Oyster 45 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Construction

Holman & Pye worked the 45 in collaboration with Oyster's in-house consortium, and the design directive was explicit: more volume and better motion through the water than the 435. The architects increased hull volume to enable three genuine cabins, a step change from the older boat. Construction is to Lloyds-approved specifications, with a solid, stringer-reinforced GRP hull laid up by hand to a careful laminate schedule. The deck is balsa-cored, sealed with Sikaflex along an in-turned flange and fastened mechanically with 6mm stainless bolts. Completed hulls were laminated at a facility in Wroxham and brought overland to Fox's Marina on the River Orwell near Ipswich for outfitting by Oyster's own craftsmen. The standard keel is Oyster's "High Performance Bulb," cast in antimony-hardened lead and fastened externally to a heavily reinforced stub, while the rudder is a foam-filled fiberglass blade on a solid stainless stock protected by a stainless-reinforced skeg.

Rig and Handling

The rig by Selden is a two-spreader masthead sloop with a Hood Seafurl jib furler and a conventional full-battened main. A Whitlock-engineered helm gives terrific response, and the move to an external bulb keel makes her stiff and responsive under sail. Writing in Cruising World, test sailors found that in breezes of 11 to 15 knots true she carried steady speeds to weather in the 6- to 7.3-knot range and could sail to within 30 degrees of apparent wind. The 45 also offers improved sailing performance over the 435, with a spacious centre cockpit and uncluttered deck making her a delight to liveaboard.

Accommodations

The Deck Saloon cabin configuration raises the deckhouse subtly, with fixed wraparound windows of stout 9mm tinted glass drawing in ambient light. The saloon itself is class-leading and extends over the full beam, with a large L-shaped dinette to port opposite a settee and nav station to starboard. The interior is finished in the owner's choice of teak, cherry or American white oak. Sleeping eight with cabins for six, she provides an aft master stateroom with a double berth, built-in settee and private head with shower; a bow double in the V-berth arrangement; and a guest cabin with upper and lower bunks sharing a head with shower. The galley sits port side just aft of the dinette and outboard of the companionway. Fuel and freshwater tanks are fiberglass, set beneath the saloon sole, and the standard 59-horsepower Volvo with saildrive sits amidship, reachable from the galley to port or the workshop/wetlocker to starboard.

Equipment and Systems

The auxiliary is a Volvo MD22 four-cylinder of 59 horsepower driving a saildrive unit. The electrical scenario is fastidiously executed: a 12-volt DC house feed runs from paired Varta deep-cycle 6-volt batteries rated 230 amp-hours over 20 hours, with a separate 88-amp-hour 12-volt battery for engine starting. Mast height above the design waterline with instruments is 62 feet, and the 100-percent sail area measures 886 square feet, giving a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 13.24 against a displacement-to-length ratio of 285.

The Verdict

The Oyster 45 is a thoughtfully evolved successor to the 435, trading a little of nothing for genuine three-cabin volume, a full-beam saloon, and a stiff, responsive bulb-keel hull that performs well on the wind. She is a serious liveaboard cruiser with considered systems and a raised deckhouse that avoids the bulk of a full pilot house.

Pros