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Merlin | One Off Racers

Original Santa Cruz 70 Brochure.
The photos are of Blondie, Santa Cruz 70 #1
Our early designs, culminating in MERLIN, opened up a new level of High Speed sailing and brought new meaning forever to the concept of "Line Honors".

High speed sailing, in control, in comfort, and getting there first is where the rush and the action is. Especially when you also save your time on the slower, less comfortable, less exciting yachts who may finish the next day, or so!

The class of ULD 70 rater is the direction of growth. Costing little more than a 50 foot IOR lead boat, these new super yachts are much faster, more fun to sail, more controllable, and give you that well justified feeling of superiority.

The Santa Cruz 70 is the maximum performer of this new breed. Victories in the Cal Cup, The St. Francis Big Boat Series, recent Mexican races and blazing boat speed in other events have shown our design to be the superior yacht of this new breed of first to finish racers.

We took all of the fast things we knew about performance and blended them as gracefully as possible with the IOR rule - no bumps, no hollows; just maximum waterline, maximum power to carry sail, minimum wetted surface, and instant boat speed. Just add water. Heavy wind, light wind, upwind, and of course down wind, these new flyers easily do a horizon job on what used to be thought of as fast yachts.

Just in case you don't race all the time, a Santa Cruz 70 is still just what you need for high performance cruising . High speed under power, maximum passage making under sail, lots of room for your favorite layout, extra weight capacity if required, and good freeboard to keep you dry make our 70 the all around super yacht.

Santa Cruz 70's are built by our world famous Hilltop yacht builders with superior craftmanship and attention to detail. Hulls, decks, rudders and keels are designed and built in accordance with up-to-date scantlings for yachts. A USCG Sub T version is also available for passenger service yachts.

Standard construction is bi-driectional "E" glass skins over balsa core with AME 4000 Acrylic Modified Epoxy resin. For that extra flash, the full array of exotics such as "S" glass, Kevlar, graphite, Spectra 900, light weight foam or Nomex cores, epoxy, and unobtainium are available.

The suppliers of materials, hardware and systems to the Santa Cruz 70 are thee finest there are and include Navtec, Barient, Lewmar, Hulse, Kenyon, Sparcraft, Ballenger, Proctor, Harken, Penguin, Mariner, Rochester, B&G, Ockam, Signet, Seafrost, Technautics, Ritchie, Danforth, Feltex, New England, Yale, Samson, Marinetics, Headfoil, Gemini, and Martec. Owner options in hardware and instrumentation abound. We use and recommend the best.

Round the bouys, to the islands, across any ocean, round the world or at the bar, don't buy any big boat until you have evaluated and sailed our Santa Cruz 70.

Link to the Great Lakes 70's Sailing Association
Do you have any interesting pictures, links, stories, race results that might be fun to include on our site?

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