Nonsuch Yachts for Sale

The Nonsuch exists because one sailor asked for a specific boat. In the mid 1970s the Canadian sailor Gordon Fisher asked the designer Mark Ellis for a cruising boat with a full sized interior that one person could handle. Ellis answered with a modern 30 foot hull carrying one large sail on an unstayed mast set right in the bow, with a wishbone boom. George Hinterhoeller, whose St. Catharines yard came out of his split with C&C, built it. By January 1996 there were 975 boats, 522 of them the 30.

A Nonsuch answers a specific question: how a couple or a singlehander sails a roomy 30 or 36 footer without wrestling headsails. One sail to trim, tacking is turning the wheel, and the nearly 12 foot beam on the 30 gives an interior off a larger boat. Against that, they go to windward less well than a sloop. Inspect the rig first: mast partners and step, the wishbone hardware, and the sail, which is the biggest single cost of ownership. Hinterhoeller closed in the mid 1990s, so the owners' associations are the source for spars and sails.