Bill Lee taught sailors the meaning of the initials ULDB. In the early 1970s, the northern California designer/boat builder who coined the phrase “fast is fun” turned out a series of custom-built ultra light displacement boats that produced more speed for their size than any of the offshore racing boats of the time. Magic, Chutzpah, and the legendary Merlin dominated Pacific Coast racing, including the TransPac. In 1973, Lee created an everyman’s ULDB, the first production-built ultra lightweight offshore boat, a precursor to the “sport boats” of the 1990s. It was the Santa Cruz 27 – easy to sail, inexpensive and at home surfing to Honolulu or racing in coastal waters.

Eschewing the wide, “bumped” hulls dictated by the IOR racing rule in vogue at the time, Lee gave the 27 a narrow, shallow, dinghy-like hull. Its modest 400 square-foot sail plan had it surfing at 15 knots of wind. The Santa Cruz 27 is an easily-driven offshore boat, with a 50 percent ballast-to-displacement ratio, practical accommodations and solid construction. The hull’s reserve buoyancy and small hatches and cockpit adds to its offshore integrity. Like Lee’s Santa Cruz 70 sleds, the 27 proved that hulls that go over waves rather than through them are easier to sail in boisterous offshore conditions. Several owners have single-handed their 27s form California to Hawaii.

The 27 also became a popular inshore one-design – mostly on the West Coast, as an around-the-buoys keelboat for a five-person crew. 145 Santa Cruz27s have been built and most still sail in the waters where they were born, off the coast of California. Here owners wait with anticipation for surfing conditions in which the pioneering production ULDB provides some of the biggest thrills of sailing.