Vivacity 20 Sailboats for Sale

Drawing Diagram

Builder drawing

Hull Type

Monohull · twin

Rig

Masthead Sloop

LOA

20' · 6.1 m

Disp.

1,800 lbs · 816 kg

First year

1963

The Vivacity 20, introduced in 1963 by Russell Marine of Essex, England, stands as a quintessential pioneer of the early fiberglass revolution. Designed by the naval architecture team of Peter Stevenson and Des C. Pollard, the vessel was conceptualized as an affordable, accessible racercruiser that could democratize sailing for the postwar European middle class. Developed as a lengthened, more refined iteration of the earlier Alacrity 19, the Vivacity 20 was designed specifically to conquer the challenging, highly tidal, and muddy estuary waters of the British East Coast—particularly the Thames Estuary and the rivers of Suffolk and Essex. At a time when wooden construction still dominated, Russell Marine’s embrace of robust, handlaid glassreinforced plastic made the Vivacity 20 an immediate commercial success, eventually resulting in over 1,200 hulls built and exported globally. It was imported to the United States by Wells Yachts and built under license as far away as South Africa by E.I. Marine, marking it as a highly successful export of the early fiberglass era.