The Hunter 18.5 is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by the Hunter Design Team as a cruising sailboat and first built in 1987.Henkel, Steve: The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats, page 37. International Marine/McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Production The design was built by Hunter Marine in the United States between 1987 and 1993, but it is now out of production.
Design The Hunter 18.5 is a small recreational keelboat, built predominantly of fiberglass, with wood trim. It has a fractional sloop rig with a fully battened mainsail, a raked stem, a reverse transom, a transom-hung kick-up rudder controlled by a tiller and a fixed wing keel. It displaces and carries of ballast.
The boat has a draft of with the standard shoal-draft wing keel, allowing ground transportation on the factory standard trailer.
The boat is optionally fitted with a small outboard motor for docking and maneuvering. Other factory optional equipment included a portable head, galley alcohol stove, water pump tap, cooler and anchor.
The design has sleeping accommodation for three people, with a double "V"-berth in the bow cabin and a straight settee in the main cabin on the port side. Cabin headroom is .
The design has a PHRF racing average handicap of 288. It has a hull speed of .
Operational history In a 2010 review Steve Henkel wrote, "in the late 1980s, Hunter Marine expanded their cruising, boat line into smaller sizes. They also redesigned the line with a more 'modern' look. The Hunter 18.5 was one of the first of Hunter's minicruisers to be introduced. Unique features include a very shallow (two-foot draft) keel with both a bulb and 'winglets.' Best features: Headroom of four feet is exceptional for a boat of this size ... Ballast is also highest for the group ... Worst features: The keel is too shallow, and has too small a lateral area, to expect even so-so upwind sailing performance, with or without the winglets (which we suspect are too small to serve any real purpose). The full-length battens make it difficult to 'read' the trim of the mainsail, The flip-up rudder, being deeper than the keel, is thus unprotected and therefore subject to damage or loss if a sudden shoal water situation is encountered and the flip-up mechanism isn't ready for it."
See also List of sailing boat types
Similar sailboats Alacrity 19 Buccaneer 200 Cal 20 Catalina 18 Drascombe Lugger Edel 540 Mistral T-21 Naiad 18 Paceship 20 Sandpiper 565 Sanibel 18 San Juan 21 Siren 17 Typhoon 18
References
External links Official brochure