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California Style.The Schock 23 's cockpit has comfortable, high coamings and a cutaway transom — a convenient mount for the outboard. The sheet leads on the cabin roof and the inboard-mounted chainplates (right) leave the sidedecks clear. |
The Schock 23’s appearance is hardly unique by contemporary standards — nearly plumb aluminum mast, flat sheer, streamlined house, and cut-down transom. If you appreciate the look, spawned in California a couple of decades ago and refined on production lines around the world since then, you’ll like the Schock’s style. This boat Sits squarely in the mainstream.
Below decks, the Schock is surprisingly traditional. In addition to the double berth in the forepeak, two generous (7 feet 10 inches by 29 inches) settee/berths extend well out into the main cabin. Unlike the coffin quarterberths on many modern small cruisers, these fine beds poke back only 22 inches under the cockpit and they’ll be easily made up.
How can Schock find room to put two real berths in the main cabin while other builders of 23-footers are hiding the beds back where the lazarette ought to be? They put the galley on tracks. When not in use, the entire unit — sink, countertop and all — slides back out of the way under the cockpit (over the foot of the port berth). Sliding easily without jamming, it has adequate room, and is reached easily while the cook sits on the portable cooler/companionway step.
This step, a stock, high-quality cooler with wooden treads fastened to its lid, simplifies storage and transportation, and is convenient both to the cockpit and galley. However, beware of using it as a step when you’re under sail. Secured only by cleats on the cabin sole, the box will capsize and dump you into the lee bilge if you’re unlucky enough to go below while the boat is heeled. lash it down.
The head is well-located amidships. Though there’s no such real privacy aboard any 23-foot boat, a latch on the folding door would be a welcome addition to prevent it from swinging open at inappropriate times. The obligatory miniature sink is part of the furniture. A plastic hose connects the tiny basin to a through-hull fitting — same for the galley sink. Unfortunately, the through-hulls aren’t fitted with valves. If you buy this boat, invest in a couple of seacocks.
The Schock’s joinerwork is plain, simple, and honestly accomplished. The teak-and-holly plywood cabin sole and lightcolored fabric overhead liner create a light and pleasant atmosphere below. Ventilation through the excellent and wellplaced Lewmar ports was, far and away, the best in the fleet. A pop-top increases headroom in most of the main cabin to 5 feet 11 inches.
On deck, this boat is clean and movement is easy. The inboard shroud location clears the sidedecks and allows for more efficient sheeting of headsails. A “dappled paint” nonskid is effective and easy on bare skin. The flush “no-trip” forward hatch will be appreciated by foredeck hands when their vision is obscured by doused headsails — as will the flush anchor locker in the bow when stowing the hook. The absence of toerails on either side of the foredeck is of some concern. A toerail won’t physically prevent your falling overboard, but it does serve as a warning that you’ve-reached the edge.
The Schock we sailed had come directly out of its box, and it had some problems — mostly having to do with cleats. First, there was none for the outhaul. Second, the cleats for the headsail sheets, while present, were located in positions that virtually precluded their use (as they headed for the winches, the sheets passed directly over the cleats). Third, the swiveling mainsheet cleat was mounted on a post too low to make handling the sheet comfortable. lastly, if this boat were ours, we would replace the 5-inch mooring cleats with something more substantial — 8 to 10-inch Herreshoffs or other “hollow” patterns would work well. We’re not talking about strength here: The smaller cleats have enough of that. It’s a matter of having sufficient room around the horns to properly secure heavy mooring lines.
Well-angled 12-inch-high backrests help make for a comfortable cockpit. A T-shaped sole provides space for a gas can and good access to the outboard motor. The motor is clamped directly to the cutaway transom — mounting, a method that is less expensive, less obtrusive, and less prone to immersion than if it were hanging on a bracket.
The Schock 23 under sail is, simply put, outstanding. All sailboats have a “groove” — that particular combination of sail trim and angle of heel at which they get up and go. For some racing designs, the groove is so fine that an average skipper will spend considerable time stalled out, sliding sideways, and wondering where all the fun went. Not so with this boat — the groove must be a mile wide. Almost no matter what we did, the Schock kept trucking along at speed, eating its way to windward and never loosing its grip. Handling is precise but not skittish — just right.
The Schock is fitted with a Hydrokeel — a stock, off-the-shelf, bolt-on winged keel designed by Finnish engineer Reijo K. Salminen. The Hydrokeel’s wing has a small negative angle of attack and exerts a downward force on the boat as it moves through the water. The physics of the situation dictate that as the boat heels when sailing to windward, part of this force fights to keep the system upright. Another component of the same force helps draw the boat slightly to windward.
How much of the Schock’s magic should be credited to its winged appendage we can’t say.* We can say that we had trouble slowing the Schock sufficiently for photos with the other boats while still making it appear to be sailing well. A hot young racing skipper shouted over some “slow down” suggestions, (We usually seem to find plenty of ways to go slowly, thank you). We under trimmed, we over trimmed, we pinched, we luffed, we stalled, we braked with the rudder, we zigged, we zagged, we sailed into wind shadows, and we dragged our feet over the stern — all without much success. This boat simply wanted to gallop away from the pack. We don’t often come across boats that sail this well, this easily.
* The builder's initial testing — sailing one of his boats with a standard deep fin keel against an identical hull fitted with the shallower Hydrokeel — indicated that light air windward performance was about equal. The winged keel had the edge reaching and running. In heavier winds, the Hydrokeel proved better than the standard fin on all points of sail.
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Spacesavers. The galley unit slides into the port quarterberth when not in use,and the table folds up against the bulkhead (left). The T-shaped cockpit allows room for the gas can and the pop-top permits standing headroom below. |
