A Massachusetts entrepreneur has launched a company that is remanufacturing Blackfins, using the deep-vee hulls to build a New England-style inboard express cruiser. The Manchester 29 debuted at the New England Boat Show in February.
In the 1980s and ’90s Blackfin carved a niche in fishboat lore as one of the best-riding offshore vessels. The Blackfin 29 and 32 remain highly coveted boats. “[The Manchester 29] is redesigned to reflect a truly great heritage,” says Peter Alcock, managing member of Manchester Yachts. “We took a proven, older, hand-laid fiberglass hull, stripped it bare and replaced all wiring, plumbing, seacocks, engines and fuel systems. We remodeled the interior and redesigned the exterior.”
Alcock used a 1991 Blackfin Combi for the Manchester 29. It’s a heavily built boat with a solid-glass bottom and sides. Crocker’s Boat Yard in Manchester performed the remanufacture. “This is essentially a new boat,” says Crocker’s Boat Yard owner Skip Crocker. “We rebuilt everything. No effort was spared to make this right.”
Zurn Yacht Design in Marblehead, Massachusetts, designed the windshield and cockpit seating arrangement, and Onboard Interiors, also in Marblehead, designed the interior. The cabin has a V-berth that converts to a dinette with a teak table, a galley with a refrigerator and an enclosed head. The windshield frame, helm dash and the companionway’s louvered door are teak.
Twin 375-hp Crusader gas inboards power the Manchester 29. At about 17 knots, the boat will get around 1 nmpg for a range of 185 miles. “Gas engines have been overlooked,” Alcock says. “The technology going into them has improved substantially. Outboards and single diesels are popular, but these new gas engines are extremely fuel-efficient. Their purchase price is lower [than diesel], and gas is cheaper than diesel fuel.”
The Blackfin rides a variable-deadrise deep-vee hull that measures 59 degrees at the entry and 23 degrees at the transom, says its designer, Charles Jannace. “They’ve got a lot of deadrise to them and a lot of flare, so they’re pretty dry,” says Jannace, 83, who penned the boat in 1980. “Back then, many of the boats were flat-bottomed, and they were poor-running boats, so it was very easy to [design] a boat that was better.”
This article originally appeared in the May 2017 issue.
