Overview
Marketed as “the most expensive boat of its size” when she launched in 1977, the compact Mariah 31 did a lot to establish Pacific Seacraft’s name for quality. Henry Mohrschladt, who co-founded the company just two years earlier building boats out of partner Mike Howarth’s garage, designed her himself.
She’s built absurdly tough for her length: topside hull thickness of a full inch, thickening to 3 inches down at the bilge, with an inch and a half of deck laminate so solid that owners regularly complain about finding through-bolts long enough to reach it. Paul Lutus put that strength to the test during his solo circumnavigation aboard Selene, documented in his book Confessions of a Long Distance Sailor: a nighttime collision with a semi-submerged shipping container threw him clean out of his berth, and the hull didn’t take on a drop of water.
All that construction comes with real weight, and she needs a lot of sail hung off her 4-foot bowsprit (5 feet on later Mark II hulls) to keep moving. Belowdecks the layout is pleasant, with generous headroom and high-quality teak joinery throughout.
She’s no speed demon under sail; figure on steady daily runs around 100 nautical miles in the trade winds with a properly tuned rig, and her best point is a reach, holding a solid 6 knots in 14 to 18 knots on the beam. Running downwind is less pleasant: her tub-shaped underbody and shoal keel do little to check rolling, which can get uncomfortably pronounced.
Pacific Seacraft stopped building the Mariah in 1983, reportedly because she’d become too expensive to keep in production. In her final years, some hulls went out as owner-finished kits rather than complete boats.
Underwater she’s a traditional full-keel double-ender, drawing on the same Colin Archer heritage that shaped so many of the era’s serious offshore designs, with roughly 38 percent of her 16,000-pound displacement carried as ballast down low. That combination of a deep, full keel and generous ballast is a big part of why owner accounts consistently describe her as forgiving and easy to manage singlehanded, willing to look after her crew wherever they choose to take her.
Links, References and Further Reading
» Mariah 31 Yahoo Group, owner discussions.
» Confessions of a Long Distance Sailor by Paul Lutus, a solo circumnavigation in a Mariah 31.» Mariah 31 Sea Trial by Earl R. Hinz, Sea Magazine, Aug 1978.
