Design and Construction
Both hull and deck are solid fiberglass, built by the Taiwanese yard Ho Hsing F.R.P. Co. Ltd.. The 37-foot-7-inch LOA sits on a 12-foot-1-inch beam for a length-to-beam ratio of 3.10, and the 20,000-pound displacement carries 8,300 pounds of lead ballast for a 42 percent ballast ratio. With a displacement-to-length ratio of 279, the design falls into the "heavy cruisers" category, giving her the mass and stability profile of a boat meant for sustained passages rather than light-air sprinting. Her capsize screening value of 1.78 and motion comfort ratio of 33.1 reinforce that bluewater-oriented character.
Rig and Handling
The Island 38 is a masthead sloop carrying 681 square feet of sail area on the ISO reference rig, yielding a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 14.8 that rises to 17.7 with a 135 percent genoa. Yachtdatabase's review notes she has more rig than only 42 percent of similar sailboats, indicating she is slightly underrigged. The wetted surface runs about 419 square feet, and the theoretical hull speed for a displacement hull of this length is 7.6 knots. Standing and running rigging dimensions are fully specified: the three halyards (mainsail, jib/genoa, spinnaker) each run 108 feet at 1/2-inch diameter, while sheets range from 37.6-foot jib/genoa sheets to a 93.9-foot mainsheet, all at 0.55-inch diameter, with shorter 1/2-inch control lines for the cunningham, kicking strap, and clew outhaul. Loaded draft varies between 5.51 and 5.81 feet depending on condition, shallow enough to clear most marina entrances.
Accommodations
The Island 38 offers no described berth count, head layout, or galley plan in the material available. The specification block states 80 gallons of diesel and 110 gallons of water, a single 42-horsepower diesel driving one shaft, and an immersion rate of about 1,340 pounds per inch of sinkage that tells you how the boat sits in the water as those tanks fill or empty.
The Verdict
The Nantucket Island 38 is a conservatively rigged, heavily ballasted Taiwan-built cruiser from the early 1980s, engineered around stability and passagemaking rather than speed. Her known specification is thorough on hull, rig, and tankage but silent on interior and service history, which is typical of the undocumented used fleet.
Pros
- Solid fiberglass hull and deck from a known Taiwan yard
- Heavy-cruiser displacement and 42 percent ballast ratio for offshore stability
- Full rigging specification documented for original-equipment reference
- Shallow enough loaded draft for most marina access
Cons
- Slightly underrigged relative to peer sailboats
- No interior arrangement or service history described in available sources
