Nicholson 35-1 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Construction

The hull is solid fiberglass with an encapsulated lead keel — the casting is dropped into a molded cavity and heavily glassed over. The lead is concentrated low in the molded keel, and with a 42 percent ballast-to-displacement ratio the boat is reasonably stiff by any measure anchor. The underbody carries a moderate fin keel and skeg-mounted rudder, a configuration that gives decent light-air performance despite a smallish sailplan. Some hulls were built under Lloyds survey, though not all, and Nicholsons was an early user of isophthalic polyester resin, albeit only in the gelcoat. The deck is solid glass with very little exterior wood — a teak caprail, teak grab rails, and teak ply cockpit seats are about the sum of it, lending the boat a clean, almost austere look.

Rig and Handling

The rig is a simple masthead sloop with double lower shrouds and single airfoil spreaders, and the working sail area divides almost evenly between foretriangle and mainsail. The mast is a tapered, anodized Proctor spar foamed inside to deaden sound. Early boats carried roller-reefing booms while later ones went to slab reefing; halyard winches are mast-mounted, and on most early boats those winches are adequate for hoisting but too small to easily send a person to the masthead. Standard jib sheet winches are Lewmar 40s or 43s. The mainsheet traveler bisects the cockpit just forward of the wheel, so you step over it to reach the side decks. A PHRF rating of about 156 puts her some six seconds a mile slower than an Ericson 35-2 but roughly 20 seconds faster than some other contemporaries.

Accommodations

Below, headroom runs over six feet throughout, and the long main-cabin windows make for a bright interior. The forward cabin has V-berths that do not taper to a point, giving real foot room, though ventilation there is poor — a low-profile Tannoy ventilator in the aluminum deck hatch was standard but moves little air. A chain pipe between the berths to the chain locker on many boats limits any double-berth conversion. Aft is a full-width head. All boats have a U-shaped dinette to starboard with a permanent drop-leaf table; later boats mount that table on a heavy tubular aluminum base bolted to the sole. The original straight settee with outboard pilot berth was deleted on many boats, trading the berth for storage and a visually narrower cabin. All berths came with lee cloths as standard — unusual for even serious American cruisers. The galley has a small sink, a five-cubic-foot icebox outboard next to the stove, and a standard gimbaled two-burner Flavel propane stove with oven, though the 10-pound propane supply is paltry.

Cockpit and Deck

The cockpit is enormous in volume and deep, giving excellent protection from seas and spray, with a molded-in dodger coaming reminiscent of S&S designs like the Tartan 37. The seats themselves are short and not very comfortable against a high, near-vertical coaming. A bridgedeck protects the companionway, but the high coamings could let the cockpit fill nearly to the hatch top in a major pooping; later boats added large flapper-protected transom pipe scuppers alongside the big cockpit scuppers. Shroud chainplates are heavy stainless "hairpins" just inboard of the low bulwarks, bolted through the beam shelf and approved by Lloyds. Those low bulwarks give an enormous sense of security under sail, and the wide side decks carry a flattened grab rail atop the cabin trunk.

Known Issues

Engine access is poor in either the early hydraulic-drive or later V-drive installation. Early boats are recognizable by a prop shaft emerging from the aft end of the keel and use a hydraulic drive with the engine facing aft under the bridgedeck and the hydraulic motor in the bilge aft of the main cabin; later boats move the engine further aft under the cockpit with a V-drive and exposed shaft. On V-drive boats with a quarterberth you can reach the engine front through that berth. Forward-cabin ventilation is weak by design. Early boats also lack pressure water and hot-water shower, and fill the molded fiberglass water tank from inside with no deck fill.

The Verdict

The Nicholson 35-1 is a serious cruiser's cruiser: stiff under her low-placed lead, well-protected in a deep cockpit, and fitted out with offshore-minded details like standard lee cloths and a Lloyds-approved chainplate scheme. She is no lightweight racer, and the early hydraulic drive plus poor engine access demand a buyer's mechanical patience, but as a medium-displacement bluewater boat she rewards the accustomed hand.

Pros