THE CENTAUR – BRITAIN’S BEST-SELLING YACHT
‘PBO’s sister magazine Yachting World greeted the Centaur as “The sensational new boat” at the 1969 London Boat Show’
When Westerly first showed the Centaur at the 1969 London Boat Show, Yachting
World greeted it as ‘The sensational new boat’ – foresighted comment since this boat was to become the bestselling British yacht ever made and stay in production for 12 years.
In the early 1960s Britain was still emerging from the ravages of the World War II, but a generation of young men, many with experience of the sea and a desire for newfound freedoms, were becoming interested in boating.
Glassfibre, which had become more common in the previous decade, was now being used as a boatbuilding material. Traditionally, most yachts had been built for gentlemen as one-off designs, but now companies were being set up specifically to build one-design boats in the new materials.
Westerly was one of them, started in 1963 by Denys Rayner. By concentrating on comfortable, easily manageable craft and good production quality, Westerly thrived with a good reputation to the end of that exciting decade.
Forward-thinking designs
By 1968, Westerly had eight models under its belt, and had sold about 1,000 yachts. Rayner, the original Westerly designer, had died and the company was in the hands of David Sanders. He felt the next step should be something bigger than the 25-footer they had previously sold, with accommodation for a family and, because deep water berths were rare and correspondingly expensive, a bilge-keeler which could take the ground.
Sanders and Rayner had discussed this future direction before Rayner’s death. Knowing the famous Laurent Giles Partnership had extensive experience of bilge keel designs, particularly for the revolutionary 50ft
Bluebird of Thorne built in 1962, for which tank-testing had been conducted at Southampton University’s Wolfson Unit, Rayner had advised Sanders that was the place to go for a new design.
After a false start, misinterpreting the brief given, Jack Laurent Giles produced a design that pleased neither themselves nor Sanders at Westerly.
However, after meeting Sanders to discuss his concerns, Laurent Giles was delighted to design what he called ‘a gentleman’s yacht’ for Westerly. After further tank-testing, this 26ft configuration of traditional styling with bilge keels, six berths, galley, saloon table, deep cockpit plus the Westerly hallmarks of a seaworthy, high spec family yacht with good headroom, became the Centaur.
The high freeboard and knuckled bow kept decks dry in most conditions and marked the boat out as a Laurent Giles design as well as giving impressive internal volume.
It was a fruitful partnership – with Laurent Giles putting their name to a further two dozen other Westerly models. That tank-testing of the keels was the first to be done for a massproduction boat. The Centaur was first in many respects and, considering the numbers eventually launched, arguably the first true mass production boat built.
From 1969 to 1980 Westerly built 2,444 Centaurs, representing about one fifth of all the Westerly yachts built. For most of the 1970s well over 200 Centaurs (sometimes more than 300) were built each year.
Media acclaim
Following its rapturous reception at the Earls Court show, a PBO boat test proclaimed: ‘Certainly family men should be delighted to find a boat of this size with thoroughbred handling qualities and good performance which can accommodate so many without having bodies all over the cabin floor at night’.
Ready to sail with engine, navigation equipment flares etc for about £3,100, PBO concluded: ‘Quite a lot of money, but you get two things that don’t often go together in a six tonner – six berths and good sailing.’
The Centaur caught the imagination of the market Sanders had aimed for, and businessmen with families flocked to buy this yacht. Standard configuration was a Bermudian sloop, with two berths in a forward cabin, two quarter berths, a galley to starboard in the saloon opposite a ‘dinette’ to port, where the table could be lowered to form a double. Variants of the basic model included a ketch rig, with a wheel attached to a cockpitmounted mizzen, but few were sold.