22m² Skerry cruiser

Skerry cruisers (or Square metre yachts) are yachts, usually wooden, which are constructed according to the Square metre rule. Originating from Sweden, they were historically most popular in the Baltic Sea, though some classes also saw popularity in other European countries and USA. Skerry cruisers are construction classes, meaning that though the boats are not identical with each other, they are all built according to same formula, making them broadly comparable in size and performance. Most skerry cruisers are slender boats, with low freeboards and tall rigs.

In 1907, the Swedish Sailing Federation established a committee to design a national racing yacht class. Previous handicap rules had tended to be very simple and boats had evolved to be very fast and extreme racing machines, which were perceived as unsafe and impractical. Recently developed other options were the Universal rule (also called 'American rule') and the International Metre rule, neither of which were seen as fully satisfactory by the Swedish Sailing Federation. The committee completed its proposal the following year. It was accepted as the first Square Metre Rule: yachts were to be classed by their sail area which was fixed. In addition, there were minimum requirements for weight and cabin measurements. Four new classes were originally accepted: 22m², 30m², 45m² and 55m² classes. Soon, new classes were to follow: 38m² class in 1912; 15m², 75m², 95m², 120m² and 150m² classes in 1913; finally in 1915, 38m² and 45m² classes were combined to new 40m² class. The new rule became very popular within the Baltic region; between 1907 and 1920, Finnish yards alone built some 600 Square metre rule yachts. During peak years, Skerry cruisers made up 95 percent of the yards' output. They were also exported to other European countries and the USA.

The Square Metre rule was much less restrictive than competing International Rules. The relatively loose set of rules allowed previously built boats into the new classes if their rigging was modified to comply with the rules. They also gave designers relatively free hand, and top designers like the Finns Gustaf Estlander and Zake Westin soon came up with very extreme designs which pushed contemporary sailboat technology to its limits. Development was dramatic: for example, whilst early 40m² boats tended to be around 9 to 10 metres long, in 1923 Westin designed a 40m² boat which was 15.2 metres long and had a beam of only 1.74m – a length to beam ratio of nearly 9 to 1. An often cited example as some sort of pinnacle of the rule was the 150m² Singoalla, designed by Estlander in 1919 and claimed to have been the fastest boat in the Baltic: Uffa Fox had the dubious pleasure of surfing this boat at 14 knots and claimed afterward that it followed the waves "like a sea serpent".

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