INFORMATION ABOUT THE GRAMPIAN CLASSIC 22

You asked for information on the Grampian Classic 22. I owned a Grampian Classic 22 in the early 1980's. Several companies built versions of these boats under different model names. Grampian called them Classic 22 and later for a very short time Grampian also called them a C&C 22. I worked at the 1965 New York Boat Show in the Grampian Booth on the Classic 22 and still have literature from that show about the boat. I believe that the Paceship Blue Jacket is a version which was slightly lengthened as a part of an outboard motor well redesign. I believe Hinterhoeler (which shared a set of stairs at the 1965 boat show with the Classic 22) also built a version (called a Niagara 22 or 23 if I remember right) for a very short time as well and that the Blue Jacket may have been built with the Hinterhoeler tooling.

In a general sense I really liked these boats a whole lot. They sailed very well in a wide range of conditions, easily sailing to her PHRF rating.

Mine had a small cuddy cabin with two berths and a head. There had originally been a small galley unit in my boat but it had been removed by a previous owner. I also had a boom tent that was designed to be convertible to a cockpit awning.

The various versions of the C&C 22's had a fractional rig. I added a cascade style backstay adjuster, which helped upwind. I also added a spinnaker. (My boat came with a wooden spin pole and I bought a used lightning spinnaker, which worked well enough for me to do acceptably well in most races.) I also added reef points. These boats are a little narrow and a little tender and lack self-bailing cockpits, so I added the reef for single-handing in a building breeze. I beefed up the vang by adding a cascade. I never really completely liked the somewhat antiquated mainsheet arrangement and had considered installing a cross cockpit traveler or one on the coaming aft of the helmsman but I sold the boat before I changed it.

The downsides of the design was that most did not have a self bailing cockpit, which meant that you needed to keep a boom tent on them on the mooring and they needed to be bailed out after a major storm. If you took a bad enough knockdown you can flood them. They were supposed to have full flotation and bouyancy tanks but I can't tell you that these were adequate to keep one afloat if swamped.

Some versions of these boats had outboard wells. I sailed on one of those a few time. It was not very well thought out. Besides the drag of the motor in the water, the lid was too low for a modern outboard to fit and still be able to close the lid. The shape of the opening in the hull would bring water into the boat at speed, and also would preclude raising the motor when sailing. It took a sweet sailing boat and really compromised it in many ways. My Classic 22 had an outboard bracket, which did not work all that well in a chop, but was a great set-up otherwise. I also had a long oar that I could rig off of one of the winches and row the boat around in light air.

Build quality was good for that era. On my boat the decks were cored with foam, the hardware was bronze (although the last ones had marininum). Bulkheads and flats were nicely tabbed for strength, and there was quite a bit of internal structure for a boat of this era. They had cast iron keel which I had to fair and which was a bit of a pain, and also they had stainless steel keel bolts, which I would be suspicious of on a boat used in saltwater after all this time.

There was a minor issue where the deck molding met the seat molding at the after end of the cuddy. I ended up reglassing this joint with epoxy and cloth. This is not all that bad a job since the joint is maybe 18" long on each side and is so easily accessible.

My boat had a mahogany with chrome on bronze rub rail. Other versions had teak. Some had stainless steel or bronze rubstrakes as well. I ended up restoring the mahogany rail on my boat, which was in very rough shape and a so later owner replaced the rail with teak.

While they do have fixed keels requiring a crane or travelift to put on trailer, they were very light (1650 lbs if I remember right) making them easy to tow.

If I had to summarize my feelings about these boats: They were great boats for their era which is why I bought one back in the 1980's. The boat treated me very well. I sailed all over the Chesapeake. But they are old boats now, and need to be checked very carefully. They also have some limitations in terms of the non-self-bailing cockpit and outboard motor well on some. I was offered one some years ago for nearly free that an owner had cut the cockpit sole out of planning to add a self-bailing cockpit. I liked the boat so much that I thought very long and hard before deciding that I already owned enough boats.

Submitted by:  Jeffrey Halpern