Overview
The Vancouver 25 is a small, heavily built double-ender designed by Robert B. Harris, best known for a string of Taiwan-built cruising boats including several Tayana models. It is the little sister of Harris’s better-known Vancouver 27/28, scaled down to a pocket cruiser that James Baldwin’s notes describe as “nicely fitted out with teak and bronze hardware,” a boat aimed at owners who wanted serious offshore manners in a genuinely small package.
History
Archived Sailboatdata gives 1983 as the first-built year and names Vancouver 25 Yacht Co. as builder, built in Taiwan under contract. About 28 hulls were built. Production was concentrated in Taiwan through the early 1980s, with a few boats reportedly built in Thailand and California. No cited source establishes a final production year.
Construction
Sailboatdata describes a fiberglass hull, long keel, and transom-hung rudder. Baldwin describes a “full keel with slightly cutaway forefoot and short bowsprit.” The rudder descriptions in the cited source set are not consistent. Sailboatdata and Baldwin independently report 7,380 lb displacement. Sailboatdata gives 2,600 lb of lead ballast and 4.00 ft draft, while Baldwin gives 3,000 lb and 3 ft 10 in. The frontmatter retains the Sailboatdata ballast and draft values, with the conflict unresolved. This catalog records 25.0 ft as the hull length without bowsprit and boomkin. Sailboatdata labels 29.0 ft including those spars as LOA, while Baldwin labels 25 ft as LOD.
Under Sail
The cited specifications give 381 sq ft of sail, a 21.67 ft waterline, and 7,380 lb displacement. The source set reviewed for Pilot 01 does not include a model-specific sailing trial.
Buyers Notes
Baldwin records “standing headroom reported to be at least 6’,” a claim to confirm on the individual boat. He also writes that “an inboard engine may not be what some people want on a boat of this size, but is mostly unavoidable on a double-ender design.” The conflicting hull counts make the hull number and build history useful checks on a listing.
