S/V Northwest Passage, Wauquiez Gladiateur 33 Sailboat

I bought and started outfitting Northwest Passage for my post-retirement cruising plans. I sailed her in a wide range of conditions on the Columbia River, in winds up to 40 knots, and sailed her on several offshore trips--to Newport, Oregon, and to Seattle, Washington. I found that she sails and tracks exceptionally well to weather, and I liked her offshore sailing performance.

However, for further cruising I decided to replace her with a Pacific Seacraft 34 because I consider the Pacific Seacraft 34 a superior offshore design, and also I found a boat already outfitted with lots of cruising gear. However, I feel that the excellent construction quality of the Gladiateur is overall about comparable to the excellent construction quality of the Pacific Seacraft.

I would have enjoyed doing more cruising on Northwest Passage because I loved her interior configuration for cruising and loved her windward performance, so I parted with her somewhat reluctantly.

Northwest Passage is a 1984 Wauquiez Gladiateur 33 sailboat, hull #278.

Her specifications are approximately:

11,000 lb. displacement, 4,800 lb. fin keel (external lead ballast), full-skeg rudder
32' 10" overall length, 27' 3" water-line, 11' beam
6' draft per original specs., but about 6' 4" for actual Northwest Passage draft
50' total air draft (vertical clearance)
490 sq. ft. sail area with standard jib, 580 sq. ft. with genoa
7.0 knot, 8.1 mph hull speed
Tankage: 20 gal. diesel, 60 gal. water
Volvo MD-7B diesel, 17 hp, auxiliary power

The Wauquiez Gladiateur 33 is a French-built cruising boat built by the small yard of Henri Wauquiez when he was building high-quality, performance-oriented cruising boats, before Wauquiez was acquired by Beneteau. Wauquiez boats are uncommon in North America, but were imported for a while during the 1980's when the French Franc was weak. Mike Locatell (Discovery Yachts), a boat broker in Seattle, is a Wauquiez aficionado and imported a number of Wauquiez's, so there are a few of these boats today still sailing in the Pacific Northwest, and there is a Wauquiez rendezvous every year in the Puget Sound area.

Northwest Passage has a sail inventory of full-batten mainsail with two deep reefs, No. 1 135 genoa, No. 2 working jib, No. 3 Hasse Sails small jib on pendant for heavier air, and a large asymmetric spinnaker with snuffer for light air.

Northwest Passage was converted by a previous owner from her original tiller steering to Edson wheel steering. Improvements I added included shorepower service, battery charger, autopilot, offshore lifelines with port and starboard lifeline gates and gate stanchion braces (originally NWP was set up only for stern boarding as done Med Mooring style), stern perch seats, retractable lazy jacks, self-tailing main halyard winch to aid in reefing, additional cabin-top winch for boom topping lift re-routed from mast to cockpit, DSC VHF radio connected to new GPS chartplotter and with cockpit speaker-mike, backup old VHF on a separate antenna, low-power draw LED lighting for all navigation and all interior lighting, interior red night LED lighting, and many other improvements and repairs.

Among Northwest Passage's amenities are the stern perch seats that I designed and built. They provide a good view when motoring or sailing in light air, and expand the seating capacity for taking people day-sailing.

For further information on the Wauquiez Gladiateur 33 see:

Original Marketing Brochures (Click on "Doc. Technique".)
Photographs of another Gladiateur
Diagram of the Gladiateur design

Mike Locatell (Discovery Yachts in Seattle) sold the boat for me when I decided to sell her. The service I received from Mike and from Discovery Yachts was excellent. I recommend them strongly.

Northwest Passage now is berthed in Bellingham, Washington.