Pyramid 660 Buyer's Guide
The Pyramid 660 is a 21.8-foot fractional-sloop racer designed by Carl Schumacher and built by Pyramid Boat Works from 1982, with only a few hulls completed. On the used market she is a rare, lightly built day racer rather than a cruiser, and a buyer should approach her as a small ultra-light displacement boat with a surprisingly powerful rig.
Layouts on the Used Market
The Pyramid 660 is a small monohull of 21.8 feet with a fractional sloop rig, fin keel, and spade rudder. With only a few built, no distinct used-market layout variants exist beyond the original Schumacher design: a compact racer with solid fiberglass hull and deck, minimal accommodation, and a focus on day sailing rather than cruising living space.
Equipment and Common Upgrades
Buyers should focus on the rig rather than expect factory-fitted electronics or comfort gear. The fractional rig is significantly overrigged for her size, with a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 35.4 on the reference sail and 39.8 with a 135 percent genoa. Running rigging lengths are precise: halyards at 66.8 feet, genoa sheets at 21.8 feet, mainsheet at 54.5 feet. A buyer should confirm original-spec lines and a serviceable winch set.
What to Inspect
The Pyramid 660 has no structural defects, blistering, or rigging failures in the available review material, so the inspection centers on the boat's inherent design limits rather than known faults. Confirm the capsize screening value of 2.61 and understand that no offshore modifications should have been attempted — this is not a boat altered for bluewater use. Verify the draft by loading the boat as you would sail her; the 3.90 to 4.20 foot range is load-dependent, and a hull sitting deep suggests accumulated unrecorded weight. Inspect the solid fiberglass hull and deck for impact damage rather than core issues, since no coring is present to rot. Measure the running rigging against the known lengths — mainsheet at 54.5 feet, genoa sheets at 21.8 feet, halyards at 66.8 feet — to catch shortened or substituted lines that signal amateur re-rigging.
Buyer's Takeaway
- Confirm the fractional rig matches the overrigged original specification
- Load the boat and check draft stays within the 3.9–4.2 foot band
- Look for solid-glass impact damage, not core failure
- Verify halyard and sheet lengths against factory dimensions
- Accept the low comfort ratio as a day-sailing limitation, not a defect