S2 8.5 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Construction

The hull is a solid hand layup with excellent glasswork and gelcoat, though slight roving printthrough shows on the topsides and minor hard spots mark where interior furniture and bulkheads attach anchor. The deck molding is cored with end grain balsa, and the hull-to-deck joint uses an inward-turning flange dropped onto the deck, bedded in flexible sealant, and through-bolted every six inches through the full-length slotted aluminum toerail, with additional bolts across the stem. All deck hardware is properly through-bolted, but pulpits, cleats, and winches use only nuts and washers beneath the deck rather than metal backing plates. A heavy semi-rigid vinyl rubrail at the sheerline—S2’s “crash rubrail”—is black when new and dulls to chalky gray on older boats. Ballast is a 3,000-pound lead casting epoxied inside a hollow keel shell, and much interior structure is plywood glassed to the hull with neat fillet bonding. Chainplates are stainless flat bar bolted to bulkheads and plywood gussets, properly backed with stainless pads, while the stemhead fitting is a stainless weldment through-bolted and gusseted inside.

Rig and Handling

Her simple masthead rig carries airfoil spreaders and internal tangs, with a deck-stepped mast in a stainless plate and Hall spars. Standard North sails feed a boom with internal outhaul and two internal reef lines led to cam cleats, while halyards and Cunningham run aft to a pair of Lewmar #8 winches, with optional #16s. The main is trimmed by a six-part Harken rig at the boom end and a Kenyon traveler on the aft coaming; headsail sheets use two-speed Lewmar #30s. The internally mounted spade rudder is wheel-steered with an emergency backup tiller. On the racecourse her PHRF of 174 to 180 compares favorably with peers of her size and type.

Accommodations

Below, the layout is conventional: a double V-berth forward, a full-width head aft of it with a shower and large hanging locker, closed off by solid doors from both cabins. The main cabin has two straight settees—neither full length, though the port foot tucks under the galley to sleep—and a fold-down table seating four. The starboard settee’s aftermost foot folds to an armrest, leaving a gap the plan calls a “charting area” though no table was offered; above it sits what one reviewer called the best electrical panel seen on a 28-footer, with locking battery switch and room for 14 breakers. A notably large quarterberth avoids the usual head-bump, and the standard sole is carpet-covered fiberglass with teak-and-holly optional. The hull and overhead are lined in carpet-like fabric, leaving only the head floor pan as exposed glass.

Galley and Cockpit

The port-side companionway galley holds a deep nine-inch sink near centerline, a two-burner Kenyon alcohol stove mounted athwartships and thus not gimballed, and an icebox draining to the bilge through a poorly insulated top and tiny ungasketed hatch. A fold-down counter extension adds space. The T-shaped cockpit accepts the wheel, with contoured side seats, a spanning bench over cavernous storage, and a huge port locker housing battery boxes designed for two cells with one standard. A narrow bridgedeck and coamings a foot above it shield the companionway, whose acrylic slide rides easy channels under a fiberglass storm hood.

Known Issues

A few early boats carried BMW diesel inboards rather than the later Yanmar. The aft cabin bulkhead slopes forward so the drop boards cannot stay out for ventilation in rain. There is no main-cabin bilge access at all. Seacocks advertised as bronze are in fact ball valves on through-hulls, not tapered plugs. The rubrail chalks with age, and deck hardware lacks proper backing plates beneath.

The Verdict

The S2 8.5 is a thoughtfully engineered small cruiser with superior joinery detail and a roomy, protected cockpit, let down by a few fixed design compromises in ventilation and bilge access. She rewards the Great Lakes or coastal cruiser who values clean rigging and a secure deck.

Pros