Central Cockpits: how did it get to the Central Cockpit?

CC, a short acronym you will have often glimpsed distinguishing the name of a hull model. The Swan 55 CC, for example, designed by Frers in 1990. But what does it mean? Many will know, CC = Central Cockpit, i.e., hulls with a central cockpit, or models in which this variable is implemented. Central cockpit, that is, hulls with cockpit configurations, precisely, not aft, but toward the center of the boat, often set higher, more protected, and with major changes to interior layouts. Because, yes, the center cockpit not only implies a different helm position, but changes a whole range of parameters. Are they better than aft cockpits? It depends. Mainly, it is a matter of subjectivity and the intended uses of a hull. But the main point, perhaps, is another. How were they introduced, why did they catch on widely, and then suddenly decline? Some answers are purely related to the mysteries of the market. Others, however, we will try to observe in this article, trying to understand their origins, not exactly clear from the explosive evolution of 1980s sailing to the present…

Central cockpits? It’s not a matter of fashion

As with the Open Transom article, where we tried to examine and understand the evolution that led to the phenomenon of open transoms(if you hadn’t read it, you can find it HERE), even in the case of center cockpits, a jump back in time is necessary, a return to the Classic Boats. After all, it is often by looking at the events of the past that we can better understand the present, and the same is true of the design evolutions that populate the contemporary sailing world…

Central Cockpits: where do they come from?

As in any case, there are always forerunners, hulls perhaps designed with a central cockpit well before it became a particularly widespread phenomenon (e.g., the gaff-rigged working hulls of the early 1900s), but these do not make the norm. Having said that premise, if one looks at the large production of the late 1960s and early 1970s, one can immediately see a huge predisposition for the adoption of narrow, deep aft cockpits, often protected by a hint of a deckhouse and not particularly dry in buoyant conditions with a swell. Hulls such as theAlpa 12.70, Swan 36, Swan 48 or Grand Soleil 34-all boats with relatively flush decks or barely hinted at deckhouses.

At the same time, hulls of a more “classic” stylistic approach, with a low and long deckhouse, continue to populate the landscape, barely more protected in the cockpit, but always with the positioning of these well back. An excellent example is offered by a hull such as the Centurion 32, while already a Columbia 50 instead paints well the image of a boat of this setting with, however, a more raised deckhouse to protect the cockpit. It is, however, with the 1970s that we begin to see an attempt at change, a change that, however, and this is crucial, touches mainly cruising and bluewater hulls. In 1971, for example, the Dufour Sortilege was born.

Dufour 35 pantographed large, the Sortilege offers, however, a center cockpit principle. Armed as a ketch, in fact, it presents the cockpit, complete with wheelhouse, abaft the mizzenmast, offering a more forward position and maximizing interior space, which now sees a more voluminous cabin aft, taking advantage of the space below the cockpit for motorization. It will be the Scandinavian hulls, however, that will really give the La to this trend, but the reasons that allow us to best understand its emergence are actually more evident in precise philosophical changes, and the example of the two Dufours above makes it well: what Michel Dufour introduced with those two series of his, just after the legendary Arpège? Huge central maximum beams. And similarly we will see precisely in another ketch, theHallberg Rassy 41 of 1975.

Central wells and maximum beams

The correlation between maximum beam and central cockpit may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but it is one of the key components. Until the late 1960s, classic large-slung lines simultaneously saw a particularly fine beam. In the 1970s everything starts to change. Just take two concrete examples, the Swan 43 signed by Sparkman & Stephens (1967) and Michel Dufour’s Dufour 35 (1971): their respective dimensions (LOA x Beam) are an impressive 13.04 x 3.55 meters the former, 10.75 x 3.45 the latter. A full 2.29 meters difference in length versus just 10 cm in width, whereas already, an Alpa 11.50 from 1967, measured 11.56 x 3.20 meters…even less than the Dufour. This brings us to a relatively simple point: there is now beginning to be the actual space to have central cockpits that, not only do they not clutter up the entire space on the stern-bow axis of the deck, but also leave enough to move below deck, on the same axis. Increasing the beam actually allows these options to be implemented. And it will no longer apply only to ketches.

Indeed, in 1977 theHallberg Rassy 38, designed by Olle Enderlein and produced in as many as 202 examples, will make its grand appearance. The center cockpit is still not exactly huge, similar to a traditional one in layout, but it is protected, advanced, and leaves room for a much larger aft cabin. She is one of the first true CC appearances in the mass production (non-ketch) world. Of course, it is a cruising hull and it is Nordic. What is the basic idea? To offer bluewater that is not only top quality in terms of sailing, but also offers the most shelter and comfort even in the most demanding sailing, in bad conditions and low temperatures. For the entire bluewater segment, it will be an uninterrupted success and trend.

The transition of the late 1970s

Maximum beams and boom in cruising and the bluewater “liveaboard” phenomenon are certainly a major input for the spread of central cockpits. But another element begins to facilitate their introduction with the late 1970s. Somewhat like the beams before, it is now the reduced momentum and reversed sterns that play a role. More vertical sterns and reduced momentum in fact imply one thing: greater stern volumes and backward beams, thus maximizing even more precisely those places where CCs are expected. This is the big breakthrough, and the production underscores it. The cruising boom makes the pair, making center-cockpit hulls boats that are ravenous: they are drier, more protected, and safer. Another element comes into play in turn: overall lengths are increasing. If in the ”60s the standard was around 30/35 feet, with the 1970s hulls begin to grow in length, settling first on an average of 37/40 feet, then trending toward 40/45 around the 1980s. Two extra meters of length certainly played no small role, seeing both interior volumes and beams in turn grow. It is at this stage that the CC craze takes off, with hulls like the Maramu 46 paving the way.

At the same time, the cockpits also take on intermediate forms, with double drums and double cockpits, not quite central in this case, but directly distinct, as in the case of the 1979 Baltic 51, for example, where the aft cockpit houses the wheelhouse, while, the center cockpit houses the rigging.

Boom and “decline”

Comfortable, dry, protected, and guaranteed comfortable interior layouts, it was with the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s that CCs really exploded. TheOyster 55 in 1986, theHallberg Rassy 36 MKI and the Super Maramu in 1989, to name a few. In this period the cruising hulls, the bluewater, are all CC. And if they are not by design, they will soon be supplemented with the dedicated variant, a feature now usable thanks to the design changes of the last 20 years. It’s the boom. And they are not necessarily slow hulls, as is often believed. And, regardless, not often of interest. Just think of Frers’ Hallberg Rassy 36 MKI: 606 built…

The 1990s did not stop the trend, which in fact grew. First Swan, in 1990, with its 55CC signed frers, then Wauquiez, with the Centurion 61, and so on, accompanied by Najads, Oysters like the 53 and Hallberg Rassy’s dominance on this front, to name a few.

At the same time, however, something is also beginning to change. Mind you, not to supplant the CCs themselves (so much so that Hallberg Rassy stayed true to the line), but to look in a third direction still. For as we saw, the double-cockpit option was already there, but with the large cruising Maxis this option is also gaining momentum. The issue here is simpler: as with the stately yachts of the late 1800s and early 1900s, you can separate crew and guests. The former aft, at the rigging and helm, the latter amidships, comfortable, dry and protected. At the same time, as seen in the article on Open Transoms(HERE), several design elements changed again with the late 1990s, starting with beams and designs, seeing precisely the appearance of open sterns, characterized by increasingly large and increasingly widespread cockpits in terms of surface area. The increasingly V-shaped configuration of the hulls, in fact, which will take hold with the early 2000s, will drastically change the shapes of the sterns and the range and potential of them, making them wide, long, and seeing them develop almost from half-boat to stern already.

This, coupled, then, with market trends and changing tastes, will lead to the demise of these requirements, seeing center cockpits relegated once again to true bluewater, hulls still designed with more “rounded” lines and different settings, but no less performance. A good example? The new Hallberg Rassy 69, unfailingly CC.

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