Design and Construction
The hull is solid fiberglass with lead ballast and a keel-with-centerboard arrangement that gives the boat two very different personalities underfoot. With the board raised she floats in 1 foot 4 inches; lower it and she draws 4 feet 4 inches. That swing from 1.33 to 4.17 feet of draft is the defining trick of the design, letting her poke into creeks and shoals that would ground a conventional fin-keeler and then stand up to a breeze once the board drops. The outboard rudder pivots on a pintle rather than a post, and the tiller attaches straight to the blade — a simple, shallow-friendly arrangement with no vulnerable skeg or exposed shaft.
Rig and Handling
The rig is a study in friendly ambiguity. Technically a masthead ketch, with the mizzen forward of the rudder pivot, the Nimble 24 is almost always called a yawl because that tiny aftermost mast sits so far back it reads as a yawl's riding sail. Whatever the label, the split rig gives manageable sail area — a reported 252 square feet — spread across two short masts rather than one tall stick. Owners find she holds a steady course to weather like a much larger full-keel boat, crediting the long stub keel, and one owner lashed the tiller and sailed closehauled in 25 knots without touching her. She tacks through roughly 100 degrees, and with the centerboard raised and tiller secured she'll fall off a few degrees downwind yet keep sailing upwind — a useful self-steering tendency. The centerboard itself doubles as a depth sounder of sorts: owners report feeling it bump bottom as a signal that it's time to come about.
Accommodations
Below, the boat is a compact coastal cruiser rather than a mini-ocean racer. Owners mention a chart table for passage planning, brass lamps for warm light at anchor, and a gimbaled stove on which one owner brewed coffee without a spill — small touches that speak to a usable, if snug, interior. On deck, a deep lazarette locker in the cockpit keeps the running rigging coiled and ready, and the outboard well shelters the engine without intruding on the cabin.
Ownership Notes
Nimble Boats was founded in 1985 by Jerry Koch, who partnered with Ted Brewer on the Nimble 20 and 30 before the 24 appeared as a lengthened derivative. Koch died in 2003, and few Nimbles were built after the early 2000s, which places the 24 among a finite and now aging population of quirky American cruisers.
The Verdict
The Nimble 24 is a characterful shallow-draft cruiser that trades absolute speed for shoal-water freedom and surprising weatherliness on her stub keel. The split ketch-or-yawl rig is easy to handle short-handed, and the centerboard's kick-down draft warning is a genuinely clever cruising aid. She is, however, a small and narrowly beamed boat with limited interior volume, and her production run was short enough that finding one in good order takes patience.
Pros
- Centerboard yields 1'4" raised draft for gunkholing and 4'4" lowered for windward grip
- Holds a steady, full-keel-like course to weather per owner reports
- Split rig manageable short-handed; mizzen aft invites the "yawl" nickname
- Centerboard bump signals shallow-water tacking point
Cons
- Narrow 8.25-foot beam limits accommodation space
- Finite build count after Koch's 2003 death; few built post-early-2000s
- Outboard well and tiller-direct rudder are simple but exposure-prone in hard use
