Tamarisk sailboats: a naval architect's gaff-cutter design line, not a boatbuilder
Tamarisk names a series of gaff-rigged cutters designed by naval architect David M. Cannell, run through his practice, David M. Cannell & Associates — a design line rather than a single yard's product. Per DMC&A's own site, the production lineup comprised four sizes: the Tamarisk 19, 22, 24 and 29.
Origins and design
Cannell dates his own professional debut precisely: in 1972 he joined the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in the USA, and the Yacht Brokers, Designers and Surveyors Association, around the same period he set up his own yacht-design business. By his own account, the first design of that practice to be completed and built was the Tamarisk 24 Class GRP gaff cutter — his earliest production commission, alongside the Calypso and Samphire classes, before he moved on to larger vessels.
Cannell's choice to build a gaff cutter in fibreglass was, in his words, "a bit of a heresy" among traditional gaff sailors, who considered timber the only correct material for the type. Cornish Crabbers and similar builders reportedly followed the Tamarisk 24's lead in taking the gaff-cutter form into GRP.
Lines and generations
The Tamarisk 19 is a later addition to the line rather than its 1972 point of origin: per Honnor Marine, the yard that now builds it, the 19 was conceived as a weekend cruiser meant to maintain the quality, sturdiness and character of the earlier Tamarisk class. Honnor Marine's current Tamarisk 19 pairs a GRP hull and deck — ivory deck standard, navy or racing-green hull at extra cost — with a Sitka spruce mast, bowsprit, boom and yard, and 440 kg of lead ballast. Honnor Marine's own account also credits a Tamarisk 24 with a single-handed circumnavigation.
Who Tamarisk is for
The line suits sailors drawn to the gaff cutter's traditional profile who wanted it built in fibreglass rather than timber — the same trade-off that, in Cannell's telling, unsettled gaff-sailing traditionalists in the early 1970s but proved influential enough that other builders followed it into GRP.