Description

One of the last Parker 27s built, before Bill Parker went on to modify the moulds to create the Parker 275. These boats sail incredibly well, often outsailing much larger boats, sailing more like a large dinghy and able to tack very quickly, yet its broad beam and ballasted cabin sole gives it surprising stability even with the keel raised when she floats in just 40cms of water! This is an ideal boat for ditch crawling and sailing in to the shallows where most other boats cannot reach, yet despite that she handles rough weather well as I can attest, having sailed her single handed around Britain in 2023, and completed the trip in three months. I am looking to move up to a slightly larger boat in the hope of getting my wife back into sailing which she enjoyed when we did several trips on 30 + footers! I have added loads of goodies over the 124 years I have owned her including refrigeration, pressurized Hot water, and a fully equipped galley with oven and grill, Something not normally found on these boats. she has a good wardrobe of sails all with plenty of life in them and she was coppercoated professionally three years back. I have also installed a hydraulic keel lift system which has worked very well for the last six years and also installed closed loop cooling on the Yanmar 2GM 20 engine. The instrumentation is almost exclusively Raymarine except for the log which is NASA marine solid state impellerless, as Raymarine don’t make one!

Specifications

Accommodation

She was originally designed to sleep five but the fifth person would have had to use the port cabin seat and trotter box into the hanging locker and in any event would have been very crowded. I moved the location of the moveable table from the starboard side over to the port side adding a cutlery drawer below it. It can still be positioned centrally in the main cabin if or back in the stbd position if necessary although I have always left it on the port side adjacent to the galley area. The other berths are two in the forepeak, another full length settee berth on the starboard side ( my preferred berth) and a decent size and long quarter berth on the starboard side.

Construction

Normal GRP construction but originally with Crystic Coppercoat below the waterline. This was not very successful and only lasted about two years, as it was not self abrading. For that reason a lot of these boats were subsequently overcoated with normal antifoul. I had my hull soft abraded back to the crystic coppercoat and then coated it with epoxy before applying proper Coppercoat (TM) which I did myself. it lasted 8 years but then needed redoing so I contracted the Yard where I keep the boat in the winter, to do a professional reapplication as they are approved Coppercoat applicators, that was done at the end of 2022. Whilst they were at it, I asked them to fill and fair all the through hulls except for the raw water cooling inlet, as I had removed the sea toilet and installed a composting Head (Ogo) which has been a complete success and I believe has added about about 0.4 knots to her sailing speed as well as getting rid of the smells associated with normal sea toilets.

Equipment

Although this is a quite exhaustive list, I am quite sure there are items I have missed…..
Karver structural furler
stainless steel retractable bowsprit for cruising chute
CQR anchor with 5M x 8mm chain an 30M weighted anchor rode
Spinnaker pole
combined deck flood and steaming light (LED)
three sets of reefing lines with small blocks (30mm) on the sails to decrease friction
Barton Boom strut
Mainmate type
all in one mainsail cover
Mainsail 6mm Dyneema halyard spliced to 8mm polyester pre-stretched line for ease of handling
Hydraulic Keel lift system with controls and tell tale indicater in cockpit
60 litre freshwater tank and Johson /Jabsco water pump + electronic tank gauge in Heads
Ogo composting head
Barometer x2 and clock
Smev FO211 oven and grill
two burner gimballed gas hob with piezo igniters
65 Litre high efficiency refrigerated coolbox
Waterdrop 0.03micron water filter system
Merlin smartguage, Smart engine charge regulator (4 stage) and SmartCharge Lite automatic charge controller
Victron Energy bluetooth Battery monitor
CO alarm
McMurdo M10 AIS
Quark Electric active antenna splitter -VHF/AIS/FM radio
Standard Horison DSC VHF radio with external RAM microphone/ controller + external speaker
Ocean signal emergency strobe/LED light and spare battery
Quark Electric Multiplexer with wifi connectivity
2 x Raymarine ST60 MFDs
Raymarine Axiom 7” chart plotter
Plastimo Compass
80W solar panel on hatch garage fed to 10A Epever MPPT solar regulator
3x 18W solar panels in forehatch and one on each side of the coachroof fed to 5A genasun MPPT solar regulator
35W ‘wandering’ solar panel, stainless steel backed solar panel-normally left along side deck fed to Genasun 5A MPPT solar regulator
115W rigid square solar panel-dual sided for use in dock or at anchor to provide additional power, fed to 10A Genasun MPPT solar regulator
Barton fully adjustable Genoa cars with control lines to cockpit
Capn Bob’s boom gybe preventer and control line lead back to cockpit
CHT and Exhaust temperature gauges
Fuel gauge
Tinytach digital tachometer and engine log.
Raymarine
ST60 Autopilot controller
Pellagic Tiller ram
Fusion FM cockpit radio and 2 x 30W cockpit speakers
Handmade made (laminated elm and mahogany) tiller with tiller brake
Ancorolina 15M kedge anchor tape on reel + 7kg Fortress anchor with 5M x6mm chain leader
Horseshoe Life ring and 20M floating line
collapsible boat hook
5 x 10mm multiplait 10M mooring lines (black) with built in bungees, 2x 12mm 20M mooring lines (blue)
30Mx12mm long mooring line (grey) all with spliced loops in one end
4 x 25cm Diameter burgundy fenders + 2 x 12cm burgundy fenders
Racor 50 vortex
fuel filter and continuously rated 120lph fuel pump
Chinese”Eberspacher type” diesel powered hot air heater with own 5Litre tank.
8 litre calorifier
2 x 95A/hr AGM house batteries + 75A/hr starter battery
15 Amp mains Victron Energy smart battery charger

Navigation Equipment

The navigation equipment is almost exclusively Raymarine with one or two minor exceptions. ~On the Instrument binnacle over the forehatch, their are two ST60 MFDs displaying w/v, depth and log speed on the left hand display which can be selected between true wind or apparent, and on the right had MFD, there is either COG, SOG, Lat/ Long and Log distance, or COG, SOG. VMG. and Log Distance, or COG,SOG. Lat/Long and Baro, all selected by the up/down arrows. on the starboard seat back there is an ST60 A/p controller which controls the Evo Autopilot but rather than the standard Q400 type tiller ram, I have replaced it with a Pellagic tiller ram because it has feed back pots preventing the ram from stalling at full stroke which had sometimes caused the c/b to pop in the past. it is also quicker and uses less power (ie more efficient). on the aft face of the starboard cabin wall there is a 7” Axion chart plotter and also a Plastimo compass. In the cabin on the starboard side there is a McMurdo M10 AIS, Quark Electric powered antenna splitter which allows the AIS, Standard Horizon DSC radio and the FM radio to all use the one masthead antenna without interference. The other departure from raymarine is the speed log which is a Nasa Marine solid state (no moving parts) because for some reason Raymarine do not have one in their range and the only other way it could be done was with an Airmar solid state log connected to an Airmar adaptor both of which were going to cost around £600 each. The Nasa Marine one was £185 and is connected to a spare NEMA0183 port on a Quark Elec Multiplexer which allows it to talk to the Stng/NEMA 2000 network.the Quark Elec Multiplexer also has a wifi capability allowing the information on the network to be fed to a suitable tablet or laptop. The last bit of equipment is not really navigational but falls under the electronics tab, which is a Fusion Marine cockpit stereo radio.

Engine(s)

Yanmar 2GM20, originally raw water cooled but converted to closed loop ( long life antifreeze and water) about four years back. I installed this engine myself having bought it secondhand from Marine Enterprises. I did a top overhaul with new valves and springs and serviced injectors before installing it. The freshwater conversion I also did myself using an external heat exchanger and Johnson electric continuously rated circulation pump. This allowed me to install a small (8 litre) calorifier to provide hot water, either from the engine or a mains powered immersion heater which heats the water in about 15~20 minutes, or 20~25 minutes of engine running. The fuel supply is run through a Racor 50 vortex filter by a continuously running electric pump with a bleed off to the engine that is on all the time the ignition switch is on, this is a 120 lph pump so in theory the complete contents of the tank are pumped through the filter every half hour or less.

Sails & Spars

The mainsail which is 8 years old isn Bainbridge Dacron and made by Arun sails and which ~i had converted to fully battened three years ago by Batt Sails in Bosham who has a Parker Seal boat himself. The Genoa is a 4.5 oz 135% Tri-radial Cruising laminate sail ,again made by Batt Sails three years ago and which replaces a 6 oz 145% Dacron Tri-radial sail but amazingly still drives the boat at the same speed but allows me to beat into a F5 wind as opposed to a F4 with the 145% Genoa, before needing to reef, I expect because it is stiffer and does not ‘belly’ in a blow, creating more drag and more heel. This new genoa is hank on with stainless steel snap hanks because I have now fitted a Karver structural furler, where the entire forestay rotates, negating the need for a foil. this makes for a much easier sail change, especially single handed. Finally there is a 100% working jib and almost new symetrical spinnaker and cruising chute, both with their own snuffer tubes and deck bags.

Location Map