The CS 36 Merlin is a Canadian

sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminolo ...

, that was designed by

Tony Castro Tony Castro (full name Antonio Maria de Lancastre de Mello e Castro), Conde das Antas, Conde da Lousa, Visconde de Pernes, born 1952, is a yacht designer, known for numerous winning designs. Born in Lisbon, Portugal, he has been designing sailing ...

and first built in 1986. The design is out of production.

Production

The boat was built by CS Yachts in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, who completed 100 examples between 1986 and 1990. The CS 36 Merlin was produced for almost a year side-by-side with the

CS 36 The CS 36 is a Canadian sailboat, that was designed by Raymond Wall as a cruiser and first built in 1978. Production The design was built by CS Yachts in Canada who completed 400 boats between 1978 and 1987. The boat was a commercial success ...

, which then became known as the ''CS 36 Traditional''. After the production overlap the Merlin replaced the CS 36 in company's line. About 20 of the 100 Merlins built were supplied to charter operators for their fleets.

Design

The CS 36 Merlin is a small recreational

keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open w ...

, built predominantly of vacuum bag moulded

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

Kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s a ...

with a

balsa wood ''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' bei ...

core above the waterline. It has a

masthead sloop A masthead rig on a sailing vessel consists of a forestay and backstay both attached at the top of the mast. The Bermuda rig can be split into two groups: the masthead rig and the fractional rig. The masthead rig has larger and more headsails, ...

rig, an internally-mounted spade-type

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...

and a fixed fin

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

. It displaces and carries of ballast. The boat has a draft of with the standard keel and with the optional

wing keel The winged keel is a sailboat keel layout first fitted on the 12-metre class yacht '' Australia II'', 1983 America's Cup winner. Design This layout was adopted by Ben Lexcen, designer of '' Australia II''. Although Ben Lexcen "had tried the wing ...

. The boat is fitted with a Swedish

Volvo Penta Volvo Penta was founded as Penta in 1907 with the production of its first marine engine, the B1. The Penta company soon became an established internal combustion engine manufacturer, which in 1927 delivered the engine for Volvo's first passenge ...

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

of as standard equipment. The fuel tank holds and the fresh water tank has a capacity of . The boat was available with a long list of options, including a

or fibreglass hull, a swim platform or conventional transom; a , diesel engine or a turbocharged engine, a tall mast or regular mast and by the time production ended in 1990 there were four keel configurations: shoal, wing, deep and performance bulb. As a result of the long options list, no two boats outside the charter fleets were built in the same configuration. The boat has a

PHRF Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other. The aim is to cancel out the inherent advantages and disadvantages ...

racing average handicap of 141 with a high of 141 and low of 141. It has a

hull speed Hull speed or displacement speed is the speed at which the wavelength of a vessel's bow wave is equal to the waterline length of the vessel. As boat speed increases from rest, the wavelength of the bow wave increases, and usually its crest-to-t ...

of .

References

External links

* {{CS Yachts Keelboats 1980s sailboat type designs Sailing yachts Sailboat type designs by Tony Castro Sailboat types built by CS Yachts

Production

Design

See also

References

External links