Colorado may not be the first place you’d look for a builder offering a new trailerable sportboat, but Watershed Sailboats is indeed in Colorado. The Dibley 23 is a trailerable sportboat Watershed is building with New Zealand–based designer Kevin Dibley of Dibley Marine. Dibley worked closely with Watershed founder Tim Reiter to develop a trailer-friendly design with simple parameters; 23 feet LOA, 8-foot, 2-inch beam, and a maximum sail area of 368 square feet. Dibley paid special attention to the deck layout to ensure that crew weight and fixed ballast are concentrated around the boat’s center of buoyancy to minimize pitching. He drew a slightly hollow entry to reduce drag, a flat run aft, and, of course, wings to increase the righting effect of crew weight. Sail controls are as simple as possible—no winches, just double-purchase sheets and ratchet blocks for the big A-sail. The hull is to be built of Kevlar and carbon over a foam core. Dilbey says the top section of the lightweight carbon rig will be flexible enough to depower itself in gusty conditions. That’s a good thing, because this boat sounds like it will be able to tear around a mountain lake like a jet ski. Dibley Marine,www.dibleymarine.com
