Design Brief & Intent
The Wilderness 40 was built for experienced sailors who demanded absolute responsiveness at the helm without the fragile, single-purpose nature of a pure racing machine. Gary Mull achieved this by evolving the design from the earlier, shorter Wilderness 38. Utilizing the same primary tooling, the hull was lengthened to forty feet overall, stretching the waterline to thirty-two feet to maximize the theoretical hull speed to over seven and a half knots. Unlike the Spartan, stripped-out interiors typical of pure ULDB racers of the era, the Wilderness 40 featured a interior layout that offered genuine cruising utility. The saloon was centered on functional U-shaped settees, flanked by a comprehensive L-shaped portside galley and a dedicated navigation station to starboard. High-quality teak joinery and rich bulkheads provided a warmth that contrasted with the cold, molded fiberglass interiors of its mass-production competitors. It was a boat built to go fast on coastal and occasional offshore passages while ensuring a comfortable, dry environment for a short-handed crew once the sails were flaked.
Variations & Configurations
Due to the highly specialized, semi-custom nature of Wilderness Boat Works, production of the Wilderness 40 was extremely limited, with at least five hulls completed. These hulls are divided into two distinct configurations based on their production sequence and rig dimensions. Hulls one through four were delivered with a standard masthead sloop rig, featuring a forty-seven-foot foretriangle height. These early hulls balanced a highly manageable sail area with predictable, stable handling. Starting with hull five, the builder introduced a taller rig configuration that extended the foretriangle height to fifty feet. This taller rig was engineered specifically to address the light-air upwind performance demands of West Coast sailors, giving the boat a much more aggressive sail-area-to-displacement profile. Draft remained consistent across the run at a deep six and a half feet, utilizing a high-aspect lead fin keel paired with an internally mounted spade rudder to ensure maximum lift and maneuverability.
Sailing Performance & Handling
On the water, the Wilderness 40 is a thoroughbred. The boat’s performance is defined by its displacement of just nine thousand pounds, which places it firmly in the light-to-ultralight category for a forty-footer. This light displacement is balanced by nearly four thousand pounds of lead ballast, yielding an exceptionally high ballast-to-displacement ratio of over forty-four percent. The result is a boat that is remarkably stiff and capable of standing up to its powerful sail plan in a heavy breeze.
With a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 22.07, the Wilderness 40 accelerates instantly in the lightest puffs, easily reaching its target speeds when heavier cruisers are still relying on their auxiliary engines. However, its motion is highly active. A comfort ratio of 14.77 indicates that the ride in a confused seaway will be lively, demanding an active helmsman and early reefing to keep the boat flat and fast. The capsize screening ratio of 2.31 reflects the boat’s wide twelve-foot beam relative to its light weight, which provides incredible initial stability and downwind planing potential but indicates a lower ultimate range of stability compared to heavy-displacement offshore double-enders.
Known Issues & Triage
Given the Wilderness 40’s age and lightweight construction methods, buyers must approach potential acquisitions with a rigorous survey checklist. The primary area of concern is the deck coring. Like most builders of the 1980s, Wilderness Boat Works utilized balsa-cored sandwich construction for the decks. Any poorly sealed deck hardware, stanchion bases, or chainplates will have allowed moisture to penetrate the core, leading to localized rot and soft spots that require recoring.
Another critical inspection area is the bulkhead-to-hull tabbing. Because these boats were sailed hard in high-load racing environments, the fiberglass tabbing that secures the structural bulkheads to the hull side can fracture or delaminate, particularly near the chainplates. Finally, the spade rudder and its corresponding bearing sleeve must be closely examined. Spade rudders on ULDBs are subject to significant bending loads; any signs of moisture weeping from the rudder blade seam or play in the rudder shaft bearing indicates a mandatory rudder drop and rebuild.
Modernization & Upgrades
Most surviving Wilderness 40s have been modified by their owners to transition them from aging club racers to efficient, rapid shorthanded cruisers. A key modernization step involves the electrical system. The original 12-volt DC systems were minimal, but contemporary owners are retrofitting these boats with modern lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery banks. Because the boat is so light, keeping the weight of the house battery bank low while maximizing capacity is a major advantage.
Drivetrain upgrades are also common. The original Yanmar diesel engines, while highly reliable, often require exhaust elbow replacements, fresh motor mounts, or a transition to modern folding or feathering propellers to reduce drag under sail. On deck, owners frequently replace the original, undersized aluminum halyard winches with modern self-tailing units and install rope clutches to lead all control lines aft to the cockpit, making the powerful masthead rig easily manageable by a couple.
The Verdict
The Wilderness 40 is a rare, high-performance cruiser-racer that offers an intoxicating blend of Santa Cruz speed, Gary Mull design pedigree, and genuine interior warmth. It is not a boat for those seeking a heavy, slow-motion passage-maker, but for the sailor who values speed, helm feedback, and the thrill of surfing down ocean swells, it remains an incredibly rewarding classic.
Pros
- Exceptional light-air acceleration and fast downwind surfing capability.
- High ballast-to-displacement ratio makes the boat surprisingly stiff under a large press of canvas.
- Warm teak and mahogany interior joinery offers far more comfort than typical racing boats of its era.
- Highly responsive helm with excellent feedback and maneuverability.
Cons
- Extremely limited production makes finding one on the brokerage market difficult.
- Lively motion in a seaway can be fatiguing on long, rough offshore passages.
- Susceptible to core rot in the balsa-sandwich decks if deck hardware has not been meticulously re-bedded.
- Deep draft of six and a half feet limits access to shallow coastal cruising grounds and slips.
