Overview
The Shearwater 45 is a Dudley Dix cutter built in South Africa, the larger sister of the Shearwater 39, built from 1990.
Design and Construction
sailboatdata.com lists a fin keel with a spade rudder, 51.42 ft overall on a 37.42 ft waterline, 13.08 ft of beam and 6.25 ft of draft. Displacement is 27,550 lb with 10,469 lb of ballast, and the cutter carries about 1,144 sq ft. The designer specifies a GRP sandwich hull with an Airex core and a balsa-cored deck. The keel is a moderately long fin, a lead casting bolted to a molded stub that forms a deep bilge sump. The boat won Best Traditional Voyager and Best Cruising Boat in Cruising World’s 2001 Boat of the Year awards.
Buyers Notes
John Neal rates it 2 of 5: sturdy and traditional looking, with fairly good performance. The 51 ft length overall includes the bowsprit. One owner, Steve Hunt, reports 11,000 miles in Maggy May, including a passage from Cape Town to the Caribbean with a steady 36 knots, gusts over 50 and a high quartering sea, in which he found the boat magnificent.
