Back Under Sail After 22 Years: Why the Nimble 24 Sailboat Is the Perfect Shallow-Draft Cruiser

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

Grit‘s tanbark sails glowed in the setting sun as we sailed up Broad Creek. We ghosted into a cove under full sail and I lowered the anchor into the tea-colored water. A ripple wriggled away from the hull and disappeared into the calm waters. After 22 years without a sailboat, I was back afloat.

In this pictorial essay, I’ll share what it’s like to gunkhole around the Pamlico Sound, mostly under sail. Settle in and enjoy.

Setting Out

My wife Julia and I live in a small cabin in western North Carolina with three mules, two horses, two rescue border collies and thousands of feral bees living in four insulated horizontal hives scattered around our property. Pretty much a land-based life.

Then, two months ago, the urge to go sailing struck.

Again.

Almost thirty years ago, I got a much bigger dose of the same urge, bought an old sailboat named Sea Bird, and sailed around the world. This time the urge wasn’t quite as big. And yet, I had to scratch it.

That’s how I came into possession of Grit.

I found Grit online. Her name at the time was Mystic. I drove down to Florida to pick her up, and a month after I brought her home, trailered her to Oriental, North Carolina, on the Pamlico Sound. There, on a sunny Sunday, I launched her into the Neuse River and, an hour later, tied her up at the Oriental town dock.

Shakedown Cruise

The wind blew hard enough the next morning to make Grit‘s halyards clank against the mast. Only later did I learn it was blowing 25 knots and there was a small craft advisory in effect. Not knowing any better, I decided to go sailing.

Ignorance has launched as many trips as awareness has called off.

I raised Grit‘s mizzen sail, tucked a reef in her mainsail, and pointed her green bow into the Neuse River. The wind heeled her over. I unfurled a scrap of her jib and off we went on our maiden voyage.

It was an exhilarating sail. Grit showed a sprightly turn of speed for a boat with old-fashioned proportions. She plowed her way through the waves thunking against her bow and came through the wind every time I tacked. Aside from the tiller cracking, it was the perfect outing. After all, something has to break on the shakedown cruise, right?

I was having a fine time aboard my new-to-me sailboat. I was also getting a feeling Grit was the perfect boat for me. And sure enough, as though to prove the point, I found a spare tiller aboard. A few minutes with a screwdriver and wrench, and I had the new tiller bolted in place.

My little yawl was really growing on me.

What’s a Yawl, Y’all?

Grit is a yawl and I have to admit that, when two people are looking at your boat and ask what kind of rig she has, it’s fun to say, “She’s a yawl, y’all.”

A yawl is a sailboat with two masts and the mizzen mast is behind the rudder post. The rudder post is a post that attaches the tiller or ship’s wheel to the rudder. It’s what turns the rudder when you turn the tiller or wheel.

But the Nimble 24 doesn’t have a rudder post. The tiller attaches directly to the rudder. And the mizzen mast sits in front of the pivot point of the rudder, where the rudder post should be.

So that technically makes the Nimble 24 a ketch. On a ketch, the mizzen mast is in front of the rudder post.

But, the Nimble 24 looks more like a yawl with that tiny mizzen sitting back there. And since yawls are rare and look so cool, well, everyone just calls the Nimble 24 a yawl.

What’s it Like to Sail a Nimble 24?

It rained for three days after I launched Grit, so I holed up in Oriental and visited friends. Then the weather cleared and I headed out for a three day sail. From Oriental, I sailed across the Neuse River to South River, then back across the Neuse River to Broad Creek and then back to Oriental.

I sailed every day in winds from 25 knots, which put Grit on her ear, to dead calms. When the wind died and the sails flapped, I cooked coffee on my gimbaled stove without spilling it.

One of my favorite things about the Nimble 24 is how it sails sort of like a cross between a 30 foot cruising sailboat and a dinghy.

Grit holds a steady course, especially to weather, like a much larger, full-keel boat. That’s thanks to her long, stub keel. My first day out, in 25 knots, I was able to trim the sails closehauled – that is, with the boom sheeted in close to the centerline of the boat. Then I just lashed the tiller in place, and she held her course without me having to hold the tiller. What a magical feeling watching the tiller move side to side, as though helmed by an invisible helmsman.

She tacked through about a hundred degrees. That will never win the America’s Cup, but it’s respectable for a shoal draft boat.

Here’s another cool thing I learned about sailing a Nimble 24. If I was sailing upwind with the tiller lashed and the centerboard down, I could raise the centerboard. Grit would fall off a few degrees downwind and keep sailing on a straight course with her tiller lashed. That’s not something you can do with a fixed keel boat.

Here’s a short video of Grit heading to weather with her tiller lashed in 10 knots of breeze.

The Nimble in Nimble

Then there’s the small boat side of the Nimble 24 that I discovered and loved.

When I found myself heading dead upwind to where I was going to anchor for the night, I didn’t fire up the 9.9 horsepower outboard. Instead, I just tacked her back and forth across the channel. Slowly, tack by tack, I worked her up through the channel markers to a quiet anchorage. Then I dropped the anchor and set it under sail.

That’s not something I was ever able to do with my steel cutter Sea Bird. She was just too heavy and drew too much water to be that maneuverable.

All Day Under Canvas

Being able to sail Grit all day long, from raising the anchor in the morning to dropping it in the evening, filled me with a calm that can’t be achieved by turning on the motor a while, sailing a while, then motoring some more.

Sailing all day just fills you with a sense that you’re tied into the elements, the wind, the waves, the currents, even the wildlife. As I was approaching the anchorage to drop my anchor, I silently sailed by a flock of seagulls sitting on the water, settling in for the end of the day. Moments later, an outboard powered skiff roared by and the seagulls scrambled to get into the air.

That’s the gift of having a vessel that can be operated completely under sail.

Supper that night was pasta with pepperoni washed down with a warm Yuengling beer as the fat yellow moon rose like an unblinking star out of a distant pine forest.

Back to Feeling Navigation

The other thing I love about sailing the Nimble 24 is her shallow draft. With her centerboard raised, she floats in 1′ 4″ of water. That means she can be sailed most anywhere there’s water.

On this trip, instead of using a navigational app, I chose to navigate with paper charts. I used a Richardsons chart book (2015 version scored for $20 on eBay) that covered the waters I was sailing. What a thrill to sail across all the shallows and shoals all the other sailboats, with their 5 and 6-foot drafts avoided; from Gum Thicket Shoals on the Neuse River just south of Oriental to all the other nameless stretches of skinny water most boats go around.

To make sure I didn’t run aground, I sailed into the shallows with the centerboard lowered. The Nimble 24 draws 4′ 4″ with the centerboard down. Yes, I had a depth finder aboard. But more than once, I found it doing a high speed countdown from 11 feet of water to, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4 feet of water and just as I tacked, I felt a slight bump from under Grit‘s hull.

That was the centerboard bottoming out, a not so-subtle signal that it was time to tack.

Which I did. And soon, with Grit‘s bow and tan bark jib pointed in the opposite direction, the numbers on the depth sounder ticked back up from 4 feet of water to 10.

Very relaxing on a boat that floats in barely more than a foot of water. Not so relaxing on a boat that needs 6 feet of water to float in.

Here are some pics from the day and Lukens, an abandoned community on the South River, where we spent our first night.

For more on Lukens, check out this article I co-authored on TownDock.net.

Okay, a few more pics.

A Brief History of the Nimble 24

My Nimble 24 was built in 1991 by Nimble Boats, a company founded in 1985 by Jerry Koch in Clearwater, Florida. Jerry partnered with renowned yacht designer Ted Brewer to create the company’s first models, the Nimble 20 and Nimble 30. The Nimble 20 design became the template for subsequent models—lengthened, shortened, or modified to create the Nimble 24, the Arctic and Kodiak (pilothouse versions), and the 32-foot Wanderer.

Jerry died in 2003, and a few of Nimble’s suppliers took over the business. From what little I know about what happened after his death, few Nimbles were built after the early 2000s.

I remember back in the early 1990s when the Nimble 24 came out, thinking, “Wow. Now THAT’S the sailboat for me.” At the time I was riding as a steeplechase jockey and building a small sailboat designed by Sam Devlin (Winter Wren) because I couldn’t afford a Nimble – new, used or sunk with a broken mast and a hole in the hull. A new base model Nimble 24 cost around $12,000 then. That’s about $27,000 in 2025 dollars adjusted for 2.5% inflation. I paid a little less than half of that for Grit—$10,000 for the boat and $2,000 for the trailer.

An Even Briefer History of Grit

Grit‘s original owner owned her for 31 years and took incredible care of her. She came with all receipts including new Awlgrip paint on the topsides and hull, new teak, refinished interior, new outboard, rebuilt centerboard case and more. Her second and third owners lived in Florida and, from what the third owner told me, she was only sailed in fresh water.

Thanks to this chain of loving owners, she’s as close to a new Nimble 24 as exists—remarkable considering the boats are out of production.

But more than just shiny paint and crisp, barely used sails, I found that her owners’ care extended right down to how the lines were stored. When I opened the lazarette locker—a deep locker in the cockpit—I found all the lines perfectly coiled and ready to use. In fact, she was so complete that I rigged and sailed her having bought only a clevis pin and split pin for five bucks. I later found those pins hanging from the key hook.

I want to thank all of Grit‘s previous owners. Know that I’ll take good care of her—okay, maybe with a few more scratches. Life was meant for living, not staying in mint condition.

Nimble 24 Specs

The Nimble 24 specs (SailData.com)

• Model: Tropic
• Hull Type: Keel with centerboard
• Hull Material: Fiberglass
• Ballast: Lead
• Rigging Type: Masthead Ketch (but called a yawl – see It’s a Yawl, Y’all section (above))
• LOA (Length overall (including bowsprit and bumpkin)): 28.42 ft / 8.66 m
• LOD (Length on Deck): 26.00 ft / 7.92 m
• LWL(Length waterline): 24.17 ft / 7.37 m
• S.A. (Sail area) (reported): 252.00 ft² / 23.41 m²
• Beam: 8.25 ft / 2.51 m
• Displacement: 2,600.00 lb / 1,179 kg
• Ballast: 900.00 lb / 408 kg
• Max Draft: 4.17 ft / 1.27 m
• Min Draft: 1.33 ft / 0.41 m

Tucked Into the Barn for Winter

I thoroughly enjoyed my shakedown trip with Grit. After more than twenty years without owning a sailboat, it was wonderful how quickly my hand went back to feeling comfortable on the tiller. There’s a lot of overlap between guiding a happy mule and a happy yawl—both require forward thinking and tiny adjustments.

Now Grit is tucked away in our barn for the winter, out of the cold rain and snow that’s on the way. She’s covered in a waxed canvas tarp, parked next to a pile of horse blankets, the swarm boxes I use to catch wild bees, and the pack saddle I used on my first cross country mule voyage. I stored her cushions in plastic containers, cracked the ports to let fresh air in, and left the chart book on the chart table. I want her to come out of storage as fresh as when I put her away.

I’ve already climbed back aboard Grit, turned on one of the brass lamps, and sneaked a look at the chart book.

It’s open to Shackleford Banks, North Carolina—home to the Banker ponies, a herd of wild horses that lives among the dunes. The island is open to the public, and my hope is that next spring, Julia and I will head to there and use Grit as our supply boat while we spend a few weeks observing the herd dynamics of the island’s equine inhabitants.

It’s good to be back afloat.

We Made It to Shackleford Banks

Julia and I sailed Grit to Shackleford Banks the following spring and spent three weeks anchored off the island observing its wild pony herds that call the 9-mile uninhabited island home.

If you’re curious what it takes to provision provision Grit for three weeks of gunkholing—what worked, what didn’t, and why the wine was a bad idea—start here: How to Provision a Sailboat for Two Weeks: Why the Sausages Worked but the Wine Didn’t.

Whatcha Thinkin’?

Do you have a Nimble? Do you enjoy sailing? I’d love to hear from you. Just leave your comment in the Comments section below.

Stay Gritty!

Bernie

One More Thing: Thoughts on the Nimble 24’s Outboard Well

Some people love them. Others hate them. Here are my thoughts on having the outboard motor on my Nimble mounted in an outboard well.

Get in Some Ultra-gritty Sailing With Webb Chiles at TravelGrit.com

I recently sat down with Webb Chiles and interviewed him face-to-face for my TravelGrit.com podcast. Webb Chiles is the first American to sail solo around Cape Horn and took one of the longest open boat voyages in modern history. After that, sailing Grit double-reefed in 25 knots sounds snoozy compared to round Cape Horn alone in hurricane force conditions.

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