Design and Construction
Van de Stadt shaped a fiberglass hull and deck for the IIA at a moment when Dutch yards were embracing molded glass in earnest. The hull carries a fin keel and a skeg-hung rudder, and the listed displacement puts the boat firmly among what one reference calls "heavy cruisers," with a displacement-length ratio of 309 anchor. That heft is paired with a ballast ratio of 44 percent—higher than two-thirds of comparable designs—and the lead ballast works against roughly 23 square meters of wetted surface. The beam-to-length ratio of 3.57 makes her slimmer than 79 percent of similar sailboats, a proportion that reads in the numbers as a hull built more for sea kindliness than for maximum interior volume.
Rig and Handling
The IIA is a masthead sloop carrying a mainsail-and-jib area of 44.1 square meters. By the numbers she is significantly overrigged—her sail plan exceeds 76 percent of similar boats—with a sail-area-to-displacement figure of 16.8 on the ISO reference sail and 19.9 with a 135 percent genoa anchor. That surplus of canvas on a 9,590-pound hull with 4,409 pounds of ballast suggests a boat that stands up to her sail well. The capsize screening value of 1.73 is high enough that, by that formula alone, she would be accepted for ocean racing, and the Motion Comfort Ratio of 28.8 places her ahead of 73 percent of similar designs for ride quality. Theoretical hull speed is 6.6 knots, and the immersion rate of about 137 kg per centimeter tells you how reluctantly she sits into her lines as load grows.
Accommodations
Below, the IIA is laid out with two cabins and three berths, a galley, and a toilet facility. The fresh water capacity is 100 liters and the fuel tank holds 25 liters, figures that suit coastal and short offshore passages rather than long self-supported cruising. The 32.8-foot overall length and 9.2-foot beam shape a compact but purposeful interior, and the two-cabin arrangement keeps the sleeping spaces divided without pretending to be a larger boat than she is.
Equipment and Propulsion
The boat may be fitted with an inboard Volvo Penta MD2B diesel driving through a shaft. The 25-horsepower rating pairs with the 25-liter fuel capacity to define a modest auxiliary installation intended for harbor maneuvering and battery charging more than for sustained motoring. Halyard and sheet estimates run to a 29.2-meter mainsail halyard at 10 mm diameter and a 25-meter mainsheet at 12 mm, dimensions that reflect the masthead rig's scale.
The Verdict
The Trintella IIA is a van de Stadt-designed fiberglass cruiser with a heavy-displacement hull, a slender beam, and an unusually generous sail plan for her size. She reads as a seakindly, overcanvased small cruiser built in small numbers by a Dutch yard at the dawn of molded-glass series production.
Pros
- Slender, heavy hull with comfort and capsize numbers ahead of most peers
- Significantly overrigged masthead sloop that carries sail well
- Low-production van de Stadt design with fiberglass hull and deck
Cons
- Small fuel and water capacities limit range
- Only three berths across two cabins restricts guest capacity
- Fewer than 100 built, so spares and comparable boats are scarce
