The Merit 25 is an American trailerable

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 terminology ...

that was designed by

Paul Yates Paul Francis Sanchez Yates is an American filmmaker, artist, and musician. Yates attended NYU for photography, received a BFA in film from SUNY Purchase in 1993 and received his M.F.A. in directing from AFI Conservatory in 2006. Yates began wor ...

as a

Midget Ocean Racing Club The Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) is an American association based in Severna Park, Maryland, that promotes and organizes ocean racing for small sailboats under a handicapping rule. History Founded in 1954, the club was formally organized a ...

(MORC) racer and first built in 1978.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 164-165. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page 297.

International Marine S&P Global Inc. (prior to April 2016 McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013 The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financ ...

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

, 2010.

Production

The design was built by Merit Marine in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The company built 780 examples of the design, starting in 1978, but it is now out of production.

Design

The Merit 25 is a 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 wat ...

, built predominantly of

fiberglass 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 cloth ...

, with

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

wood trim. It has a fractional

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

rig, a

raked stem The stem is the most forward part of a boat or ship's bow and is an extension of the keel itself. It is often found on wooden boats or ships, but not exclusively. Description The stem is the curved edge stretching from the keel below, up to ...

, a slightly

reverse transom A transom is the vertical reinforcement which strengthens the stern of a boat. This flat termination of the stern is typically above the waterline. The term was used as far back as Middle English in the 1300s, having come from Latin ''transvers ...

, 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 aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

controlled by a

tiller A tiller or till is a lever used to steer a vehicle. The mechanism is primarily used in watercraft, where it is attached to an outboard motor, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn the rudder. ...

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. The boat is normally fitted with a small

outboard motor An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom. They are the most common motorised method ...

for docking and maneuvering. The fresh water tank has a capacity of . The boat is normally fitted with a small

for docking and maneuvering. Accommodations include a forward "V"-berth and two main cabin berths that extend under the cockpit to save space. The steel mast support is at the foot of the "V"-berth. The

galley A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used ...

has a sink, plus an

ice box An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrige ...

used as a companionway step. A stove was a factory option. The portable

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

is located just aft of the "V"-berth and has a curtain for privacy. The boat has internally mast-mounted

halyard In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line (rope) that is used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The term ''halyard'' comes from the phrase "to haul yards". Halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of n ...

spinnaker A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach (wind at 90° to the course) to downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually n ...

-pole lift and

outhaul An outhaul is a control line found on a sailboat. It is an element of the running rigging, used to attach the mainsail Parts of a sail#Corners, clew to the boom (sailing), boom and tensions the Sail components#Edges, foot of the sail. It commonly ...

, plus an internally-mounted reefing system. The 4:1

mainsheet traveler A traveller is a part of the rigging of a boat or ship that provides a moving attachment point for a rope, sail or yard to a fixed part of the vessel. It may take the form of anything from a simple ring on a metal bar or a spar to, especially in a ...

is mounted in the middle of the cockpit. A

boom vang A boom vang (US) or kicking strap (UK) (often shortened to "vang" or "kicker") is a line or piston system on a sailboat used to exert downward force on the boom and thus control the shape of the sail. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as ...

and

Cunningham Cunningham is a surname of Scottish origin, see Clan Cunningham. Notable people sharing this surname A–C *Aaron Cunningham (born 1986), American baseball player *Abe Cunningham, American drummer * Adrian Cunningham (born 1960), Australian ...

are standard equipment. The

jib A jib is a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast of a sailing vessel. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bows, or to the deck between the bowsprit and the foremost mast. Jibs and spinnakers are the two main types of headsail ...

is controlled by two blocks on rails and two cockpit-mounted winches. Two additional winches are mounted on the cockpit roof got the halyards. The design 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 171 with a high of 185 and low of 165. 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-tro ...

of .

Operational history

The design won the MORC Internationals three times. Richard Sherwood, describing the design in 1994, wrote, "the accent is on racing rather than cruising. Wetted surface is low, lines aft are flat, the keel and rudder are high aspect. She planes." In a 2010 review Steve Henkel wrote, "according to one unproven but not necessarily false story, a J/24 disappeared into designer/builder Paul Yates’ garage in 1978, and some months later reappeared as the first Merit 25. The two designs are indeed similar in many ways, But the Merit is judged by many to be more comfortable, faster in light air, and less expensive—at least in the San Francisco Bay area, where she was spawned. Best features: She is fast ... The cockpit has backrests of a reasonable height for comfort. The cabin is well-organized for short cruises compared with other boats of the same ilk. She is easily trailered, though launching via hoist is infinitely easier than at a ramp. Worst features: Merit 25s that have been raced hard for a number of years sometimes develop an unusual structural problem: the keel begins to flex at the point of attachment to the hull, requiring a major reinforcement job. This happens primarily, if not exclusively, to post-1984 hulls in which the cabin soles have been lowered to give increased headroom—a design change that reduced the structural integrity of the hull in the area of the keel ..." The Spinnaker Sailing Club of

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

has a fleet of 15 Merit 25s. They describe the boats as, "a solidly built 25-foot sloop that seats five comfortably in a self-draining cockpit. Despite relatively simple control systems, the Merit has the durability and flexibility for comfortable, all-season sailing in the Bay Area, where typical wind speeds can range from near zero to above 25 knots."

References

External links

* {{Trailer sailers and Trailer yachts worldwide Keelboats 1970s sailboat type designs Sailing yachts Trailer sailers Sailboat type designs by Paul Yates Sailboat types built by Merit Marine

Production

Design

Operational history

See also

References

External links