K. R. Skentelbery and Sons built her at Laira Bridge in Plymouth from the middle nineteen-eighties into this century, complete, sail-away or part-finished, in a small run; the name became Saltram when a Scandinavian firm claimed Saga. Her hull is heavily laid-up glass, her deck epoxy-coated plywood on laminated beams, her ballast cast iron on a long keel, and her rudder hangs on the canoe stern.
The race calls her a development of the Colin Archer rescue-boat hull, similar to Suhaili but four feet longer, and substantially faster than the original; the designer allowed only the comparison of the double end and the form of the stern.
In 2026 she raced as Silvermines Hydro, the boat that as Green Rebel retired to Cape Town in 2022 when her wind vane’s gear failed, and again retired on 17 Oct 2026 about 2,000 nm west of Cape Town with a broken Solent stay; and she races as Showgirl, a hull of 2001.
Her one past start: retired at Cape Town, day 67.
Two started: one ended early, one racing now.
After 5,644 nm, lying second and just over 100 nm behind the leader, the Solent stay broke in an east-north-east wind of 20 to 25 knots gusting 30, in a sea of three to four metres. Pat Lawless got the sail down and lashed the broken stay and its furling gear to the bow; the mast stayed up on the main forestay, and the skipper was not hurt and asked for no help. At 23:51 UTC on 17 Oct the message to Race Control read: “Pat here, Solent rig broken. Rig ok now sailing north out of the game”, and the race declared the boat out the next morning. Calling the race’s broadcast that day, the skipper said the boat was sailing north with the weather, Cape Verde perhaps later; the race wrote that the call suggested no continuing in Chichester class.
One started: ended early.
About 1,200 nm west of Cape Town the bush on the Aries wind vane’s spindle came out of its socket and disengaged the gears, a repair the skipper could not make at sea. Pat Lawless sailed the boat in on sheet-to-tiller steering and at Cape Town retired rather than continue in Chichester class, saying the boat would not be competitive without self-steering.
In 8 kt of wind and more, where she and the other designs have twenty legs or more each, her largest gain is reaching in 8–12 kt, +9%, and her largest loss, upwind in 12–16 kt, −10%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 132 | ||||||
| 246 | ||||||
| 291 | ||||||
| 164 | ||||||
| – | 32 | |||||
| 25 kt and more | – | – | – | – | – | 2 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
Displacement 9,500 kg, 2nd of 17 of the designs that have raced; displacement to length 415, 7th of 17.
An owner on the forums: stiff, well able to hold working sail in a force five without heeling past twenty degrees, with a steady and predictable motion. Two tonnes heavier than the Rustler 36, in the words of her skipper in 2022 and 2026, Pat Lawless, so two tonnes of food and safety gear make little difference to her waterline.
The race director on 24 Sep 2026: “the Saga 36 is a hot boat. There’s no question”. The owners of hull number four logged over seven and a half knots close-hauled in twenty to twenty-five knots of wind.
Like for like her boats measured +4% against the other designs in the same wind and angle.
Waterline 8.61 m on 10.90 m overall, 5th of 17; hull speed 7.1 kt, 5th of 17.
Light on the helm and easy to steer even when over-pressed, in the words of the owners of hull number four; steady and predictable in her motion, in an owner’s words on the forums.
Her ballast is an external cast-iron keel, not lead glassed in, and a surveyor’s guide to the design asks for the joint of keel to hull to be checked for cracking, fresh sealant or movement. Her deck is epoxy-coated plywood on laminated timber beams, which in an owner’s words can quickly get saturated once the sealant at a fitting fails; the same guide asks for a look at the staining around chainplates, fittings and portlights.
Windows and hatches leaked a little on Showgirl in the first weeks of the 2026 race, and Silvermines Hydro, then Green Rebel, had every chainplate changed before the 2022 race.
Sail area 59.0 m², 11th of 17; sail area to displacement 13.4, 17th of 17.
Yet under 8 kt of wind her boats measured +7% against the other designs, and in 20 kt and more +9%: how she is sailed counts for more than the ratios.
In 2022 a bushing came out of its socket on the Aries gear of Green Rebel, now Silvermines Hydro, twelve hundred miles west of Cape Town, and could not be mended at sea, “an engineering job”; the boat sailed on for a few days without it and retired at Cape Town. In 2026 each of her boats carries a second vane.
A small run from one Plymouth yard, fifteen by one count, the total unresolved; one for sale in Britain in September 2026, at forty-two thousand five hundred pounds.
- Saltram Owners Club, the history of the design (Pape at Looe, the plug, the ways she was sold, the name, the Colin Archer comparison)
- Yachtsnet’s archive page on the Saltram Saga 36 (the construction, the figures) and Classic Sailor, “Our next boat”, October 2019 (the forty-foot one-off of 1978, the iron keel, hull number four)
- Sailboatdata’s page on the Saga 36, read through the SailWiki mirror (the count of fifteen built, the first of 1985)
- The Saltram Saga 36 thread on the YBW forums (an owner on stiffness, motion, the deck)
- True North Yacht Advisors, “The Saltram Saga 36: a small offshore cruiser that still makes sense” (the survey guide)
- Yachting Monthly: the 2022 profile of Pat Lawless (the weight against the Rustler 36, the chainplates); “It was a no brainer to stop after my self-steering broke”; “Unfinished business” (2026: the same boat renamed, twelve hundred miles west of Cape Town)
- Navegantes Oceánicos, an interview with Mara Løvenskiold Kveseth (Showgirl’s preparation, the second Hydrovane)
- Offshore Sailing and Cruising with Paul Trammell, “Mara Lovenskiold Kveseth, GGR 2026 Entrant”, 16 Mar 2026 (the hull of 2001)
- The race’s skipper pages, goldengloberace.com (the Colin Archer and Suhaili lines, the spare Aries); its broadcasts on YouTube: the tracker update of 24 Sep 2026 (the race director on the Saga 36), and the Lanzarote sail-past live of 18 Sep 2026 and the week-three calls of 24 Sep 2026 (the leaks)
- Apollo Duck, the Saltram listings of September 2026 (the boat of 1997 at Cardiff)
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.2 (the approved designs) and I.2.4 (seven entries per design)
- The figures: the race's skipper pages for her two hulls, Pat Lawless's Silvermines Hydro and Mara Løvenskiold Kveseth's Showgirl, which agree (10.90 m, 8.61 m, 3.28 m, 1.8 m, 9,500 kg, 59 m²); ballast from sailboatdata's sheet, read through Boatsector and SailWiki (7,000 lb, 3,175 kg), the race's pages printing none; the years and number built from the Saltram Owners Club's list of hulls (numbered to 15, 1985 to 2003). A development of the Colin Archer rescue-boat hull, in the race's words. The other sheets print a lighter boat: sailboatdata's 18,000 lb (8,165 kg), a draft of 5.67 ft (1.73 m) and 565 sq ft (52.49 m²) of sail; Yachtsnet's archive sheet 20,390 lb (9,249 kg), 7,760 lb (3,520 kg) of ballast, a draught of 5 ft 8 in and 561 sq ft of working sail. The ballast share here is sailboatdata's own pair, 7,000 lb of 18,000 lb, 39%.
Why her races ended:
- Golden Globe Race, “Pat Lawless retires from the 2026 McIntyre Golden Globe Race after Solent rig failure” (18 Oct 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, “Race Timeline” (entry of 17 Oct 2026, “Pat retires from the race”)
- Golden Globe Race on Facebook, ENTRANT UPDATE and “Story of today | 18 October 2026” (18 Oct 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, skipper page “Pat Lawless” (retired 10 Nov 2022 west of Cape Town; “my self-steering started to give trouble 1200nm west of Cape Town. I sailed in using sheet to tiller and I decided to retire”)
- Yachting Monthly, “Golden Globe Race: 'It was a no brainer to stop after my self-steering broke'”, 14 Nov 2022 (a bushing came out of its socket, disengaging the gears; not repairable at sea; 7,824 miles sailed; a knee infection earlier in the race)
- Sail-World, “Half of the Golden Globe fleet in the Southern Ocean but Pat Lawless and Damien Guillou retired”, 15 Nov 2022 (headed bush on the Aries spindle shaft; arrived Cape Town 10 Nov in 4th place; declined Chichester class; “If this had happened in Hobart, I would have continued, but not here”)
- Wikipedia, “2022 Golden Globe Race” (lists the retirement as 9 Nov 2022)
The same hull in two races:
What the figures mean. Waterline: the longer, the faster a heavy hull can go. Hull speed: 1.34 × √waterline in feet, the old rule of thumb. Displacement to length: above 300 is heavy; every design here is but the OE 32. Sail area to displacement: under 16 is under-canvassed by modern lights. The middle line is the median of the designs that have the figure: seventeen, or fewer where a source does not give it. Lengths are printed to the centimetre and areas to a tenth of a square metre, whatever the source’s own precision, and the ratios are worked from the figures as printed here.
How she is measured. Every 4-hour leg with a model wind on which the boat was moving (0.2 kt and more): this race’s since the start, and each boat’s whole race in 2018 and 2022, to her finish or her retirement (what a boat sailed after she retired is not counted). A leg’s wind is the model wind at its two ends, averaged as vectors, so its speed is that of the mean wind (a few legs of 2018 and 2022 carry the wind at one end only). The past races have no ocean current, so all three are measured alike: speed over the ground, and the wind’s angle off the course made good. Like for like sets each leg against the other designs’ legs of the same race in the same 3 kt of wind and 15° of angle; the heat map and the polar set her median in each wind and angle, over all her legs there, against the other designs’ medians in the races she sailed, each race weighted by her legs in it. Every figure is a median, and each measures the boat as she was sailed: the sailor, her sails and the state of her hull are in it, a hull under barnacles too. More on the Method page.