Where Merlin had rewritten the possibilities of high-speed sailing and line honors, the SC70 adapted those lessons to the rating rule. Lee added beam and worked the IOR measurement points to optimize the boat’s certificate rather than fight it. The result was the seed of the “California sled” fleet of 70-rating IOR boats, and the design became dominant in Southern California racing sailingmagazine.net.
Design and Construction
The SC70 is a study in rule-aware performance hull shaping. The manufacturer described the approach as blending what it knew about performance as gracefully as possible with the IOR rule: no bumps or hollows, just maximum waterline, maximum power to carry sail, minimum wetted surface, and instant boat speed fastisfun.com.
The hull measures 68 feet overall on a 62-foot waterline, with a 15-foot-1-inch beam and a 9-foot draft. Displacement is 24,000 pounds, including 9,600 pounds of lead ballast. A period review put the displacement-to-length ratio near 59.6 and the sail-area-to-displacement ratio at 20.36—figures consistent with a boat built to accelerate rather than lug.
The builder described the standard structure as bi-directional E-glass skins over a balsa core, bonded with AME 4000 acrylic-modified epoxy resin. Hulls, decks, rudders, and keels were built to what it called up-to-date scantlings fastisfun.com.
A USCG Sub T version was available for passenger-service yachts. Owners seeking less weight could also specify a full range of exotic materials: S-glass, Kevlar, graphite, Spectra 900, lightweight foam or Nomex cores, and epoxy. Each of the nineteen boats was optimized somewhat differently to suit its owner, so no two are precisely identical in outfitting.
Rig, Performance, and Handling
The SC70 is a masthead sloop carrying roughly 1,555 square feet of sail area. The manufacturer placed it among the ULD 70 raters and called it the maximum performer of that new breed. It cited victories in the Cal Cup, the St. Francis Big Boat Series, and recent Mexican races as evidence of the design’s blazing boat speed at the time. The builder also claimed that the SC70 could easily “do a horizon job” on yachts previously considered fast—in heavy or light wind, upwind or downwind fastisfun.com.
A period review made the comparison more concrete. A typical IOR 70-rater such as Kialoa would have been an upwind freight train, but the SC70 would blow it away off the wind. Good freeboard was credited with keeping the crew dry. High speed under power and maximum passage-making performance under sail were also part of the design brief.
Accommodations and Cruising Use
Although designed for the racecourse, the SC70 was promoted as suitable for high-performance cruising when it wasn’t racing. The builder noted that the boat offered plenty of room for a favored custom layout, along with extra weight capacity if required fastisfun.com.
That flexibility fits with the way the nineteen hulls were commissioned: each was optimized to its owner’s wishes rather than built around a single production interior. On a used SC70, the belowdecks arrangement may therefore say as much about the original owner as it does about the class.
The period review specified a Yanmar auxiliary rated at 140 horsepower, along with 200 gallons of fuel and 150 gallons of water. Those are generous capacities for a boat with this racing pedigree and can help anyone converting a former racer to passage-making use.
Equipment and Ownership
Owners could choose hardware and instrumentation from a long supplier list that included Navtec, Barient, Lewmar, Harken, Sparcraft, Proctor, B&G, Ockam, Signet, Seafrost, and Martec, among others. The builder said that owner options in hardware and instrumentation abounded fastisfun.com.
Because each boat was individually optimized, refit history and the original build sheet matter more than usual. Two SC70s can differ substantially in both structure and systems.
Known Issues
The documentary record is thin on SC70 defects. The principal cautions arise from the construction method rather than from a documented pattern of failures.
The standard hull and deck used glass skins over a balsa core with epoxy resin. In this kind of sandwich construction, a breach in the skin can allow water into the core, and balsa doesn’t forgive long-term saturation. The availability of alternative exotic cores and owner-specified layouts adds another variable when assessing an individual boat.
The Verdict
The Santa Cruz 70 is a purposeful Bill Lee sled: a 68-foot, IOR-optimized thoroughbred that traded the unrated excess of Merlin for a rule-smart hull. It still dominated Southern California’s big-boat racing and could cruise when asked.
Only nineteen were built, and each was tailored to its owner. That individuality is part of the appeal, but it also means buyers must assess each boat on its own merits. The standard balsa-core construction is the area where an owner needs to remain vigilant.
Pros
- IOR-friendly Merlin derivative with maximum waterline and minimum wetted surface for instant boat speed
- Dominant off-the-wind pace against typical IOR 70-raters
- Customizable layout, with generous fuel and water capacities for high-performance cruising
- Exotic-material and USCG Sub T options available from new
Cons
- Standard balsa-cored construction requires disciplined bedding of penetrations
- Owner-by-owner optimization means no two boats have precisely the same specifications
