You know you’ve nailed the start of a race when, after just one tack, you’re crossing the rest of the fleet’s bows. That’s a familiar story for Chris Maas and his brother, Alex, when they race Slipper, a tantalizingly elegant and wickedly fast 27-foot wood- and-carbon daysailer that Chris designed and built.
Yet, she is far more than what meets the eye and the boat speed. Maas, 65, a retired boatbuilder from Seattle who now makes his home in Washington’s San Juan Islands, did not just conceive a fleet little boat with modern features that include a lifting keel, retractable electric auxiliary propulsion, and high-aspect-ratio appendages. He also made a statement about respectful and efficient use of finite resources by employing sources including driftwood, a neighbor’s felled cedar tree, recycled materials, and repurposed gear—all as a reminder that greenhouse gas
