Design and Construction
Cole's late-1970s drawing board produced a solid fiberglass hull on a fin keel with a spade rudder, the deck and hull both of solid glass rather than cored laminate. The hull alone is glass reinforced plastic anchor, and the builder specified lead ballast. At just under 35 feet on the waterline length of 34.97 feet overall, with a beam of 10.99 feet, the design carries a length-to-beam ratio of 3.18 and an immersion rate of about 1,339 pounds per inch, meaning she sits heavily for her size and resists being pushed down by load or by a stiff breeze. The wetted surface runs about 376 square feet, and the capsize screening value of 1.92 anchor placed her within the range that, by that formula alone, would admit the boat to ocean racing — a number consistent with the many Sydney-Hobart entries the class produced.
Rig and Handling
The Pawtucket 35 is built with a masthead rig anchor, and the specified sheet dimensions are generous: mainsheet of 87.4 feet at 14 mm diameter, with jib, genoa, and spinnaker sheets all around 35 feet and the same 14 mm diameter. Those figures speak to a powerful downwind and reaching inventory. Cole paid close attention to the offshore racing rules of the day anchor, and the racing history shows it — a heap of Pawtucket 35s contested the Sydney-Hobart over the years, and the example Moon River II was the smallest yacht in a fleet racing to islands off New Guinea yet came through a savage storm without a problem. Owners report the design is strong and seaworthy and easy to sail double handed, a quality that helps explain its popularity as both a racer and a cruiser.
Accommodations
The Pawtucket 35 is more roomy than 54 percent of comparable sailboat designs anchor, a meaningful figure in a 35-foot hull with a 10.99-foot beam. One longtime owner of Moon River II described her as a wonderful cruising boat for a couple, and that vessel's inventory — gas oven and stove, marine toilet with macerator, electric fridge added during refit — sketches a practical two-person interior rather than a charter crowd layout. The refit history of that boat also included a big battery bank and large solar panels on the back davits, pointing to a platform amenable to self-sufficient cruising without a rebuild of the core accommodation.
Ownership and Refits
The 1979 Peter Cole-designed Moon River II illustrates the kind of mid-life work these boats see. Her owner had the mast out and all standing and running rigging replaced, fitted big solar panels on the back davits, installed an electric fridge and a big battery bank, and carried a solid twin-hulled dinghy. Electronics on that boat included HF and VHF radios, a depth sounder, a Navman GPS log and course plotter, and a Raymarine autopilot with a Coursemaster 100 as backup. A 20 hp Bukh diesel provides propulsion anchor, and the list of owner-installed gear shows the hull readily absorbing modern cruising systems.
The Verdict
The Pawtucket 35 is a Cole-designed Australian cruiser-racer with a genuine offshore record and a capacity for double-handed passage-making. The solid glass hull, lead-ballasted fin keel, and masthead rig produced a boat that was fast by design and seaworthy by experience, popular in Australian waters through the 1980s and proven in the Sydney-Hobart. She is no lightweight coastal toy, but a serious 35-footer whose capsize screening and immersion rate mark her as built for the sea.
Pros
- Peter Cole design from the late 1970s with explicit attention to offshore racing rules and a fast brief
- Solid fiberglass hull and deck, lead ballast, fin keel with spade rudder
- Capsize screening value of 1.92; extensive Sydney-Hobart participation history
- Roomy for her size — more spacious than 54% of comparable designs
- Owners report strong, seaworthy, and easy to sail double handed
Cons
- Draft of 5.91 to 6.21 feet limits access to shallow anchorages and smaller marinas
