43' Tripp Columbia Sloop (1971) - OCEANUS

Oceanus is a 1971 Columbia 43, one of the last CCA designs created by Bill Tripp, Jr. We have sailed her more than 10,000 nautical miles in the open ocean. We cruised her for about two years sailing from Newport, Ore., to Southern California, the wild West coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula into the Sea of Cortez. My wife decided Mexico was too hot so we sailed Oceanus to Hawaii 27,500 nautical miles in 21 days. We spent 13 months exploring the Hawaiian archipelago. There were so few cruising boats there it felt like we had those magical islands to ourselves. We then sailed to our new home in Olympia Washington.
The Columbia 43 was the perfect vessel for the job. At the height of his career, a new race boat design from the board of William Tripp Jr. was big news in the yachting world. The Columbia 43 is a case in point. Before the first hull was even built in 1969, Columbia had 21 orders in hand for the flush-decked sloop. By the time the first boat was launched, 60 racing skippers put money down for one.

The 43 did not disappoint. It was an immediate racing success winning several major ocean races in the first few years. Encore was first in class and 11th in fleet when she sailed in the 1971 Transpac from San Pedro, Calif., to Honolulu. Another 43, Blue Norther, was the overall winner in the Ocean Racing Class of the Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race. With 539 entries, it was the world’s largest ocean race at the time.

One magazine ad touted the big sloop as the “Magnificent Aggressor” in the headline. “This is undoubtedly one of the most aggressively designed ocean racers ever created by the famed naval architect, Bill Tripp…. Classified as light-displacement, the Columbia 43 exhibits the highest sail-area-to-wetted-surface ratio of any of his designs.”

At about 23,000 pounds all up, she would be considered a medium displacement sailboat by modern standards, but during the waning years of the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rating rule she could be considered light. By comparison, a Columbia 50, an earlier Tripp design with nearly the same waterline length and beam, weighs more than half again as much.

Columbia 43s were competitive even after the racing community adopted the International Offshore Rule (IOR) in 1971, replacing the CCA rule the boat was originally designed to compete under. In 1973 Columbia introduced the Mark III, which added six feet to the mast, six inches to the bow and shortened the boom by a foot to give the boat a higher-aspect ratio rig favored by the IOR. The Mark III also had a redesigned keel moving the ballast lower and reducing wetted surface even more.

Columbia ended production of the 43 in 1974 after producing 152 of the boats. They remain popular because of their fine sailing qualities, strong build, and spacious accommodations.

A Columbia 43 graced the cover of the July 1978 issue of Motor Boating & Sailing magazine. In 2013, a Columbia 43, Stumppy J, raced in the Transpac finishing sixth in its class. (The famous Sparkman & Stevens 53-foot yawl Dorade took first in the same class).