Spadefoot (boat)

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History

Spadefoot is one-off custom Schumacher 28, designed by Carl Schumacher in 1999 and built by Schooner Creek Boatworks in 2000. The boat was designed and built for Dick Horn a friend of Carl’s living in San Francisco Bay Area. The hull is klegecell closed-cell foam with carbon skins. The keel is a lifting centerboard with a bulb. Originally the boat, named After Math, sported a free-standing carbon rig and Hoyt boom for the jib. Sometime in the mid 2000’s she was converted a standard aluminum rig and later the Hoyt boom was removed, making the sail configuration quite normal. After Math was sold sometime around 2010 to a couple living in Eastern Washington and renamed Silver Lining. After racing Pacific Cup in 2014, Chris & I started looking for a trailerable boat we could sail regularly in Texas and also race to Hawaii. In August 2014 we found Silver Lining for sale in Portland, OR. After a quick visit to see the boat, a call to Steve Rander, the builder, and an email exchange with Dick Horn, Silver Lining was ours. Renamed Spadefoot (after the toad), the boat now lives at Austin Yacht Club on Lake Travis, near Austin, TX. Soon after bringing Spadefoot to Texas we repurposed the carbon Hoyt boom to make an on-deck retractable, 4 foot sprit to fly asymmetrical spinnakers. We now race regularly on Lake Travis against J/80’s, J/70’s, J/29’s, a Tripp 26, and a Melges 24.

Specifications
      • Length Overall (LOA) = 28 ft
      • Length Waterline (LWL) = 24 ft 8 in
      • Beam = 8 ft 6 in
      • Draft = 6 ft 6 in (keel down), 3 ft 8 in (keel up)
      • Displacement = 3220 lbs
      • Ballast = 902 lbs
      • 100% Sail Area = 412 ft²
      • Spinnaker Area = 648 ft²
Spadefoot_Drawing
Random Spadefoot Details

The Schumacher 28 is an evolution of the Express 27 that Carl designed in 1982. The design is a similar, smaller version of the Synergy 1000 that Carl designed in 1999. Carl also designed the Sonoma 30 around 1984. The Sonoma 30 was the boat that Chris and I sailed together in 1995. Back then we had visions of racing “The Edge” to Hawaii. Spadefoot is actually the result of searching for a boat like a Sonoma 30 with a lifting keel.

The rudder was built by Larry Tuttle at Waterat Sailing Equipment. The engine is an inboard gas saildrive (Saildrive 280) with a 4-stroke Honda 9.9hp motor and a flex-o-fold folding propeller. The mast was built by Ballenger Spars. The spinnaker hoist is fractional, about 2′ above the forestay and 2.5′ below the tip. We asked Buzz Ballenger about flying a masthead spinnaker and he didn’t recommend it without adding jumpers.

When we bought the boat all the sails were from Santa Cruz sails. The new A2, A4, and A0 spinnakers are from Quantum.