Paine Apogee 50 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Practical Sailor’s extended look at Scoots, the second boat in the series, launched in 1994, remains the clearest account of how the Apogee 50 behaves in cruising trim.

Design and Construction

Chuck Paine gave the Apogee 50 a fairly straight sheerline and the maximum waterline length available before the ends begin to look strained. The result is a 51-foot hull measured over its sugar-scoop stern, with a 45.8-foot waterline and a 14-foot beam. Its winged keel keeps the designed draft to 6 feet and under 6.5 feet when loaded. The low-slung pilothouse and nearly flush decks keep the profile unobtrusive. Lowering the cockpit sole beneath the pilothouse preserves standing headroom without raising the silhouette.

Exterior wood is limited to the cockpit. Teak coamings and a teak sole were fitted over the owner’s objections for boat-show display; the coamings now wear semi-permanent canvas covers. There’s no wooden toerail, and stainless steel grabrails are fitted elsewhere on deck.

A watertight bulkhead separates the forward storage garage from the owner’s stateroom. A second watertight bulkhead, fitted with a custom watertight door, isolates the engine and machinery space from the living area. The forward garage holds spare sails, a spare dinghy, spare lines, and the anchor chains.

Aft, the sugar-scoop transom serves as more than a swimming platform. Its lower step is a ventilated fiberglass box for a 6-gallon gasoline tank, while the next step incorporates a hinged hatch that exposes the liferaft. Massive Harken padeyes for a drogue are fitted in the inside corners.

Rig and Handling

The Apogee 50 carries a powerful sail plan that keeps it firmly in performance-cruiser territory. Scoots was designed and built specifically for singlehanded sailing.

A multi-function electric winch on the port side of the cockpit shelter handles the large, full-batten mainsail. Control-line tails stow in shallow bins, and openings in the forward face of the shelter are sized to pass the lines while limiting water ingress.

Three Furlex headsail furlers let the boat sail as a true cutter. A conventional heavy staysail sets on the inner furler, while the outermost carries a high-cut Yankee jib topsail. A #3 jib for heavy-air upwind sailing lives on the inner masthead furler. Downwind, the two masthead headsails can be set on poles to opposite sides.

This flexible arrangement has limits. Because the slot between the masthead stays is narrow, the outer-furler headsail must be rolled most of the way in for tacking. The two masthead stays also make it impossible to achieve adequate headstay tension for heavy-air upwind sailing, since each stay carries roughly half the load. Each stay carries roughly half the load.

Practical Sailor also noted that the combination of fin keel, exposed propeller, and spade rudder has a real propensity for catching fishnets and lines. On Scoots, a centerline stainless steel line deflector and Spurs cutters ahead of the three-bladed Max-Prop feathering propeller mitigate that risk.

Cockpit and Offshore Protection

The low-profile pilothouse provides excellent shelter without giving the boat a tall silhouette. The lowered cockpit is the necessary tradeoff: in heavy weather, the dropboards at the foot of the companionway must remain fitted to seal the opening up to main-deck level.

A stainless wire running between padeyes in the cockpit footwell provides a harness clipping point. The pilothouse has two seats protected from the weather, along with chart space, radar, and the primary B&G Hydra displays. A centerline opening hatch in the doghouse improves ventilation in fair weather.

Accommodation

Inside, the spaces are large and open, making the interior feel bigger than the hull suggests. Scoots has only two sleeping cabins: a large owner’s cabin forward for use in port and a smaller quarter cabin intended for use at sea. There is one large head, positioned aft near the companionway.

That layout favors offshore function over conventional cruising accommodation. It won’t suit crews looking for multiple cabins, but it gives a short-handed crew spacious living areas and separates the in-port owner’s cabin from the sea berth.

Ballast, Machinery, and Systems

Two freshwater tanks are built high beneath the deck and well outboard so they can also serve as ballast tanks. The system can pump 200 gallons to windward for stability on a reach or beat. In very light air, the water can instead be moved to leeward to induce heel and steady the sail plan.

A small Kubota diesel directly drives both a 200-amp alternator and the watermaker pump. Running it for a couple of hours each day keeps the 1,000 amp-hours of batteries charged and the water tanks full. The engine room also includes a workbench with a compact drill press.

Refit and Ownership

Later additions to Scoots include a radar arch and permanent Bimini that blend with the original design. The arch carries a Furuno scanner clear of sails and lines, with communications and navigation antennas mounted to either side. A solar array sits atop the Bimini.

Morris Yachts now owns the tooling for the Apogee 50, a relevant consideration for the series’ long-term support.

The Verdict

The Apogee 50 is a thoughtfully engineered, small-series offshore cruiser. It trades a conventional multi-cabin cruising layout for singlehanded competence, shoal draft, and clever ballast on demand.

It isn’t aimed at sailors who want several cabins or a tall rig for club racing. For the serious passagemaker, however, its sheltered working areas, short-handed sail handling, and carefully considered offshore systems reward close study.

Pros

Winged keel keeps designed draft to 6 feet and under 6.5 feet when loaded
Water-ballast tanks and watertight bulkheads contribute to stability and damage control
Purpose-built for short-handed offshore sailing, with electric mainsail handling
Low profile and sheltered cockpit provide excellent protection from the weather

Cons