Kittiwake 23

Description

The Kittiwake 23 (also known as the Kenner Kittiwake, Kittiwake 24, or simply Kittiwake) is an American trailerable fiberglass pocket cruiser designed by Carl Alberg (a prolific American naval architect famous for the Alberg 30, Cape Dory series, and many Pearson designs). It derives directly from the earlier South Coast 23 (built by Kenner Boat Co. for South Coast Sea Craft around 1965), with South Coast taking the molds and moving production, leading to the Kittiwake as a slightly modified or rebadged version with minor changes (e.g., interior layout tweaks and some hull extensions in listings). Built by Kenner Boat Company (Knoxville, Arkansas, USA) from the late 1960s into the 1970s (some hulls dated 1966–1978), it features a long keel for excellent directional stability and grounding forgiveness, a masthead sloop rig for balanced performance, solid fiberglass construction for durability/low maintenance, and a compact but functional interior suited to coastal daysailing, weekend cruising, or light family use (berths for 4–5, basic galley/head, and standing headroom in the cabin). It's praised as a sturdy, forgiving "good old boat" with reassuring motion in choppy conditions and good light-air capability from the sail plan—often compared to the Alberg 22/Sea Sprite 23 family for its classic New England sloop aesthetics. Production was limited (estimates suggest a few hundred hulls total across the South Coast/Kittiwake lineage, with Kittiwake-specific numbers lower), making surviving examples semi-rare classics today.