Turner’s design sits at the small end of the Santana performance line he developed during the 1970s. The K gives up the D’s shallow-draft versatility in favor of a more conventional ballast-and-keel arrangement.
Design and Construction
The 23 K shares the D model’s basic dimensions: 23.33 feet overall, 20.62 feet on the waterline, and 8.83 feet of beam. The specifications list displacement at 2,450 pounds and ballast at 1,100 pounds. The builder’s background notes identify the ballast as lead. By comparison, the D carried 1,130 pounds of ballast, including 170 pounds in the board.
The hull is solid fiberglass with a solid fiberglass deck. It’s a light build: period testers found that the D’s hull weighed less than 1,500 pounds without ballast, and the K follows the same lightweight approach. The hull has a raked stem, a semi-cut-down vertical transom, a fixed fin keel, and a spade rudder.
Rig, Performance, and Handling
Turner gave the 23 K a masthead sloop rig on a deck-stepped mast with double spreaders, a 272-square-foot sail plan, and a cockpit-mounted mainsheet traveler. Its sail-area-to-displacement ratio is 23.94, while the displacement-length ratio is near 125. Those figures mark it as a light, responsive coastal design.
The D model, which shares the same hull form, was built to plane downwind with its board raised. In period testing, it carried a PHRF rating of 171—63 seconds per mile quicker than a San Juan 23. The K’s fixed keel removes the D’s planing-with-keel-up trick, but its 4.5-foot draft provides a steadier righting moment.
Around hull number 85 in the D series, the builder moved the keel trunk aft by 4 inches to reduce the weather helm felt at the tiller. The same mid-production change would have applied to K hulls built with the shared tooling.
Accommodations and Auxiliary Power
Below, the 23 K follows the D’s layout. It sleeps four, with a double V-berth forward and two 7-foot settee berths in the main cabin. Headroom is 52 inches, and the cabin walls are lined with thin carpet. The simple galley consists of a sink, a drawer, and a counter.
An outboard well aft accommodates a 3 to 6 horsepower motor for docking. This is a weekender’s interior rather than a cruiser’s, and the low headroom reflects the boat’s racing-derived hull.
Known Issues
The main documented production change is the relocation of the D’s keel trunk at hull 85, intended to reduce transmitted weather helm. If that change carried across to the K, boats built before that point may have different helm balance from later examples.
The K’s light build and solid-fiberglass construction call for care during grounding and trailering to avoid stressing the lightweight hull structure.
The Verdict
The Santana 23 K is a small, light fixed-keel design from W. Shad Turner. It trades the D model’s retractable board for simplicity and steadier ballast. It’s quick for its length and easy to trailer, with a spartan but functional interior suited to coastal weekends.
Pros
- Light, responsive hull with a 23.94 sail-area-to-displacement ratio
- Fixed fin keel provides a 4.5-foot draft and steady righting moment
- Simple outboard power and a trailerable 23-foot footprint
Cons
- 52-inch cabin headroom limits liveaboard comfort
- Only about 50 fixed-keel hulls were built, limiting parts interchange
- Light construction demands care when trailering and grounding
