Overview
Drawn alongside its larger 36-foot sibling, the Tashiba 31 represents the last of Bob Perry’s full-keeled production double-enders, outwardly compact but finished inside to the same luxurious standard that made Ta Shing’s boats stand out from other Taiwanese builders of the era.
History
Ta Shing commissioned Perry for the design and launched it in 1986, nearly a decade after the yard’s rise to prominence with Perry’s earlier Baba 30, another double-ender with which the 31 is often mistaken despite being a genuinely different boat. Its hull form actually derives from the Baba 40, which Perry himself described as a radical full-keeled evolution of his fast, fin-keeled Valiant 40; for the 31 and its 36-foot sibling, he pushed those same ideas further, moving the keel’s leading edge aft, firming up the turn of the bilge, and finer the bow entry. In his own book, Perry called the Tashiba 31 and 36 the best modified-full-keel boats he ever designed: “fast, close-winded, stiff, and well balanced,” with owners regularly reporting they’d beaten contemporary designs in casual racing.
Three variations were built: two aft-cockpit layouts (one with a seagoing quarter-berth, the more common of the two, and a rarer version with a forward stateroom and aft head), plus a pilothouse version, unusual on a boat this size, of which only two were built. Sales fell short of expectations for such a well-regarded design; only 25 hulls were completed during the 1986-1988 run, with 26 tracked in the owners’ registry maintained by the Baba/Panda/Tashiba group.
Design and Construction
Ta Shing’s build quality on these boats is exceptional and well documented across the wider Baba/Panda/Tashiba line: solid teak cabinetry, louvered locker doors, and staved overheads rather than the drop-in liners and thin veneers more typical of production builders in this era. Most surviving examples are reported to be in very good condition, kept up by a genuinely loyal ownership community.
Under Sail
No specific named ocean crossing or circumnavigation is documented in current sources for this model, but it shares its hull form and construction pedigree directly with the Baba 40, a design Perry himself rates among his best full-keel work, and owner reports of the 31 and 36 beating contemporary designs speak to real sailing performance beyond just build quality.
Buyers Notes
Confirm which of the three layout variants (standard aft-cockpit, alternate aft-cockpit with forward stateroom, or pilothouse) a specific boat has, since they differ meaningfully and the pilothouse version in particular is rare. Given the small total production run, the Baba/Panda/Tashiba owners’ registry and forum are strong resources for tracking a specific hull’s history.
