Typical Formosa sail plan
Beausoleil is the on-water home of Jon & Shawna Gauthier. She’s a 1979 Formosa 51 ketch, 51′ on deck and 59′ 10″ in overall length from the tip of the bowsprit to the end of the mizzen boom. Her main mast reaches 63′ above the water, and she displaces 26 tons, has a 6.5′ draft and a beam of 14′ 2″. Jon & Shawna are currently cruising full-time.
Jon and Shawna moved aboard on July 4, 2008. They left their hometown of Marblehead, MA on September 17, 2008 to begin cruising down the East Coast of the US as the first phase of their extended cruise.
Beausoleil On A Reach
Hello fellow sailors,
I am in the market for a cruiser and found my self in a little dilemma. I have been looking at some Vagabond 47 and 51 and got excited but came across a Formosa 51 from William gardener same designer of the vagabond. Could you tell me your experience with your cruiser and what i should look for when buying a Formosa??( beside a surveyor report). We will be living aboard and sailing the Mexican coast . I read that it is a slow cruiser .
In a nutshell, with the proper sail inventory, the Formosa 51 is not a slow cruiser. If you read my posting here, you’ll see what a properly tuned rig and new sails can do for on. We consistently sailed at about half the apparent windspeed the whole trip, with the exception of hitting hull speed – the theoretical speed limit of a displacement hulled boat.
The drawback of an older Formosa, like any old boat, is that typically any boat on the market will require some TLC and upgrades to bring it up to the standards of a modern cruiser, if that’s what you’re looking for. You have to weigh the selling price and the cost of upgrades with that of a more modern boat. We probably could have saved a little money by going with a newer boat, but the jury’s out on whether it would have been any “better” or we’d have been any happier.