Hinckley Pilot 35 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Lineage

The Pilot 35 grew out of Sparkman & Stephens work that began with Design No. 539 after the war, stretched through a 1955 wooden "new Pilot" (No. 1219, eight of which Hinckley built in wood), and finally became Design No. 1727 in 1962 — the fiberglass Hinckley Pilot 35 built exclusively by Henry R. Hinckley & Co. anchor. The 1962 revision settled the numbers most associated with the boat: 35'9" overall, 25' on the waterline, 9'6" beam, 5'0" draft, roughly 554 square feet of sail, and about 13,500 pounds displacement. A total of 125 fiberglass Pilots were built, including eight built in Chile using tooling made with Hinckley's assistance, and of the 117 Maine boats, 25 were yawls.

Construction

What separates the Pilot from lighter modern cruisers is the sheer mass of its solid glass structure. Nowhere is the solid glass hull less than 3/8 inch thick, and the laminate in the way of the keel runs up to a full inch anchor. The 4,200-pound lead keel was attached with 3/4-inch Everdur bolts, and extra fiberglass went into the chainplates and longitudinal stringers meant to stiffen the hull fore and aft. Hinckley built her in a clam-shell mold, a response to the slight tumblehome that would have complicated release from a standard one-piece form. The hull and deck were joined with the house-wide method of bedding the deck on wet mat over a six-inch inward flange, screwing it while the bond set, then bolting a toerail through both. Practical Sailor judged the Pilot one of the first glassboat-era cases of keeping the quality while taking hours out of building her.

Rig and Handling

The Pilot is a masthead sloop with elementary sail controls and a short rig that makes her less than jazzy in light air. Her full keel carries an overabundance of wetted surface and the lift/drag inefficiencies that come with it, and the keel-hung rudder gives her an inconveniently wide turning circle. Still, despite overlong spreaders and over-wide sheeting angles typical of her era, she goes well to windward. To some she may seem tender beside modern beamier boats with deeper ballast, and her low freeboard can invite the occasional wave aboard, yet her full ends keep her acceptably dry in most conditions. The short waterline paired with long overhangs makes her hobby-horse, but the long keel gives a gradual motion rather than the snap-roll of some fin-keelers.

Accommodations

Below, Hinckley sheathed the fiberglass hull in Philippine mahogany, later Honduras, so that except for the painted overhead not an inch of fiberglass shows. The interior wood was robust, down to inch-thick teak and holly cabin sole treads. Pilots were built with four, five, and six-berth layouts, the five-berth plan chosen in about one quarter of the boats.

Known Issues

Owners are near-unanimous that she steers badly in reverse under power, a real nuisance in close quarters. Engine access has always been an annoyance, a point carried from the original gas-engine layout through later diesel conversions.

Refits and Ownership

The boats were originally fitted with Sea Scout or Atomic Four gas engines, but well over half of today's owners have swapped in diesels, the Westerbeke 4-99 supplied by Hinckley being most common; the record also notes a Westerbeke 4-107 FWC of 35 horsepower as fitted equipment. Almost half of the Pilots have been returned for Awl-Gripping, new interiors, carbon fiber spars, and similar refit work — a sign of an owner group willing to invest.

The Verdict

The Hinckley Pilot 35 is a heavily built, traditional long-keel cruiser that trades outright performance for seaworthiness, gradual motion, and a warm enclosed interior. She is no light-air rocket and asks patience in reverse, but her construction and lineage make her a durable classic.

Pros