many shelves
- Lamp with shade
- Deck prism over hanging locker

FORECABIN
- Partly under trunk cabin forward
- Berths to port and starboard ('v-berths')
- Shelves outboard; lockers under
- 2 x Bronze opening ports in forward trunk

FOREPEAK
- Propane tank vented through hull
- Rope locker
- 2 x Stowage bins

RIG
- Sitka spruce spars
- Finished with Interlux Bristol Beige
- Hollow section main mast
- Main boom
- Hollow section mizzen mast
- Mizzen boom
- Bowsprit
- 2 x Bronze #2 halyard winches
- 1 x Bronze x 3 halyard winch
- Harken roller furler
- Stainless steel standing rigging
- Merriman bronze turnbuckles
- Stainless steel halyards with Dacron tails

SAILS
Dacron (2017)
- Mainsail
- Mizzen
- Roller furling genoa
- Boom staysail

CANVASWORK
- Off white mainsail boom cover
- Off white mizzen boom cover
- Off white staysail boom cover
- Awning (2022)

MECHANICAL
The easily disassembled engine box provides unusually excellent all-round access. The engine enjoyed a major off the boat overhaul winter 2022-2023 detailed in the Refits section above.
- Westerbeke 107 40 hp diesel
- Fresh water cooled
- Hurth 2:1 gearbox
- 3 x Blade 17 x 11 bronze propeller

ELECTRICAL
- 12 V DC system
- 2 x 12 V Batteries (2022)
- Master switch
- 110 V AC Generator driven from 12 V system
- Battery charger

TANKAGE
- c.136 L / 36 US Gal fuel in 1 x stainless steel tank
- c.265 L / 70 US Gal fresh water in 2 x stainless steel tanks
- 95 L / 25 US Gal Holding tank
- Vented thru hull propane tank for stove and cabin heater

NAVIGATION
- Ritchie 5 spherical steering compass at binnacle
- Raymarine chart/ radar plotter on swing out bracket

- Whale Gusher diaphragm bilge pump
- Engine driven emergency bilge pump
- Rule Electric bilge pump
- Fire extinguishers
- Life preservers
- Life sling

- Boat hook
- Nylon dock lines
- 5 x Fenders
- 4 x Genoa sheet snatch blocks