Sailboat Makers Add Motorboats To Lines

They would gaze down from polished decks beneath crackling sails and, as wind-blown purists, remark with disdain upon the smoking motorboats. “Stinkpots” they called them.

Those on the motorboats would look up at the lumbering sailboats, which they called “blowboats,” and imagine the “ragmen” who sailed them to be elitist mariners.

Time was, motorcraft and sailcraft mixed like oil and water. Today, because of changing customs and an aging population of traditional sailors, many manufacturers of the world’s finest sailboats are also building motorboats. The line between fuel and sail has blurred.

“We’re calling it socially acceptable powerboating and it’s happening a lot,” said Bentley Collins of Sabre Yachts in Maine. “There’s a definite crossover now between the two groups.”

There’s such a crossover, in fact, that half the boats sold each year by such venerable names as Sabre, Hinckley and Alden are powerboats.