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Year

2002, launched 2004

LOA

30' 9"

Beam

10' 4"

Draught

4' 11"

Keel type

Twin fin

Engine

Yanmar diesel

HP

18

The British Hunter Channel is one of few modern build and style yachts that offer this much more versatile twin keel version, with good performance and well fitted accommodation. This yacht is well equipped including electric windlass, chartplotter and digital radar, cabin heating and very good sails. The hull was epoxied from new and remains in excellent condition. Launched for the season in July 2024 and now afloat in Devon. The Channel 31 is, like many smaller Hunter designs, fractional rigged, with a relatively large mainsail. This gives sail area for light winds performance, a small headsail with consequent lower sheet loads, and easy and efficient reefing from the cockpit. 'Practical Boat Owner' tested the yacht on her introduction and wrote: "..... She's incredibly obedient and will still run rings round most cruising boats of similar size even under reduced canvas" and ".... she should appeal to those who might otherwise be torn between something light, fast and French and one of the stodgier alternatives"

The Hunter Channel 31 was designed by David Thomas, with interior design by Ken Freivokh, and introduced in early 2000. David Thomas has been quoted as saying the design was ".... straight down the middle between a club racer/one design and a cruiser that will look after the crew and take you anywhere".

Construction is entirely conventional, with the hull being a solid GRP laminate, laid up by hand and stiffened by foam filled frames and stringers. The bulkheads are laminated in place. The deck is GRP laminate with coremat and reinforced deck beams. The plywood furniture bases are laminated to the hull to further stiffen the structure. The heads unit, engine tray and Galley are built on one internal moulding glassed to the hull giving easily cleaned areas. She has a bulbed iron fin keel or twin fins and a semi-balanced spade rudder. As you would expect from a David Thomas design the twin keels are fairly deep and efficient. The engine has shaft drive. This yacht was sold new in 2002 as a kit boat, which like all Hunter kits had all the structural work done at the factory. It was launched in 2004.

David Thomas's many designs range from the long-keeled Elizabethans of the 1960s through the Sonata and Impala one-designs and various Sigmas cruisers and racers of the 1970s and 80s. He also designed most of the British Hunter range of yachts.

The Hunter Channel 31 is significantly heavier than most comparable production cruiser/racers such as the Jeanneau Sun Fast 32, yet with a big rig is more or less comparable in speed. She also has almost 50% more ballast than the Jeanneau, and is RCD Cat A. Twenty years earlier Westerly's Fulmar 32 aimed for a similar fast cruiser/club racer design: however the one snag for many people these days with the Fulmar being that it does not have a separate aft cabin. By comparison the Channel 31 has a double berth forecabin, saloon with 6 ft headroom, an L-shaped galley with icebox and two burner cooker with oven and grill, a chart table with seat, separate heads, and a proper aft cabin with a double berth measuring 6' 6" x 6' 4". Despite the much better accommodation the Channel 31 is also similar in performance to the slightly larger Fulmar.

Link to "Yachting Monthly' review

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