Sabots for Beginners, Racers, Sailing Schools and More

The Naples Sabot is the perfect first boat for young sailors. It is light, safe, inexpensive, and fun to sail. The W. D. Schock Corp. has been building Sabots for over fifty years and is now one of the few remaining production builders of this popular design.

Over the years, W. D. Schock has introduced a number of innovations. We were the first to build a fiberglass Sabot, first to build a foam core Sabot, and now we are building the most popular racing Sabot of all – the Brian Thomas/Corsair. This gives us the full range of Sabots – Sabots for beginners, for racers, for sailing schools and community sailing programs, and for lakeside vacation homes. We have Sabots with foam cores and without, with flared fiberglass hiking rails or with wood rails, with wooden masts and booms or with high-tech carbon.

Whether ordering a Sabot for a beginning sailor, a more advanced racer, or for a sailing school, you have two basic hull designs to choose from. The first is our Mark VII model, which has a foam-cored hull and flared fiberglass hiking rails that make hiking while racing in heavy air much more comfortable. The foam core makes the Mark VII an incredibly stiff and durable Sabot. The other choice is the Brian Thomas/ Corsair, which has the traditional single-laminate hull with teak rails. The mast partner and center thwart are bonded into place. The Mark VII and the Brian Thomas/ Corsair are both available in basic beginner and high-tech racing models.  

With the Mark VII, we have gone to great lengths to design a rail/mast partner/thwart system that is one-piece fiberglass and bonded to the hull. By making this structure one piece instead of numerous separate pieces, we have created a stiffer, more reliable part. When the fiberglass interior liner is bonded to the foam cored hull, it creates an incredibly stiff boat that doesn’t twist, flex, or ripple. Since there is absolutely no wood trim, the Mark VII does not require yearly varnish or oil for the rails. And since the hull’s bottom and topsides are foam cored, the hull itself has positive buoyancy. Additional flotation is provided by the center thwart.

The Mark VII Club Model is outfitted for fun sailing and beginning racing and comes equipped with basic rigging and a varnished wood mast, an anodized aluminum boom, and wood blades. The Mark VII Turbo Model is rigged and ready to win races. All controls are lead aft to the center thwart, the mast is carbon, the boom is anodized aluminum, deluxe wood blades are standard, and a hiking strap and tiller extension are standard.

The Schock-built Brian Thomas/ Corsair Sabot has a 100% hand laid up fiberglass hull with high gloss gel coat on the outside. The interior is white with blue splatter paint. The fiberglass mast partner and center thwart are bonded into place, and the boat is equipped with a wood floorboard that is covered with foam non-skid padding. The center thwart provides flotation, and the rails and trim are teak. The Brian Thomas/ Corsair Basic Beginner Model is equipped with basic hardware and uncomplicated control lines. It has a varnished wood mast and an anodized aluminum boom. The Racing Model has low stretch, high strength and color-coded control lines that are lead aft to the center thwart. This racing version is equipped with a 2:1 internal outhaul, a 2:1 downhaul, a boom preventer, an adjustable stern traveler, and a Harken mainsheet ratchet block.

The standard hull color for all of our Sabot is white, but we have a wide range of custom colors to choose from, and we are happy to add custom striping, either horizontal or vertical. We can even install the boats name right here at the factory, so the boat is completely ready to launch and go sailing.

At W. D. Schock Corp., we recognize the importance of a child’s first sailing experience. And we do all we can to make the first few years of each child’s sailing experience happy and memorable. We hope one of our Schock Sabots will become a step toward a lifelong love of sailing.