Roberts 53 Sloop
Description
The Bruce Roberts 53 Sloop is a heavy-displacement, center-cockpit bluewater cruiser designed by renowned naval architect Bruce Roberts in the 1970s–1980s, offered as affordable plans for amateur or professional builders in steel, aluminum, fiberglass, or wood-epoxy construction, with over 700 examples completed worldwide—including several in charter fleets—making it a proven workhorse for long-distance family voyages, circumnavigations, or liveaboard use. Emphasizing seaworthiness over speed, it features a multi-chine or radius-chine hull for strength and ease of build, a protected pilothouse option in some variants (e.g., Versions E/G), and flexible rigging as a masthead sloop or cutter (ketch alternative available), accommodating 4–8 in customizable layouts with two to three cabins, a full galley, saloon, and two heads for comfortable offshore living. Variants include centerboard (Version A) for shallower drafts and traditional or reverse sterns, with builders often extending the LOA to 56 feet for added volume; while robust and forgiving in heavy seas,
Construction Details
| Designer | Bruce Roberts-Goodson |
|---|---|
| Length | 53.000 ft |
| LWL | 16.570 ft |
| Beam | 7.083 ft |
| Max Draft | 3.600 ft |
| Min Draft | 0.803 ft |
The standard boat dimensions
| i | 23.25 ft |
|---|---|
| j | 8.25 ft |
| p | 58.50 ft |
| e | 19 ft |
| p2 | - |
| e2 | - |
| i2 | - |
| j2 | - |
| I | J | P | E | P2 | E2 | I2 | J2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23.25 ft | 8.25 ft | 58.50 ft | 19 ft | - | - | - | - |
Documents
Disclaimer. Boats are not all the same -- even when produced in the same factory of the same model. Sailrite does its best to publish accurate dimensions, but we often find it worthwhile to have our customers measure their boats carefully before we produce kits for them. You should take the same precautions, especially when the data is not from Sailrite. The information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Sailrite offers this content as a service to our community, but takes no responsibility for the reliability of the data provided.