Well we managed to find a used U20 locally. After scouring the entire country one showed up in Santa Cruz! The market is so hot for these we pounced on the boat.
Stella is hull #156. I raced against her when I was crewing on Trent’s U20, #27 UFO at the Ultimate 20 North Americans at Lake Huntington. Actually, Stella was on charter to the class president and he HIT us. We were on starboard tack and he just got a bit overpowered and couldn’t duck us. He did his penalty turns and all was good, except on of UFO’s lifelines got broken. Easy fix.
First thing I looked at when I was buying the boat was the bow, where they hit us LOL, no marks.Stella came well equipped with an older set of Boston/Doyle sails, galvanized trailer, and all the class-required gear except for a motor. We bought a Torqeedo electric and it powers the boat around great.
We thought long and hard about putting a bottom on the boat immediately so that we could leave her in the water at South Beach. We opted, instead, to put the boat over at Treasure Island Sailing Center where we’ll drysail her throughout the winter.
Only had one race on her so far, the Leukemia Cup. Had a great showing, leading the fleet for a bit…ended up 7th. LOTS of fun.
The U20 has gone through a few production companies. It started out in the Ron Moore boat shop in Santa Cruz, and then Santa Cruz Yachts (builder of the Sc-27’s and Yukon Jack) took a stab at building them. US Yachts built the majority of them under the USI logo. Production moved to Abbot boatbuilding in Canada but a fire gutted the plant destroying all but one boat. Luckily the molds were spared.
Recently the production moved to
/index.php">Columbia Yachts in Santa Ana, CA. Yes, this is the rebirth of the original Columbia Yachts founded by Dick Valdes in the late 50’s. His son, Vince has reformed the company and is building the U20 alongside his own Sportboat, the Columbia 30 and the awesome Antrim Class 40. Vince uses state of the art infusion and I have to say, these boats are looking perfect. The weight is dead on class minimum, they are strong, light and gorgeous. Columbia has worked hard to bring the production into the new millennium with infusion. Now that this learning curve is behind them, look for some ramped up production, given a somewhat more robust economy
We’ve sailed all the sportboats in production and have to say, the U20 is the perfect
blend of speed, comfort (has a cabin that’ll sleep 2 comfortably) durability and price. The owners group is fanatical about this boat. The resale is ridiculously high with used boats generally selling for more than they were bought. Construction on these boats is historically at the top of their class and Columbia has improved on that already lofty performance. Get this, in the 08 U20 North Americans, an amateur team on hull #6, yes hull 6, beat out a pro team skippered by none other than Brad Boston himself (6 time North America Champion). A testament to a well built boat. You’ll not see this in virtually any other class in sailing. It really is the “Ultimate 20 Footer.”If you want to sail one, let us know. We’re ALWAYS looking for a reason to get out there.
