A post to introduce myself as the proud new owner, or rather custodian, of Offcutt, a late (1980) all GRP Twister. Some of you will have seen her listing on the Twisters for Sale page here (https://www.twister.org.uk/twi.....e/offcutt/).
I have done a fair amount of sailing, most of it on long keel heavy displacement yachts, so I feel very at home on a Twister. My parents had the complete opposite, an Atalanta, on which I learnt to sail, and perhaps subliminally warmed to the idea long keels and deep rudders. After my father died, relatively young, and we sold the Atalanta (I was at University, boat ownership not really an option), I then chartered for an annual cross Channel summer cruise for three seasons, first year a Nicholson 26, second year a Twister, third year a Rival 32. After three years of chartering with the added excitement of gear failure (the Nicholson 26 snapped her tiller in St Peter Port, killer tiller plus hidden rot on the underside of the tiller where it entered the rudder stock), I decided, given I was by then in gainful employment, it was time to get my own boat. I started out looking for a Folkboat, and ended up buying a Stella. After almost 40 years of custodianship of the Stella, I finally sold her earlier this month, and a few days later bought Offcutt. It all worked out very well. My primary objective in selling the Stella was to find the right new owner for her, and this I was able to do with the willing help of Richard Gregson of Wooden Ships, and Offcutt, already on the market, was exactly what I was looking for in Twister, so I promptly made an offer, which Simon, her then owner, kindly accepted. The move from a Stella to a Twister was not prompted so much by a wish to have a slightly larger boat as by a recognition that, as it might have been said in Ecclesiastes, there is a time to buy, and a time to sell. The Stella and I, perhaps because of rather than despite 38 years together, were still both in good condition, and my plan was to sell her 'while we were both still ahead of the game', and get a lower maintenance all GRP Twister. Only last winter, I replaced one keel bolt on the Stella, repaired a small patch of rot by one of the chain plates (not straightforward om a clinker boat), and did a full topside repaint job, all three being things I will either never, or in the case of the last, perhaps once in a lifetime, need to do on Offcutt. That said, I know full well even all GRP boats are never maintenance free, but it is in a different league.
In addition to chartering a Twister in the early 1980s, I was also lucky enough to be able to borrow a friend's Twister, also in the 1980s, for a weeks cruise on the West Coast of Scotland (I normally cruise in the Channel, though I have been to both SW Ireland and the Bay of Biscay in the Stella) and so already had a firm concept of what a Twister offers, and Offcutt more than lived up to expectations on her very first passage, from Portland to Swanage, W 5 gusting 6, Offcutt bowling along yet always sure-footed. If I had to summarise the difference between a Stella and a Twister in one line, I would probably say that if they were sports cars, the Twister is more like an Austin Healey, while the Stella is more like a Lotus Elan. Interestingly, passages in company have shown that the Twister, despite a slightly longer LWL, is no faster than a Stella, perhaps because the Twister has slightly bluffer bow sections. I should also add that my Stella was not a standard Stella, among other things she had a masthead rig (sufficient for the Stella Owners Association to say she wasn't a Stella! I concede it is a moot point, but in other significant respects she is a Stella) and that may contribute to her turn of speed.
There is not much that has to do with sailing that I am not interested in, though I should add that, despite the above comments about turns of speed, I am very much the (fast) cruising rather than the round the cans racing sailor.
I very much look forward to meeting fellow members, both online and in person.
Chris Sinclair
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