Overview
The Meridian 25 began life as a Dutch boat before it became an American one. Philip Rhodes drew the design, Design #719, and it was first built in 1960 at G. de Vries Lentsch Jr.’s Amsterdam yard, then imported to the US. Five years later Seafarer Yachts set up its own production line in Huntington, New York, and kept building a modified version of the same boat until the company closed in 1985. James Baldwin’s list includes it among his 72 proven bluewater designs under 32 feet.
History
De Vries Lentsch offered the original Meridian in three trim levels, the Bermuda, the Mackinac, and the Vineyard, all built at the Amsterdam yard as the company was making its own transition from wood to fiberglass. Seafarer, based in Huntington, New York, started out as the US importer and distributor of these Dutch-built Rhodes designs before opening its own plant (a converted supermarket building) in 1965 and building its own Meridian 25 hulls domestically. Because the design passed through two yards and a five-year gap, and because the boat stayed in the catalog for the better part of two decades afterward, Wikipedia and sailboatdata.com both note that “one Meridian often looks very different from another” depending on when and where it was built. Seafarer itself closed in 1985, a casualty of the early-1980s recession and the broader downturn in the sailboat market that took down several small yards of its generation.
Construction
The hull is fiberglass with wood trim, set on what sailboatdata.com classifies as a long (full) keel, matching Baldwin’s own list criteria. Ballast is 2,491 lb of lead, 49.1 percent of the boat’s 5,070 lb displacement, a notably high ratio for a 25-footer that should translate into a stiff, confidence-inspiring motion for the boat’s size. Baldwin’s own notes add a specific caution here: “avoid the few late 1960’s models that had fin keel with detached rudder.” That is a real warning rather than a hedge on our part, since it describes a documented minority of hulls that depart from the standard long-keel configuration this entry otherwise assumes. An inboard engine was offered as an option across all model years; earlier and Dutch-built boats were as likely to be sold without one.
Under Sail
At 277 sq ft of sail on a 17.5 ft waterline, the Meridian 25 is a modestly powered small cruiser, in keeping with its masthead sloop rig and family-cruising intent rather than any racing pedigree. The narrow 7 ft beam and long overhangs (nearly 7.25 ft of LOA beyond the waterline) suggest an easy, traditional motion typical of early-1960s Rhodes designs, at some cost in interior volume compared to more modern hull shapes of the same length.
Buyers Notes
James Baldwin’s own notes single out the boat’s “beautiful sheer line and practical interior layout with 5’8" headroom in salon” as real strengths for a 25-footer of this vintage. His minuses are specific and worth carrying into any survey: “not many of these boats are available on the market,” and “many came with wooden spars prone to rot over the years.” A buyer should inspect the mast and boom closely for rot if they are original wood, budget for a rig replacement if condition is uncertain, and, per Baldwin’s warning above, confirm the keel and rudder configuration in person rather than assuming every Meridian 25 is built the same way. Given the boat’s two-yard, twenty-five-year production history, expect real variation between individual hulls in layout, equipment, and finish, and treat any general spec sheet, including this one, as a starting point rather than a guarantee for a specific boat.
