Overview
The Nordic 40 is a Robert Perry racer-cruiser built by Nordic Yachts in Bellingham, Washington, through 1991, with 32 completed. Norstar Yachts later revived it from the original molds.
Design and Construction
It has a fin keel and a skeg-hung rudder, 39.7 ft overall on a 32.5 ft waterline, 12.43 ft of beam and 6.5 ft of draft. Displacement is 18,000 lb with 7,091 lb of ballast, and the masthead sloop carries about 756 sq ft. The hull is single-laminate fiberglass with a balsa-cored deck and teak trim. Richard Sherwood’s Field Guide to Sailboats of North America (1994) describes a hull that is fine forward with a short underwater length, flattening aft toward the skeg and spade rudder, and a keel that is short, thin and quite deep, with short overhangs.
Ocean Racing Record
Wild Goose (S. & J. Corenman) finished the Pacific Cup (1986, 1988). Ho’onanea (David Brown) finished the Pacific Cup (1988). Escape (Phil Jones) finished the Pacific Cup (1990).
Buyers Notes
John Neal rates it 2 of 5 and calls it attractive, with solvable problems at the mast step and hull-deck joint (see Known Issues). Cruising World’s Gordon Meigs reported that his surveyor commented that when these were built, nobody in the United States was building a better boat. Reviewing the Norstar-built revival in 2010, Alvah Simon wrote that the boat Bob Perry drew in the 1970s was a very good design then and is a very good design now.
