READER BOAT: Sovereign 18 called Slowmotion

Sometimes the boat you get is one you’d never heard of.

- Kevin Dreher

When I began searching for a new boat I was looking at some of the more well-known trailer sailers, the Potters, Montgomerys, and Precisions. While researching those boats and a few others across the interwebs, I came upon a particularly stout-looking smallish 18-footer.

I’m not sure on which website I first saw the Sovereign 18, but I knew I loved its appearance. As many of us do when we find a boat that sparks our interest (or is it just me?), I scoured the web for more information. After many days of web surfing I decided I wanted one.

After two years of boat hunting and Internet research, one finally came up for sale at a reasonable price and distance from me. I emailed the seller only to find out he’d sold it. Finding this out was tough, but I was determined. I tracked down the person who bought the boat on a Facebook group for Sovereign owners. I congratulated him on his new boat and told him if he ever wanted to sell it to please let me know. I assumed this was how the story would end, but about two months later I received a message asking if I was still interested. A quick “Yes!” and 20-hour round-trip later, the Sovereign 18 was mine.

There were a few specifications that attracted me to the Sovereign 18. I was coming down from a Chrysler 22 and wanted something more manageable to launch and retrieve. At 18 feet overall, (waterline 14.5 feet), and a beam of 7 feet, the boat was the right size. With an advertised displacement of 1350 pounds and a ballast of 540 pounds, the weight was manageable. I especially liked the heavyweight of keel compared too the overall weight of the boat (ballast to displacement ratio).