Bob Johnson's first clean-sheet design (1983 to 1989) and the boat that set the Island Packet template: a beamy, heavily built, shoal-draft full-keel cutter with a solid hand-laid glass hull and encapsulated ballast, meant to carry a couple in comfort rather than win races, and honest about being slow in light air and shy in reverse. It is genuinely overbuilt, with no chronic hull-blister or deck-delamination history on the fleet, but this reference is specific about the failure modes that do matter: the buried 304-stainless chainplates that are the defining survey item, an encapsulated iron keel that punishes a hard grounding, and a foam-cored rudder prone to water intrusion.
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| Length overall | 34 ft 4 in overall incl. bowsprit and boomkin (about 31 ft on deck) |
| Beam | 11 ft 6 in |
| Keel | Full keel, ~4 ft draft, encapsulated iron ballast ~4,500 lb, no keel bolts (shoal centerboard ~3 ft on ~10% of hulls) |
| Rig | Masthead cutter, keel-stepped mast, twin backstays, hanked staysail (no Hoyt jib boom) |
| Engine | Yanmar 3GM ~22 hp early, 3GM30F ~27 hp from ~1985 |
| Used market | ~$30k to $55k, condition-driven |
…and the full survey guide, service schedules, systems, and parts sourcing in the complete volume.
We fold in your year, your engine, your electronics and refits, your hull number, and your vessel name and your own boat's photo on the cover. The book stops describing the boat that left the factory and starts describing the one in your slip.