VARIATIONS ON A CENTAUR THEME
Three years into production of the original six-berth version (now called layout A), with the yacht selling well, Westerly decided to bring out variants on the Centaur theme.
Firstly they offered two more internal options; the five-berth layout B (with a fixed table and one full length settee berth alongside it), and the four-berth layout C (removing the starboard quarter berth in favour of a large cockpit locker).
Then the new Chieftain was introduced. Based on the Centaur hull, with the forward end largely unchanged, the Chieftain became Westerly’s first centre-cockpit yacht.
Essentially the Centaur’s two quarter-berths were moved further aft and closed off from the saloon, becoming a separate cabin accessed from a new hatch constructed at the rear, the long Centaur cockpit being foreshortened and a wheel replacing the tiller – 79 Chieftains were sold in addition to the Centaurs.
1972 saw the engine being standardised as well. In early years the Centaur had been offered with a choice of engines; a 10hp single cylinder Volvo MD1B, the 13hp 2-cylinder MD7A, the 16hp Volvo MD11, or a 4-cylinder 25hp Watermota. But in 1972 Volvo offered Westerly an astonishingly good quantity discount on its MD11B – so cheap that it was almost unthinkable that anyone would opt for anything else. So it became the standard engine from 1972 onward, although by any objective measure it was unnecessarily powerful for the Centaur.
In 1976 the Centaur was offered with a fin keel.
This model was given a new name – the Pembroke – and 97 were sold. So with 2,444 Centaurs, 79 Chieftains and 97 Pembrokes, there have been 2,620 yachts built on the same hull.