In the 1940's, Bill Buchan Sr. set out to design and build a yacht to satisfy the family man that wanted one boat for both winning races and extended cruising in the Pacific Northwest. Thus began an innovative series of boats that eventually evolved into the Buchan 37. Even after four decades these legendary boats are still proving to be race worthy and cruising sound.
      In the 1920s and 1930s the ideal racing sailboat for Northwest waters was a sleek 6-Meter or an 8-Meter providing an exciting wet ride with minimal freeboard and lots of sail area. To the well-heeled northwest yachtsman, a 39-foot R-boat, like Sir Tom or the Pirate, by Ted Geary might be the ideal, locally designed race boat. The performance of those elegant racing machines was outstanding. When they were on a beat to weather they sailed "in-the-groove", and required just fingertip pressure on the helm. Even cruising sailboats designed for the yachtsman in that time period tended to have long slender hulls like 8-Meter or 10-Meter boats.
      After World War II the combination racing/cruising designs were becoming more popular as the meter boat's production nearly stopped. These newer designs still had slender hulls, which would perform well, but extra beam was added to provide suitable berths and cruising accommodations. This change made cruising with the family more likely. These newer boats provided a more sea-kindly ride, were a little drier on deck, and had room below to relax. Sailing was becoming more of an active, whole family affair. As Seattle in the 1950's was considered the boating capital of the world, it became the perfect place for new designs to emerge. The challenge was to satisfy the performance racer and the family man that wanted one boat for both winning races and for extended cruising in the Pacific Northwest.

Early Buchan Designs
Bill Buchan Sr. was a legendary figure in Northwest sailing history. He had many years of experience in building small sailboats and was always restless when not designing, planning, or building another sailboat. In the mid-1940s he decided to design a 39-footer with racing sailboat lines which would also be a good family cruising sailboat. This boat took him two years to build in his spare time. She had a 9.5 foot beam and a 5.5 foot draft. This was a good comfortable cruising boat, which he named Linda after his daughter. She performed well in strong winds, but the boat was too heavily built for racing in the light air conditions often found on Northwest waters.
      Bill Sr.'s next design effort was to be a lighter and faster boat for racing in medium and light air. He designed this new slender 38-footer with lines like a 6-Meter, or an R-Boat with long, graceful overhangs. This boat had a very narrow 7.33-foot beam and a 5.5-foot draft. It was completed in a little over a year and was launched in 1948. He named the boat Heather and put on a tall, modern rig, making it somewhat overpowered. As he expected, since Heather was not heavy, she was very fast in light air but still needed a series of modifications. First more lead, because she was too tender in a blow. Later an engine was added as he kept modifying Heather and experimenting with her.
      She was still fast in light air. He won races with his boat, but the rating was higher than he wanted. So, motivated by racing performance, Bill Sr. asked the club measurer how to improve his rating. The club measurer told him that Heather had too little freeboard and that alone pushed the rating up higher. After some pondering, Bill Sr. decided there was an easy way to fix the problem.
      In his straightforward approach, he simply cut off the entire deck with a skill saw. Then he "sistered" (raised and extended) each rib a foot or so higher, then added some new planks and re-installed the deck. It is a story that is hard to believe in this day of production fiberglass sailing machines.
      I just happened to be there when Bill Sr. was working on Heather in the early 50s. He had her hauled out at the Fisher Marina on Lake Washington just north of Madison Park. I watched with amazement when the deck was being removed with great gusto. After the job was finished Bill Sr.'s CCA rating was lowered due to the higher freeboard, and Heather's speed did not suffer one bit. Bill Sr. was always ingenious in solving his problems.
      His next boat design was to be a more conservative racing/cruising boat, but also of light construction for good performance. Bill Sr. was always economical with his materials and one to save a little where possible. During the late 1950's, he received a beautiful Alaska yellow cedar log from his son Bill Jr.'s, father-in-law Carl Sahlin. It was cut into 40-foot planking for Bill Sr.'s new racing/cruising sailboat. In the days of wooden sailboats the yellow cedar was a prime choice for easily worked, relatively rot-resistant planking. Using this excellent wood for full-length planks, Bill Sr. designed and built a fine, slender boat called Thistle, which was 38.5 feet long. She had a comfortable cabin for cruising and a tall rig suitable for racing in the Northwest.
      Thistle was launched in1957 and was light and fast in both medium and light air. Bill Sr. raced Thistle very successfully in the 1960 Swiftsure and placed 3rd Overall. That was a great performance for Bill Sr.'s latest "home-built" project.

Buchan 40 Design
Friends who wanted a similar high performance racing/cruising sailboat admired the competitive Thistle design. In 1959 the Buchan Boat Co. was formed by Bill Sr. and son John to go into sailboat production. They revised the Thistle basic design to be slightly longer, 40-foot version with additional beam, but still a sleek hull. This became the very successful Buchan 40, of which eight were built in the time period of 1959 to 1961. Four of these were built in their boat yard by the Madison Park dock (for Bob Brain, Fain Sutter, Bill Whipple, as well as the first Mara for Bill Sr). Four more were then built in a shipyard in the Houghton-Kirkland area (for Alan Buchan, Harvard Palmer, John Ellis, and Fred Danz). These proved very popular in the CCA races in that time period. In the 1961 Swiftsure, Bill Buchan Sr. raced his new Buchan 40 and placed 2nd in A Class.
      After building eight of these sleek Buchan 40 boats, Bill Sr. was still not satisfied with the boat's rating under the CCA rules. In those days design modifications were not too difficult for an inventive family like the Buchans. A major adaptation to squeeze out a "good rating" was required in order to beat the competition, Bob Regan in his fast Kettenburg 40, Thetis. Dick Gilbert, the club's CCA measurer, told Bill Sr. that the Buchan 40 was too narrow and sleek to get a "proper rating". Bill Sr. thought for a while and decided that he would take the original framing jig for the Buchan 40s and modify it for a new boat with better race performance.

Buchan 37 is Born
Bill Sr. and his wife Irene were going to go cruising for a while so Bill Sr. told his partner, son John, to just modify the old jig a bit, fatten it up and shorten it at the same time. That should fix the jig, and give us a new boat with a much better rating. Now John was on his own. He had been working with his dad for some time on the Buchan 40s, but this was really different. John took on the job of fixing that rating problem in a big way. The Buchan 40 jig was revised extensively to build a new 37 footer with a better CCA rating.
      John modified the old jig in 1961 after they moved the jig back to the Madison Park site. He altered the entire jig to make it beamier in the mid-sections, adding about six inches on each side. The Buchan 40s were overly full in the bow sections, so John cut away eight inches on both sides in order to make it a smoother and finer bow entry for the new boat. He then removed three feet at the transom by going to a reverse transom, and shortened the overall length to 37 feet. In the center of the boat a little more freeboard was added so the sheer line was nearly straight from bow to stern.
      When Bill Sr. returned he could hardly believe what he saw! John's handiwork on the old jig was truly amazing. Bill Sr. who was not one to mince words, could be heard across the bay. It was too late to turn back, so build it they did. They built the new 37-footer from this jig in the summer of 1961 and it was launched in 1962 at the Madison Park site. A few days before it was launched, I was over at their workshop to watch the completion of the new Buchan boat I had heard about. There it was — the prototype Buchan 37 was in the process of being born. Bill Sr. said to me, "Lonnie, would you like to buy this one; it would not be too expensive. How about $12 thousand for a completed boat ready to go." It was a good buy in those days, since a Kettenburg 40 was about $20 thousand at that time. I replied, "Bill, I would certainly like to, I am without a boat now, but I haven't got that kind of money."
      When the boat was finished it sat in Lake Washington for a while, with no buyers in sight. That summer Bill Sr. and his wife Irene went cruising to the Canadian Gulf Islands in their Buchan 40, Mara. Before they left, Bill Sr. said to John, "Take the new boat and go cruising if you want."
      John and his wife Pat cruised to Canada with the new boat. While at Silva Bay in Canada, they decided to tag along on a race with some Canadian boats racing across the Straits of Georgia to Vancouver. It turned out that the "fat little boat" was surprisingly fast. Before long they were in front as they approached the harbor of Vancouver.
      Bill Jr. was at Vancouver at the time for some Starboat races. He recalls seeing John in front with the new 37-footer and its identifying blue mainsail as they came into view. The new 37-footer showed surprising speed compared to the other boats racing that day.
      No one expected the new 37-footer to be so fast. Bill Sr. was astounded at its performance. He thought that the short, fat 37 foot boat would be a slow "dog" — certainly not as fast as his sleek Buchan 40s! Bill Sr. said to himself, "Enough of that — I will race that new boat with its good rating — it goes like thunder!" He named the new boat Thunder. It was now his favorite boat.
      The new 37-footer, Thunder, was first raced in a regatta by Bill Sr. in the 1963 PIYA in Canada. And it showed outstanding speed against the other boats in the regatta. Thunder raced the following year in the 1964 Swiftsure, however, they did not finish the race. They decided to retire after some planking damage on the boat due to heavy seas near Neah Bay caused by large swells from the Pacific.
      In the following year Bill Sr. hit the jackpot. In the 1965 Swiftsure race, a total of 136 miles from Victoria, out and around the Swiftsure Lightship (15 miles out in the Pacific) and back to Victoria, Bill Sr. won the race "hands down" — First Place Overall! On corrected elapsed time for the race Thunder was 18 minutes ahead of the next boat. The prototype Buchan 37, Thunder, was a huge success.
      After crossing the finish line, delicious Scotch whiskey flowed freely on Thunder. Bill Sr. always said "Don't waste your money on expensive Scotch whiskey, if it is Scotch it has to be good." Bill Sr. was not one to waste his money. It always pleased Bill Sr. to have his "home-made" boats defeat the fancy, expensive racing boats.
      Along about 1950 Bill Sr. put together a short summary of his early boat building and sailing experiences. He tells about his first experience in building a small 15 foot sailboat on the front porch of his house when he and Irene were just married and before their children were born. That boat cost all of $27.50 to build, which was a lot of money in the Depression times. In those days you could buy a milkshake and a hamburger at Bartells for all of 20 cents. He writes that they had more fun with that boat than any boat they ever owned!
      This summary was written 15 years after the 15 footer, when, at that point, they had three children ages 5, 9 and 14. The family now required more like a 38-foot boat for family cruising and racing. Bill Sr. writes "I don't think anybody can deny that we are about the sailingest family there is!" The Buchan Sailing Dynasty had just begun, in which each generation has had their share of World Class performances.

Page TWO Buchan 37

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