With a masthead sloop rig and a choice of fin keel or centerboard, the Coronado 25 was intended as a weekender.
Design and Construction
The Coronado 25 measures 25 feet overall, with a 20-foot waterline and an 8-foot beam. Its solid-fiberglass hull has a spooned, raked stem and a raised counter leading to an angled transom. Beneath the waterline, it carries an internally mounted spade-type rudder, controlled by a tiller. Buyers could choose either a fixed keel or a centerboard model.
The pan-liner construction introduced on this boat was a production innovation. Molding the interior as a single bonded unit gave the structure added rigidity without framed joinery while lowering production costs.
Displacement is 4,500 pounds, including 2,150 pounds of lead ballast. The resulting ballast ratio of nearly 48 percent gives the boat a steady footing for its length.
Rig and Handling
The masthead sloop rig carries 299 square feet of sail. Combined with the spade rudder, it makes the Coronado 25 responsive in close quarters.
In the reader pages, one longtime owner described steering the boat by body weight alone on a broad reach. With the tiller tied off, the crew could move forward or sit on the bow pulpit, shifting position to hold course. That self-steering tendency suggests a forgiving boat for short-handed coastal daysailing.
Accommodations
The standard layout sleeps five. A double V-berth fills the forward cabin, while the main-cabin dinette table drops to form a second double. An aft quarter berth lies to port.
The galley is also on the port side, just forward of the companionway ladder, and includes a two-burner stove, an icebox, and a sink. The head is to starboard, just aft of the bow cabin.
One owner, who had kept his boat since 1978, said it could accommodate as many as seven people for a couple of nights in practice, though he also felt it would benefit from another inch of headroom. A yacht designer reportedly used one as a personal daysailer, and several owners have valued the Coronado 25 simply as a stable platform for sitting at anchor.
Verdict
The Coronado 25 is a thoughtfully engineered small cruiser. Its pan-liner construction was ahead of its production era, while its balanced helm makes it an approachable daysailer and weekender. It isn’t spacious by modern standards, and the headroom reflects its 1960s proportions, but the layout is efficient and the build straightforward.
Pros
- One-piece molded interior pan liner added hull stiffness and reduced production costs
- Spade rudder and moderate sail plan allow broad-reaching under weight steering
- Practical five-berth layout, with a dinette that converts to a double and a port quarter berth
- Choice of fixed keel or centerboard for trailer or mooring use
Cons
- Headroom is slightly limited, even by period standards
- Accommodating more people than the designed berths allow is a compromise
