Introduced in 1971, this hull began a long collaboration between Comar and the French design bureau. As the first generation of the Comet line, the 910 also stands at the head of a lineage that ran through the Comet 12 in 1985, before the marque changed ownership.
Design and Construction
The Comet 910 has a solid-fibreglass hull, an iron fin keel rather than a lead keel, and a spade rudder. Her beam is 9.86 feet, giving a length-to-beam ratio of 2.97. That makes her relatively narrow by the standards of modern cruising boats and limits interior volume.
Her ballast ratio is 32 percent, a moderate figure for a fin-keel design of the period. Wetted surface is about 301 square feet, while an immersion rate of roughly 1,044 pounds per inch indicates how heavily she loads for each inch of sinkage when cruising gear comes aboard.
Together, those figures describe a small, traditional-volume racer-cruiser with a fine hull form. The design predates the beamy, volume-driven cruisers that later came to define the category.
Rig and Handling
The Comet 910 carries a fractional sloop rig. Draft varies from 5.58 to 5.88 feet, depending on load, keeping her within the draft limits of most marinas.
The fin keel and spade rudder give her the maneuverability expected of a Groupe Finot design from this period. Her moderate ballast ratio suggests a boat that responds to trim rather than relying on brute stability. In both proportions and concept, she belongs among the lithe cruiser-racers of the early 1970s rather than the heavy-displacement cruisers that preceded that decade.
Accommodations
Below, the Comet 910 has six berths, putting her in the practical family-cruiser bracket despite her sub-30-foot length. The arrangement reflects the early-1970s approach to compact cruising accommodation, when berth count was a primary measure of a small boat’s overnight capability. That capacity also shows Comar intended the 910 as a usable weekender rather than a stripped-out racer.
Verdict
The Comet 910 is a historically significant small fin-keel sloop: the boat that opened Comar’s Comet line under Groupe Finot’s hand. She’s a narrow, moderate-ballast cruiser-racer with an iron keel, six berths, and a draft suited to confined marinas. Her production run of several hundred boats confirms that the design found a market during the 1970s, and she remains a recognizable part of the early Comet story.
Pros
- Early Groupe Finot design that opened Comar’s Comet line
- Draft of 5.58–5.88 feet keeps her within the limits of most marinas
- Six berths in a boat under 30 feet
- Several hundred built
Cons
- Iron keel rather than lead
- Narrow 2.97 length-to-beam ratio limits interior volume
- No later-generation upgrades or refinements are described for this model
