sonar sailboat cabin

We have 10 Sonars to choose from: Queen Liz, Zoe V, Ellie, Laurie, Free Spirit, Escape, Happy Hours, Belle....

The Sonar offers something for everybody: it is a performance racer and a comfortable day-sailor, seating 5 adults.

The Sonar 23 is our primary teaching boat for beginners, and the boat we use for evening races. 

Learn to sail on a Sonar or rent a boat to enjoy the water!

The Sonar is a 7 m (23 ft) one-design keelboat for up to five people. It is Bermuda-rigged , with a large mainsail and a 100% jib . The class is recognized by the International Sailing Federation .

The Sonar was designed in 1979 by Bruce Kirby , designer of the popular Laser dinghy. Since then, over 800 boats have been built. Most of the fleet is in the USA, with smaller fleets in Britain and Canada.

Did you know?

The Sonar showcased disabled sailing at the 1996 Paralympic Games where the sport was a demonstration event with just the Sonar. She has been the three person keelboat at every subsequent Paralympics . The Sonar is well suited for disabled sailing because of its large open cockpit making adaptations easy.

Port Sailing Sonar 23 Fleet

The most flexible sail boat, praised by beginners and racers alike.

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The Sonar was designed by Bruce Kirby, whose other work includes the popular Laser dinghy. He was asked by his home club to design a fun boat for racing that was also simple enough to use for teaching beginners. The result is boat that is easy to sail and does an excellent job combining comfort and performance. The huge, 11’6″ self-bailing cockpit has full-length seats with angled seatbacks.

Seats 5 adults in comfort. The cuddy cabin provides a dry place to store your gear.

DAYSAILING MEMBERS ENJOY THE SONARS FOR DAYSAILS IN BOSTON’S INNER AND OUTER HARBOR.

SPECIFICATIONS:

• LWL: 19' 11"
• DRAFT: 3' 11"
• BEAM: 7' 10"
• DISPLACEMENT: 2,100 LBS
• BALLAST: 910 LBS (lead keel)
• See Policies and Procedures for full equipment list
• Main, Jib, and Spinnaker
• Mainsail Reefs
• Winch Handle
• Boston Harbor Chart

BOAT LAYOUT

EXPLORE THE FLEET

Our 75+ boat fleet features boats from 23 to 40 feet and spans 5 distinct membership categories.

Fleet of 16. Daysailing members enjoy the Soling for daysails among the harbor islands and also for our weekly racing series.

• BASIC SAILING
• ADVANCED SAILING
• HOBIE CAT SAILING
• KEELBOAT SAILING LEVEL 1
• KEELBOAT SAILING LEVEL 2
• SMALL BOAT SAILING PRIVATE LESSON
• SAILING MEMBERSHIP ORIENTATION
• INSTRUCTIONAL CLINICS
• WAKEBOARDING FREERIDE SESSION
• SUNRISE WAKEBOARDING
• EARLY BIRD WATERSKIING
• WAKESURFING
• WAKEBOARDING PRIVATE LESSON
• SURFING-FOUR SESSION
• INTRODUCTION TO SURFING
• SURFING PRIVATE LESSON
• INTRODUCTION TO STAND UP PADDLING
• INTERMEDIATE STAND UP PADDLING
• MOONLIGHT PADDLING
• STAND UP PADDLEBOARD YOGA
• STAND UP PADDLING FUN RACE
• STAND UP PADDLING PRIVATE LESSON
• INTRODUCTION TO KAYAKING
• SEA KAYAKING QUALIFICATION
• ADVENTURE KAYAK
• KAYAKING PRIVATE LESSON
• WINDSURFING LEVEL 1
• WINDSURFING PRIVATE LESSON
• SEMESTER SURFING
• SEMESTER INTERMEDIATE SURFING
• SEMESTER ADVANCED SURFING
• SEMESTER WAKEBOARDING
• SEMESTER WAKEBOARDING AND WAKESURFING
• SEMESTER STAND UP PADDLING
• SEMESTER STAND UP PADDLEBOARD YOGA
• SEMESTER SAILING
• SEMESTER WINDSURFING
• SEMESTER SEA KAYAKING
• POWERBOAT PRIVATE LESSON

Sailboat Rentals

• Stand Up Paddleboard Rentals
• Kayak Rentals
• Windsurfer Rentals
• Wakeboarding Boat Rentals
• Surfboard and Bodyboard Rentals
• Miscellaneous Equipment Rentals
• Party Packages
• Group Lessons
• Company Picnics
• The Watersports Camp
• Birthday Party Packages
• Gift Certificates
• Hours & Directions
• Parking Information
• General Information
• Boats for Sale
• Forms & Waivers

In order to rent our sailboats you must pass a skills evaluation on that specific sailboat by either completing the prerequisite class at MBAC or completing a 2-hour private lesson if you have previous sailing experience.  We are a self-service rental facility and when you rent a sailboat you are required to launch, rig, de-rig, and clean up your equipment.  

Regardless of sailing experience and ability, you MUST complete at least a 2-hour private lesson with one of our instructors. During your lesson you will be shown where the equipment is stored, how to rig and launch, demonstrate your sailing ability, complete a capsize and recovery, and be shown how to de-rig and store the equipment properly.  You can book a small boat sailing private lesson here . Your skills evaluation will stay valid for 5 years from your evaluation date, or the last date that you rented that specific piece of equipment.

Sailboat Rental Policies:

• You must be at least 18 years of age to rent equipment and willing to take financial and legal responsibility for the equipment you are renting.
• Minors between the ages of 14-17 may participate on their own sailboat with someone over the age of 18 supervising them and a waiver  must be signed by their parent. Children under the age of 14 must participate in the rental on the same piece of equipment as the adult and the adult must still go through the checkoff process.
• All equipment must be returned within 2.5 hours or ½ hour before closing—whichever comes first.
• You must wear a personal flotation device (PFD) at ALL TIMES.
• Rentals are self service, meaning that customers are expected to setup, rinse, and put away their own equipment.
• You are not allowed to go under any bridges.
• No animals or alcohol allowed on equipment. Those suspected to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol will not be permitted to use equipment.
• Commercial activity is prohibited on rental equipment.
• Hobie Getaways require at least 2 passengers over the age of 14.
• The maximum capacity for Quests is 4 people and Hobie Getaways is 5 people. 

Related Articles

New mbac sailing membership offers opportunity to sail more, brand new hobie getaways have arrived.

MBAC boasts some of the lowest rental rates in town

Related videos.

Sailing Membership

We are happy to announce that Mission Bay Aquatic Center is now offering Sailing Memberships!  Affordably priced at just $48/month the MBAC Sailing Membership is a low-cost way to continue sailing without the headache or expense of owning a boat. Perfect for those who have completed small boat sailing classes at MBAC, the Sailing Membership will also allow you to continue learning through ongoing instructional clinics that are free for members. To begin a membership, you must have a valid and current MBAC sailboat qualification through having completed a class or lesson with us. 

For just a few dollars more than a single sailboat rental you could sail on Mission Bay as much as you like! As a member, you will also receive some pretty amazing benefits including:

• Unlimited Sailing Rentals*
• Free instructional clinics to continue your sailing education
• 10% off classes
• 20% off paddleboard and kayak rentals
• Add paddling membership for only $11 more per month.
• Skip the line! Take your membership card straight to the dockmaster to check out equipment!
• Member-only used equipment sales
• Member-only coupons and special offers
• Membership dues support camperships and programs for persons with disabilities

Cancel Your Membership >>

*TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• Minimum 4 month membership commitment. After 4th month's payment you can submit cancellation, otherwise your membership will continue to be charged monthly and you will continue membership benefits. Cancellations must be submitted 7 days prior to charge date.
• Member must know how to sail and pass a skills evaluation on each piece of equipment before being allowed to rent that specific equipment.
• New members who have not yet completed a qualification on MBAC equipment must attend a 2-hour membership orientation before renting. Through the orientation you will be able to qualify to rent one type of sailboat.
• Membership fee will be auto-charged monthly January-November (no charge in December).
• Sailing membership includes use of Sabots, RS Quest, Hobie Getaway, Laser, and Windsurfing Equipment. A qualification is required for each type of boat.
• One 2.5 hour rental per day.
• No pets or alcohol allowed on MBAC equipment.
• MBAC rentals must remain in Sail Bay.
• Membership does not guarantee availability of equipment during peak times.
• Commercial activity prohibited on rental equipment
• Member must remain on the equipment while it is sailing.
• Class discount cannot be combined with other discounts including class packages.
• Please review the Rental Agreement Contract during membership registration for a full list of terms and conditions.

This 8-foot single sail boat is perfect for learning to sail on Mission Bay. This boat is ideal for 1 adult.

This equipment requires qualification .

This 14-foot sailboat has two sails with bench seating that can comfortably accommodate up to 4 people.

Introducing the RS Quest

Hobie Getaway

This 16-foot catamaran is a sailboat designed for high-performance sailing and can accommodate 2-5 people.

This 14-foot sailboat is an Olympic-class sailboat that is highly-responsive and challenges sailors to develop their technical skills.  This boat is ideal for 1 adult.

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Lynch Yacht Sinking Off Sicily Proves as Baffling as It Is Tragic

As bodies were recovered, the authorities and experts wondered how a $40 million, stable and secure vessel could have sunk so quickly.

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By Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced

Emma Bubola reported from Porticello, Italy, and Michael J. de la Merced from London.

Two months after being cleared in a bruising legal battle over fraud charges, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team on board his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he had built his empire.

On Sunday night, after a tour of the Gulf of Naples, including Capri, and volcanic islands in the Eolian archipelago, the boat anchored half a mile off the Sicilian coast in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, in more recent times, by the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.

But about 4 a.m., calamity unfolded. A violent and fast storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a flare pierce the darkness shortly after 4.

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Only dozens of cushions from the boat’s deck and a gigantic radar from its mast floated on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.

In all, 22 people were on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies — five passengers and the ship’s cook — had been recovered by Thursday afternoon, including that of Mr. Lynch, an Italian government official said, adding that the search was continuing for his daughter.

It was a tragic and mystifying turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years seeking to clear his name and was finally inaugurating a new chapter in his life. Experts wondered how a $40 million yacht, so robust and stable could have been sunk by a storm near a port within minutes.

“It drives me insane,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company, Perini, that made the Bayesian. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

The aura of misfortune only deepened when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former vice president of finance for Mr. Lynch’s former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, was killed two days earlier, when he was hit by a car while jogging near his house in England.

Since June, the two men had been in a jubilant mood. A jury in San Francisco had acquitted both on fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went for a celebratory dinner party at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.

The sea excursion was meant as a thank-you by Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him in his legal travails. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a scion of a prominent New York family of lawyers who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among the missing.

So, too, was Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurer Hiscox.

The body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered. All the other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yacht voyage working as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

Since the sinking, the recovery effort and investigation have turned the tiny port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where older men sit bare-chested on balconies, into what feels like the set of a movie.

Helicopters have flown overhead. Ambulances have sped by with the sirens blaring. The Coast Guard has patrolled the waters off shore, within sight of a cordoned-off dock that had been turned into an emergency headquarters.

On Wednesday afternoon, a church bell tolled after the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, a crowd watching in silence.

The survivors were sheltering in a sprawling resort near Porticello, with a view of the shipwreck spot, and had so far declined to comment.

Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said that the yacht had most likely been hit by a fierce “down burst” — when air generated within a thunderstorm descends rapidly — or by a waterspout , similar to a tornado over water.

He added that his agency had put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”

Mr. Costantino, the boat executive, said the yacht had been specifically designed for having a tall mast — the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing.

But he said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

The New York Times attempted to reach the captain, James Cutfield, who had survived, for comment through social media, his brother and the management company of the yacht (which did not hire the crew), but did not make contact.

So far none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened that night.

Fabio Genco, the director of Palermo’s emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said that the victims had recounted feeling as if the boat was being lifted, then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.

The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle that can prowl underwater for up to seven hours at a depth of more than 980 feet and record videos and images that they hoped would help them reconstruct the dynamics of the sinking. Such devices were used during the search and rescue operations of the Titan vessel that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreckage of the Titanic.

After rescuers broke inside the yacht, they struggled to navigate the ropes and many pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.

Finally, as of Thursday morning, they had managed to retrieve all but one of the missing bodies, and hopes of finding the missing person alive were thin. “Can a human being be underwater for two days?” Mr. Cari asked.

What was certain was that Mr. Lynch’s death was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years seeking to clear his name.

He earned a fortune in technology and was nicknamed Britain’s Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he had been treated as anything but a respected tech leader.

He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technological pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about his company’s worth. (Hewlett-Packard wrote down the value of the transaction by about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time .) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment that he sought to break into after growing up working-class outside London.

He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges, and confined to house arrest and 24-hour surveillance on his dime. In a townhouse in the Pacific Heights neighborhood — with security people he jokingly told associates were his “roommates” — he spent his mornings talking with researchers whom he funded personally on new applications for artificial intelligence. Afterward, he devoted hours to discussing legal strategy with his team.

Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr. Lynch had believed his odds of victory were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 of similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.

During Mr. Lynch’s house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, frequently flew over from England, and she became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.

After he was finally acquitted, Mr. Lynch had his eye on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced