[brian eiland]

I always considered these 44 footers as the begining of his motorsailer designs

Among the better known of Philip Rhodes’ many motorsailer designs are the Virginia Reels, two seagoing, sloop-rigged, cruiser-fishermen designed for Arthur M. Stoner of Madison, Connecticut. These boats might be considered 30/70 types, with roughly 30 percent of their propulsion sail and about 70 percent, power.

The first Virginia Reel was designed in 1954 to Stoner’s requirements for a comfortable fishing boat sufficiently seaworthy to stay out and take it in heavy weather. She was built of welded steel by Gebr. Dolman in Holland, and her measurements are 44 feet by 40 feet by 13 feet 1 inch by 4 feet 6 inches. You might call her a moderately heavy, highly modified trawler-type yacht, with high freeboard and a sweeping sheer. She has a raised flush deck forward, while aft, she has a fairly low deckhouse and a sunken after deck, with two fighting chairs and a transom door for boating large fish.

Unlike many trawler-yachts, Virginia Reel has twin engines, which ensure power reliability and good maneuverability. Fuel consumption is high, but Virginia Reel has a tank capacity of 700 gallons, and she can save fuel by sailing some of the time.

Virginia Reel’s basic hull form is very possibly a development of that of an offshore cruiser and sport-fisherman that Phil designed for Luis Puig of Santiago, Cuba, in 1927. The dimensions of the earlier boat are 45 feet by 42 feet by 11 feet 3 inches by 5 feet. With her narrower beam, deeper draft, and single screw, Puig’s boat seems to be based more on the idea of an old-style displacement powerboat than is Virginia Reel. Her sails are merely for steadying and trolling.

Virginia Reel could by no stretch of the imagination be called a smart sailer, but Phil Rhodes made the point that she really can sail. This brings to mind Dr. Samuel Johnson’s remark about the dancing bear. He said, in effect, that it is not how well the bear dances, but a wonder that it can dance at all. Virginia Reel might be somewhat like that bear when beating, but with 546 square feet of sail, she can reach remarkably well in a decent breeze. The sails are also very effective in steadying the boat when she is rolling to beam seas.

The deckhouse, sunken quite far below the main deck level, contains a galley and dinette, which can also be used for navigation. Farther forward and at a lower level there are an enclosed head and a stateroom with two berths and a seat.

Seven of the boats were built. The early ones had no shelters over the helmsman’s station abaft the deckhouse, but evidently the owners felt the need for better protection in foul weather, because Phil Rhodes wrote in an article for Motor Boating and Sail, “Every single one of the owners installed a shelter before he had the boat very long.” In the same article, Phil also made the interesting general comment that many prospective owners of motorsailers wanted steering stations inside the main deckhouse, for use in bad weather, but that he felt this was undesirable. He expressed his reasoning as follows: “Now, I consider this [an inside steering position a considerable mistake in a small boat: the simple reason is that on a motorsailer type, with any given amount of sheer, you can’t see forward out of the house well enough to steer safely. I have found at not a single one of those owners of boats so equipped that I have ever done has ever used the inside steering. It’s a little added expense, and it also takes up room. The real answer to it is that when it’s nice, you want to be outside to steer; and when it’s nasty, you’ve **** well got to be outside.”