Overview
The Offshore 31 is Cheoy Lee’s stretched, deeper-counter successor to the Bermuda 30, and it is often marketed under the name “Herreshoff 31 Offshore,” trading on the earlier boat’s L. Francis Herreshoff pedigree. Whether that pedigree is accurate is genuinely disputed: sailboatdata’s summary states the actual design work for the Offshore 31 was done in Cheoy Lee’s own engineering office rather than by Herreshoff himself, even though the boats are sold and listed under his name to this day. Full keel, keel-hung rudder, and a choice of sloop or ketch rig put the boat squarely in the same family as the rest of Cheoy Lee’s small offshore range.
History
Production years for the Offshore 31 are not well documented in any source checked for this entry. Sale listings turned up for 1967 and 1968 hulls, and the design is understood to follow on from the Bermuda 30, built through 1967, which puts the Offshore 31’s run in the mid-to-late 1960s at the earliest. No source gives a clear start or end date for the model, so the year_start above should be read as an estimate rather than a documented fact, and no year_end is recorded. The boat is described as an extension of the Bermuda 30 with an extended counter and an inboard-hung rudder rather than the transom-hung arrangement of some of the yard’s smaller boats.
Construction
The hull is full keel, hand-laid solid fiberglass, with the rudder hung inboard on the extended counter rather than directly on the keel’s trailing edge as on some of the smaller Cheoy Lee models. Baldwin’s figures put displacement at 10,750 lbs with 4,000 lbs of ballast, a ratio of about 37 percent, consistent with the other heavier boats in Cheoy Lee’s offshore range from this era. As on every Cheoy Lee of this vintage, exterior teak trim is standard and needs ongoing upkeep, and Baldwin’s notes specifically flag that not every boat carries the tiller steering his list otherwise favors.
Under Sail
At just under 31 feet with 8.83 feet of beam and a full keel, the Offshore 31 should handle much like her smaller Bermuda 30 sister: heavy for her length, forgiving of a distracted helm, and slow to tack in exchange for a steady, tracking motion offshore. The sloop rig, available with or without a bowsprit, and the ketch option give a buyer some choice in how sail area is divided, with the ketch rig generally the easier of the two to shorten down in a blow by dropping the mizzen entirely.
Buyers Notes
Baldwin’s notes describe the boat as “Built in Hong Kong by Cheoy Lee in sloop or ketch rig. in the 1960’s,” consistent with the uncertain dating found elsewhere. His one recorded minus covers two separate issues at once: “Teak decks and lots of exterior wood trim to maintain. Only some of the boats have tiller steering.” A buyer should treat the wheel-versus-tiller question as boat-specific rather than assumed, and should budget for the same exterior teak maintenance that shows up as the top concern on nearly every Cheoy Lee model of this era. Given the disputed Herreshoff attribution used in marketing, it is also worth asking any seller for whatever documentation they have on the boat’s actual design history before paying a premium for the Herreshoff name specifically.
