Eastern 18 CC

T

RIED

&

TRUE

by John Page Williams

John Bildahl Photos

Eastern Light

With its rugged Down East hull and efficient design, the Eastern 18 is right at home in Northeast waters.

Firefly, a 2007 Eastern 18 owned by William Storck, shows off her classic Royal Lowell design.

I

n 1981 Carmen Carbone of East Rochester, New Hampshire, bought the mold for an 18-foot skiff from a company named Norton that was going out of business. Despite the fact that the United States was in a deep recession, the mold was a good buy because the designer, Royal Lowell, was widely considered the finest of his era. Lowell, perhaps best known for the Bruno & Stillman 35 and 42 and the Sisu 22, 26 and 30, was a third-generation designer whose grandfather, Will Frost of Beals Island, Maine, is credited with developing the Down East powerboat hull.

Carbone named his new company Eastern Boats and began turning out his thoroughbred Eastern 18 as a working skiff. As the recession subsided, the boat became an immediate success—and no wonder. The 18 has lovely lines, a sweet bottom that lets it perform well with modest power and excellent seakeeping ability for its size. From the 20

Northeast Boating Magazine | September 2009

outset, inshore commercial fishermen liked the boat’s fuel efficiency and open layout, and recreational boaters found it useful for assignments ranging from fishing to cruising around the rivers, bays and coves.

In 1989 Bob Bourdeau went to work for Carbone. Bourdeau had started in the boating business at age 14, working his way through marina operations, customer service and retail sales. Based on what he learned about construction over the next four years, he decided to buy Eastern Boats from Carbone in 1993 and has run the company ever since, recently joined by his son Jake and daughter Ashlee.

Although Eastern builds over 100 boats per year at its new plant in Milton, New Hampshire, with models ranging to 35 feet, its best seller is the 18.

Our test boat for this review was Firefly, a two-year-old 18 that belongs to William Storck of Annapolis, Maryland.

Design and Construction The bow of the 18 is sharp enough to cleave waves, and the hull has enough freeboard and flare to turn them away.

The transition from the entry aft is gradual enough to keep the hull from pounding, but full enough to provide buoyancy in heavy seas. Bolt-on rails keep spray from following the faired topsides into the cockpit.

The bottom begins to flatten about a third of the way from the bow, and features rounded chines whose radii become tighter as they move aft. The bottom narrows slightly at the transom, allowing water to release easily from the hull sides. The result is a hull that lifts effortlessly to a semiplane for efficiency at speeds in the teens and twenties. A molded-in, full-length keel aids tracking and absorbs the abuses of grounding, intentional or otherwise.

Construction of the 18 has evolved over time. Changes include a shift www.northeastboating.net

from wood stringers encapsulated in fiberglass to a foam-filled fiberglass grid, from polyester to vinylester resin and from marine-grade plywood to Nida-Core for stiffening the self-bailing cockpit sole. However, the main hull materials remain fiberglass mat, Coremat and woven roving. The biggest change in the 18 occurred three years ago, when Bourdeau and his crew began adding a full inner liner and spraying foam into the space between it and the hull to provide flotation, strength and sound-deadening. The liner gives the 18 a more finished look, and customers have loved it.

On Deck The 18’s layout is intentionally simple and adaptable. The bow deck covers an anchor locker, with an access door in the bulkhead. Immediately aft are twin seat/storage boxes to port and starboard. Following a longtime Down East tradition, Eastern offers a folding canvas dodger to cover the bow area, with a drop-down curtain and a storage boot.

The console is large enough to hold a compass (standard), a seven- to eightinch GPS/plotter/sounder and a VHF radio. A windshield and stainless-steel grab rail are standard. Storage includes a dry upper locker with door. Below this is a deck-level area where the battery resides. It’s worth noting that this hull runs best with most of the weight centered around the console instead of fore or aft. The standard helm seat is a cushioned box with a swinging back, but it would be easy enough to install a leaning post with vertical rod holders and space for a cooler or livewell below. Another popular option is to add a cooler seat in front of the console. Two gunwale-mounted vertical rod holders come standard, but anglers will find it easy to add more as needed, along with horizontal rod racks under the gunwales, if desired.

Power and Performance Originally, preferred power for the Eastern 18 was a three-cylinder Evinrude/ Johnson 60/70 two-stroke outboard. w ww.northeastboating.net

Firefly sports a level deck and a no-frills layout. The standard helm seat unit features a foreand-aft swinging back and a roomy storage compartment.

These engines were about as efficient as carbureted two-strokes ever got and offered good power for this hull because their oversized lower units with low gearing allowed them to swing 13- to 14-inch propellers.

As new emissions regulations triggered the phase-out of those engines, the outboard of choice became Honda’s light, three-cylinder, 50-horsepower four-stroke, which provides quiet operation, outstanding fuel efficiency and enough power for most uses. This is the engine that drives Firefly.

It was instructive to run beside Firefly in another boat during the photo shoot, then to ride in her with the owner, taking performance data both times. With a stock aluminum 111/4inch by 14-inch, three-blade propeller,

Firefly climbed seamlessly onto plane at 9.5 mph (3200 rpm) and topped out at 26.5 mph (5800 rpm). With two of us aboard, however, planing required another 200 rpm, and wide-open throttle produced only 25 mph (5600 rpm). The hull did, however, follow a well-established Down East linear standard of efficiency: 4000 rpm produced 15 mph, 4200 produced 16.1 mph, 4400 produced 17.5 mph and so on. Unlike many popular fiberglass hulls, this one is efficient at these very useful speeds, and the Honda will run all day at midrange rpm levels.

If there is any knock against the Honda 50 on the Eastern 18, it’s that heavier loads slow it down a lot. The company has freshened this engine’s design with fuel injection and other Northeast Boating Magazine | September 2009

21

T ried &

at a glance

true

Eastern 18 Manufacturer: Eastern Boats, Inc. 11 Industrial Way Milton, NH 03851 603-652-9213 www.easternboats.com

Designer: Royal Lowell Details Production .........................................................1981–present LOA . ......................................................................................18’ 3” Beam....................................................................................... 6’ 8” Draft . .........................................................................................12” Weight . ........................................................................ 1,225 lbs.

Max. hp....................................................................................... 90 Fuel.....................................................................................28 gals.

Firefly’s bow features a cushioned cooler seat in front of the console and port and starboard bench seats with storage below. A canvas dodger keeps occupants dry on rough days. magic, and fine-tuning the propeller choice, probably with a four-blade, will help, but the Honda now has competition. For example, Bourdeau has been rigging many 18s with Evinrude’s 60-horsepower, two-cylinder, directinjected E-Tec two-stroke lately. Like its Evinrude 60/70 predecessors, this engine has an oversized gearcase with 2.67:1 reduction, which allows it to swing a 131/2-inch propeller with a 15- or 17-inch pitch. It is a clean, fuelefficient engine that offers 10 more horsepower and 6 percent more piston displacement than the Honda, with only about 30 pounds more weight, much of it in the lower unit. On the Eastern 18 it should offer a top speed of near 30 mph and increased load-carrying capacity, with no increase in fuel consumption.

22

Northeast Boating Magazine | September 2009

By the way, both Honda and Suzuki have new 60-horse engines coming out this summer, although the specifics were not available at press time.

Also, Mercury and Yamaha offer fourstroke 60s that they developed together, and both are available with oversized gearcases. The Eastern 18 can carry up to 90 horsepower, but 60 appears to be plenty for the uses for which Lowell designed the hull.

Price and Availability People who buy Eastern 18s tend to hold on to them, for good reason. An Internet search turned up no used boats for sale, but several new ones are available through Eastern’s dealer network in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The prices vary based on power and equipment, but the range is $24,000 to $28,000.

Honda’s 50-hp four-stroke will push the 18 to a top speed of 26 mph, with optimal cruise in the mid- to upper teens.

The Eastern 18 is a thoroughbred, a timeless design that can handle the multiple assignments of a water-loving family for a long, long time. Firefly and her sisters are very good boats in an era when efficiency and value are becoming ever more important.

Frequent Northeast Boating contributor John Page Williams is senior naturalist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland. www.northeastboating.net