Design and Construction
The Rowan 22 is built of fibreglass for both hull and deck, with a triple keel giving a draft of roughly 2.92 to 3.22 feet depending on load, which lets her settle into shallow marinas. At 4,080 pounds displacement with 1,400 pounds of iron ballast, her ballast ratio sits at 34 percent and her displacement-length ratio of 312 places her firmly among heavy cruisers. The beam is a modest 8.25 feet against an 18-foot waterline, an l/b ratio of 2.67 that reads as a narrow, purposeful little hull rather than a beamy weekender. A capsize screening value of 2.06 and a Motion Comfort Ratio of 19.7 underline the stable, damped character Roy built into her.
Rig and Handling
She carries a masthead sloop rig, with sheet specifications that tell the story of a small boat worked with modest gear: jib and genoa sheets of 22 feet at 3/8 inch, a 55-foot mainsheet, and 48.4-foot spinnaker sheets. The prototype and early demonstration boat, however, revealed a serious steering flaw. The original rudder was enormous — twice the area of the later standard pattern — with a huge leading-edge cutaway to clear the prop, and the keel dropped straight down from the stern to carry the cutlass bearing. That oversized blade made the boat refuse to steer in reverse under power and shook the helm so violently forward that cold-weather use brought on white finger; under sail the shake worsened with speed and dragged her down. Production boats moved part of that cutaway into the keel, and owners who swapped to a shortened Jouster rudder or built a larger-bladed replacement found the helm transformed — lighter, dinghy-like in the turns, and pointing better.
Performance
Owners describe a safe and capable sea boat, and one Rowan logged eleven knots through the water in a storm off the Channel Islands, with others regularly touching nine, well past her 5.7-knot theoretical displacement speed. She sails far beyond her yardstick rating of 98, and a large ghosting genoa plus a boomed, self-tacking inner staysail were found to lift light-air performance markedly. Roy's underpowering kept her manageable, but she refused to come about in a Force 7 off Yarmouth until the rudder issue was addressed.
Known Issues
The defect cluster centers on the rudder and aperture. The prototype's oversized rudder with its prop cutaway caused dangerous steering and helm vibration that owners cured only by replacing the blade. Later hulls shifted the aperture partly into the keel structure, and at least one owner cut the keel aperture with an industrial jigsaw and made it good in GRP. Any surviving early boat with the enormous original rudder should be assumed to suffer the reverse-steering and white-finger shake until proven otherwise.
The Verdict
The Rowan 22 is a small, heavy, genuinely seaworthy cruiser let down only by a rudder design that the factory itself altered mid-production. With the right blade she is a joy to helm and punches far above her rating.
Pros
- Heavy, stable hull with triple keel and shallow draft for sheltered exploring
- Proven capability in Channel storms well beyond theoretical speed
- Roy's underpowered brief makes her forgiving for family crews
Cons
- Original oversized rudder caused uncontrollable reverse steering and violent helm shake
- Early aperture geometry needed owner modification to sail properly
