Hustler sailboats: one name, two unrelated boats
The name "Hustler" belongs to two boats with nothing in common beyond the word itself. One is a British production sailboat line built in Norfolk from 1969 into the early 1980s, styled first by Holman & Pye and later by Stephen Jones. The other is an 18-foot one-design catboat class that has raced Massachusetts Bay since 1923, its boats built one at a time by the sailors who sailed them. Anyone researching a Hustler should be careful not to conflate the two.
Origins and ownership
The British Hustler range was marketed by Island Boat Sales, whose West Mersea proprietor, John Harrison, introduced a third and smaller model, the Hustler 25.5, in 1972 after two larger Hustlers had already proven themselves, according to Practical Boat Owner. Harrison lent the first Hustler 25.5, a boat named UFO, to Richard Matthews, who bought her the following year and went on to win the EAORA championship; the wider success of the Hustler and UFO ranges led Matthews to found Oyster Marine in 1973, with Landamores continuing on as Oyster's builder. Designer Don Pye was sufficiently persuaded by the boat to order a 25.5 for himself, per PBO.
An entirely unrelated "Hustler" has raced Massachusetts Bay since the class was established in 1923: an 18-foot one-design catboat built not by a commercial yard but by the local sailors who owned them, according to US Sailing's own class history. The class mould has since passed to the Massachusetts Bay Hustler Association, and roughly 188 of the catboats have been produced in total.
The designers
On the British side, Kim Holman's design practice became Holman & Pye when yacht designer and racing rival Don Pye joined around 1960-61; David Cooper joined as a third partner in 1965, and the renamed firm went on to design for production yards including Bowman, Wauquiez, Seamaster, Hustler, and Oyster, according to Yachts and Yachting. Some 5,000 yachts from the Holman & Pye office have sailed the world, and Holman eventually handed the practice to Pye and Cooper, who between them had more than 4,000 boats built to their designs, per Classic Boat Magazine; the firm carries on under David Cooper's stewardship. Pye died in August 2019, aged 93. A second design era began later, when Stephen Jones's cold-moulded wooden Xaviera, built by Landamores and launched in 1976, signalled the start of what Hustler marketed as its "SJ" range, including the Hustler SJ32.
Construction through the eras
Landamores of Wroxham, Norfolk, fitted out the fibreglass hulls that Tyler Boat Company molded for most of the range -- Aquafibre molded the smaller 25.5 instead -- and the yard built around 130 Hustlers across all models in total, according to Landamores' own company history. A former Landamores builder, Kevin Webster, recalled cutting his teeth on the Hustler 25, 30, and 35 in the yard's early years, per an account on Oyster's own site. The Hustler 35's hull came from Tylers with its interior fitted by Landamore; roughly 86 were built between 1971 and 1980. The later, Stephen Jones-designed Hustler 30 -- also sold as the SJ-30 -- was built by the British yard Verlvale Ltd as well as other yards, in fibreglass with a fin keel, and was also sold for home completion, meaning quality varied hull to hull, per yachtdatabase.com. The Massachusetts Bay catboats followed an altogether different model: every one was built by the local sailors who sailed it, not by any commercial yard.
Lines and generations
The first-generation range, drawn by Holman & Pye, opened with the Hustler 30 in 1969-70 and continued through the Hustler 35 in 1970 and the Hustler 25.5 in 1972; the 30 remained in production until 1976, with a total of 84 built. Stephen Jones's SJ range followed later in the decade: it included the Hustler SJ32, which traces to Xaviera's 1976 launch, the Hustler 36 -- a Three-Quarter Tonner of which only ten were built before Oyster took over marketing the design and replaced it with the Oyster SJ35 -- and the SJ-30. None of this touches the Massachusetts Bay catboat, a single 18-foot one-design class rather than a numbered model range.
Who Hustler is for
Buyers drawn to the British Hustlers are buying into Holman & Pye and Stephen Jones cruiser-racer pedigree, with a direct line to Oyster Marine's own origin story. Buyers drawn to the Massachusetts Bay catboat are buying into a locally built one-design racing class with no commercial yard behind it at all. The two are worth keeping straight before assuming a "Hustler" listing means the same boat twice.
