boats elliottsloop


Elliott's design combines the cockpit and pilot house into a semi-permanent structure so that the skipper not only has a full view of the sea on all sides of the sleekly designed sloop.

(Sloop design usually features a mainmast mounted between midships and the bow and long boomsprit or boom foot. The modern sloop runs what is known as a Bermuda design which features a large triangular mainmast that runs up the mainmast and is supported by the long boom. This is the type of vessel that, when the skipper calls for a tack, you had better duck; the same is true for a jibe as either maneuver is rather complicated. Running from the top of the mainmast to the end of a bowsprit is a secondary, smaller triangular sail known as the jib or headsail. This is usually a fixed sail so it makes maneuvering somewhat tight in smaller harbors because you can reef the jib, but the bowsprit remains fixed. One class of sloop, known as the gaff-rigged sloop, features a horizontal spar near the top of the mainmast to which the lines for the mainmast are attached and which also provide support for the mainmast.

(Sloops developed by the Dutch in the 18th century tend to be lighter craft and sail as close to the wind as possible, which is known as close-hauling. This means that the sales have to be well-trimmed to keep side slipping forces down and you will also find that the sloop tends to heel over when running with the wind. Sloops also require some interesting crew maneuvering and sail movement when they are sailing against the wind as they tack to a new course; the same is true with the sloop wants to turnabout or jibe.)

The Elliott Tourer is a sleekly designed sloop that not only combines the pilothouse and cockpit into a permanently semi-enclosed feature that gives the skipper protection in rough weather as the wheel will be in the pilothouse or, if the weather is fair the control can be returned to the cockpit5

Since Elliott is the leading designer of the bulb-style keel sloops, you would expect the Tourer to employ some form of long bulb keel and the Tourer series does. The Tourer is also a sloop that is easily handled by one person and can sail close the the wind.