Design and Construction
Russel Marine built the Vivacity 21 in solid fiberglass, with a bilge-keel arrangement that keeps her draft between roughly 2.33 and 2.63 feet depending on load, letting her nose into shallow marinas that deeper fin-keel boats cannot reach. At 2,500 pounds displacement with 1,100 pounds of iron ballast, her 44 percent ballast ratio sits higher than 73 percent of comparable designs, and her length-to-beam ratio of 2.97 makes her slimmer than 69 percent of similar sailboats. The DL-ratio of 156 places her among "light racers," and 66 percent of similar designs are heavier. A Motion Comfort Ratio of 14.1 reads as more comfortable than 54 percent of her peers, which is modest but credible for a boat this small and narrow.
Rig and Handling
The Vivacity 21 carries a masthead rig with a quoted mainsail-and-jib area of 203.3 square feet. Her sail-area-to-displacement figure is 17.7 on the ISO reference sail and 20.6 with a 135 percent genoa, meaning she is quicker than 46 percent of similar boats in light wind. The standout rig statistic is that she carries more rig than 96 percent of all similar sailboats, which the review describes as significantly overrigged. That over-canvased character, paired with the light displacement, defines her as a lively small-boat sailer rather than a steady coastal trawler. Her capsize screening value of 2.11 would bar her from ocean races, and her theoretical displacement-hull speed is 5.9 knots. The wetted surface of the bottom is about 139 square feet, and her immersion rate is 480 pounds per inch.
Accommodations
No interior arrangement, berth count, head, or galley detail is supplied for the Vivacity 21. At 21.25 feet overall with a 7.17-foot beam and a bilge-keel hull, she is a compact coastal camp-cruiser whose accommodations are necessarily minimal by nature of length and beam alone.
Known Issues
The Vivacity 21 has no design-specific defect, so an owner's principal risks lie in the ordinary wear of a 1970s fiberglass bilge-keeler rather than in a fault unique to the design.
Refits and Ownership
Period specification of running rigging shows the boat's control lines in practical terms: mainsail, jib-genoa, and spinnaker halyards are each 60.5 feet long and 5/16 inch in diameter, jib and genoa sheets are 21.3 feet by 3/8 inch, and the mainsheet is 53.1 feet by 3/8 inch. A buyer or owner re-rigging her will find these dimensions a useful baseline. The bilge keels and shallow draft make drying-mooring and trailer-style shore storage practical, though no trailer weight or road-transport detail is stated.
The Verdict
The Vivacity 21 is a narrowly drawn, over-rigged light racer of modest comfort and no ocean-racing ambition, built simply in solid glass with a shallow bilge-keel footprint. She rewards a sailor who wants an easily stored, shallow-draft coastal boat with more sail than her size suggests, and who accepts that she is small, narrow, and not a passage-maker.
Pros
- Bilge keels give 2.33–2.63 ft draft for shallow marinas
- Ballast ratio higher than 73% of similar designs
- Significantly overrigged for lively light-air performance
- Solid fiberglass construction, simple and repairable
Cons
- Capsize screening of 2.11 excludes ocean racing
- Slimmer and less roomy than most similar boats
- Motion Comfort only better than 54% of peers
- No interior specified in available material
