Raider sailboats: one name across three unrelated lineages
"Raider" is not a single boatbuilder's story. The best-documented Raider is a small, self-righting daysailer designed by John Drawe and built by Johannsen Boat Works in Florida -- the Raider 16 and its more performance-oriented Raider 16 Sport sibling, later joined by the Raider II. A separate, much thinner-documented lineage traces to naval architect John Cherubini, whose family boatyard on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River built the Raider 33 through the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. A third boat, the Raider 35, a 35-footer first built in 1969, predates both and belongs to yet another lineage again. Nothing beyond the shared name connects the three.
Origins and ownership
Raider Sailboats began life in Macon, Georgia, before relocating to Sebastian, Florida, a move the company said was made to facilitate further development in coastal waters. In a review published in the early 2000s, boats.com reported the company had by then completed hull #20, with dealers established in the Southeast, California, and Michigan. The line was ultimately built by Johannsen Boat Works in Vero Beach, Florida, whose principal, Mark Johannsen, also produces the well-known Trinka line of tenders.
The New Jersey lineage is older and thinner in the documented record. John Cherubini built his boats at his family's own boatyard on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, rather than at Hunter Marine, where several of his other designs went into production. The Raider 33's run in our records spans 1977 to 1983. Cherubini died in 1983.
The lineage also includes the Raider 35, a 35-foot sloop first built in 1969 -- the oldest Raider on record, from an earlier era than either of the two lineages above.
The designers
John Drawe, a retired auto engineer who also designed the Raider line of snowmobiles, said his objective in designing the Raider was to create a fast boat that does not require an expert to sail. boats.com described the resulting design as a high performance skiff built for easy handling. Sail and rig development for the line was handled separately, by Waters Sail Loft in Columbia, South Carolina.
John Cherubini began studying naval architecture at the Westlawn School of Yacht Design in 1938, at age 17. Cruising World's 1980 Sailboat Show Annual profiled him as the designer behind "classic plastics" including the Raider 33 and the Cherubini 44 that later carried his family name.
Construction through the eras
The Florida-built Raiders used flared hull sections filled with flotation, which SAILING Magazine's John Kretschmer wrote made the boat light and stable and gave it the ability to self-right after a full knockdown. The laminate schedule called for biaxial E-glass and vinylester resin, and Kretschmer credited the boat's curved hull sections -- which demand more sophisticated tooling than a flatter hull -- with making it both visually appealing and structurally sound. The builder, in its own account to boats.com, said it had elected to retain a full transom as an integral part of the hull and deck design "to offer greater structural integrity and security for the crew," and reported that beach-launch testing in the surf at Daytona Beach had gone well, with the boat's oversized cockpit drain tubes proving effective.
Lines and generations
The line was sold in two versions: the standard Raider, fitted with a two-piece aluminum mast, and the Raider Sport, which carried a tapered carbon spar with all lines led aft, slightly more sail area, upgraded dual sail controls, and a DIAX/Dacron laminate mainsail. The Raider II followed in 2011. The Raider 33, at 33 feet, and the Raider 35, at 35 feet, are both larger, keel sloops from the two older, unrelated lineages -- neither is a variant of the Florida-built daysailer line.
Who Raider is for
A buyer drawn to John Drawe's small, self-righting daysailer design, built by Johannsen Boat Works, should look to the Raider 16, 16 Sport, and Raider II. A buyer chasing John Cherubini's design pedigree -- familiar from the Cherubini 44 -- should look instead to the New Jersey-built Raider 33, a much thinner-documented boat from an unrelated company, built decades before the Florida-built daysailer line existed. The Raider 35 is older again, and predates both.