Design and Construction
The hull and deck are both solid fiberglass. The boat’s defining feature is its swing keel, a pivoting lifting foil that suits coastal waters and shallow inland passages.
With the keel raised, draft can be as little as 1.90 feet under load, allowing access to marinas and rivers that a conventional 29-footer couldn’t enter. Lowered, the keel gives a draft of 4.92 ft for offshore stability. The boat displaces 7,937 pounds and carries 2,646 pounds of iron ballast, for a ballast ratio of 33 percent.
The Delphia 29 has a 25-foot-16-inch waterline, a length-to-beam ratio of 2.89, and roughly 279 square feet of wetted surface. These figures describe a beamy, moderately loaded hull. A displacement-length ratio of 222 places her in the moderate-racer category. Her capsize screening value is 1.96, while a Motion Comfort Ratio of 22.4 completes a profile that favors controlled, predictable motion over outright speed.
Rig and Handling
The fractional sloop rig carries 350 square feet of sail, producing a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 14.08—enough to keep the boat lively without requiring a racing crew. Her theoretical displacement hull speed is 6.7 knots.
The standing and running rigging consistently use a 10 mm diameter. The jib and genoa sheets are each 28.2 feet long, the mainsheet runs 70.5 feet, and the spinnaker sheet measures 62.1 feet. Those lengths suit the compact cockpit and its straightforward lead angles.
An immersion rate of about 857 pounds per inch means the boat settles predictably as crew and stores come aboard. That’s useful for a design intended to move between light inland use and loaded coastal cruising. The trade-off is that the shallow draft with the keel raised limits windward ability in open water.
Accommodations and Tankage
Below, the Delphia 29 offers above-average headroom for a boat of her length—a genuine advantage in a 28-foot hull, where many designs require the crew to stoop. The swing-keel trunk necessarily shapes the saloon footprint, but the beam of nearly 9 feet 10 inches gives the interior a breadth that feels larger than the LOA suggests.
Tankage is modest: 19 gallons of fuel and 20 gallons of water. Those capacities suit a coastal cruiser better than a long-range liveaboard and restrict the boat’s cruising range.
The Verdict
The Delphia 29 is a specialist’s delight: a solid-fiberglass Polish design whose pivoting keel reduces the usual compromise between shallow draft and sea-kindly behavior. She’s quick enough to entertain, stable enough to reassure, and has enough headroom to make time below comfortable. Her main limitations come from her size and tankage rather than her engineering.
Pros
- Pivoting swing keel supports both coastal cruising and shallow-water inland use
- Above-average headroom for a 28-foot hull
- Moderate-racer figures combined with a Motion Comfort Ratio of 22.4
- Solid-fiberglass hull and deck throughout
Cons
- Fuel capacity of 19 gallons and water capacity of 20 gallons restrict range
- Shallow draft with the keel raised limits windward ability in open water
