The Sadler story started in 1969 with David Sadler designing and building the Contessa 26, with Jeremy Rogers. This was an evolution of the successful Folkboat design and a few years later, was followed by the Contessa 32.
Following the success of the Contessa 26 and 32, David set up with his son Martin a small boat building operation in 1974, and their first boat was the Sadler 25. Following his experience with the very successful Contessa range, the 25 was the forerunner of the Sadler range of boats. The 25 quickly became popular as a club racing boat and had many successes in longer races such as Round Britain and Transatlantic. This was a tough boat for seagoing, had the latest fin keel and skeg configuration, was robustly constructed and provided a safe, small family cruiser with wide appeal. Some 300 were built between 1974 and 1981. Boats built in the last two years were generally better constructed. These later boats had a well laid out interior, with GRP sub-mouldings and a slightly taller rig, which made the yacht even more competitive.
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SADLER 25 LOA 7.4 |
It was
inevitable that David Sadler would extend his experience gained in the Contessa 32 into
the Sadler range. This happened towards the end of 1979, when the Sadler 32 appeared
and this was to be another success story. David built into the Sadler 32 a number of
new desirable features which were considered lacking in the Contessa 32. The most
important of these was a requirement for more accommodation, a stiffer yacht and one which
would rate favourably under the current IOR rating rule.
The result was the elegant Sadler 32, which received immediate enthusiastic acclaim from
the yachting press and clearly possessed all the desirable attributes of the modern
cruiser/racer. The boat was developed with a straighter sheer line, more beam,
increased freeboard, cambered decks and this gave greatly improved interior
accommodation. The canoe type stern and small transom provided for a smooth water
flow and easy motion at sea.
Just over 300 Sadler 32s were built between 1979 and 1989, when the moulds were purchased
by Mike Slack on the East Coast, who went on to build about fourteen yachts. The
moulds have now been bought by Andy Middleton (ex Sadler employee, telephone: 01202
631608), who is currently able to build new Sadler 32s to special order.
Incidentally, he also has the Sadler 25 moulds and has built several of these boats for
customers in the UK.
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SADLER 32 LOA 9.6 |
THE
UNSINKABLE SADLER
There was a major mile stone, (the millstone came later!) in the history of Sadler, when
Martin having completed a yacht building course at Southampton College, developed the
desirable notion of unsinkability as being a key factor in the decision to buy a family
cruising boat.
The unmistakable profile of the popular Sadler 29, followed quickly by the 26, came to the
market in 1981. This was the boat which gained immediate acceptance as a family
cruiser with standing headroom right through the cabins, separate toilet, dinette in main
cabin and this wonderful feature of "unsinkability".
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SADLER 26 LOA 7.9 |
The yacht was rendered unsinkable by bonding into the inside of the hull a completely separate interior moulding, which also provided for the galley, bunk bases, chart table module and all manner of features cleverly moulded in as an integral part of the hull structure. All the voids between the interior moulding and the hull were then filled with expanded polyurethane foam. This was inserted in liquid form and rapidly expanded to fill all the voids available.
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SADLER 29 LOA 8.7 |