Meet Argo: Our Laguna Windrose 22 Training Sailboat

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Every voyage needs a ship. For the Phoenician Argonauts youth sailing program in Phoenix, that ship is a compact, tough little 22‑foot sailboat originally built by Laguna Yachts in California — the Laguna Windrose 22 MK1. This is the exact boat we’re restoring and donating to the club, and she will carry our students on their first real journeys under sail at Lake Pleasant.

A Small Boat With Big Potential

The Laguna Windrose 22 was designed as a trailerable, family‑friendly daysailer with just enough cabin to turn day trips into weekend adventures. At 21.58 feet long with an 8‑foot beam, she’s big enough to feel like a “real” keelboat, but small and forgiving enough to be a perfect teaching platform.

Key features that make her ideal for students:

  • Swing keel: Draft ranges from about 1.4 feet (keel up) to 5.5 feet (keel down), which makes launching, trailering, and sailing in varying depths much easier and safer.​
  • Fractional sloop rig: A simple mainsail and headsail setup that teaches all the fundamentals of modern sail handling.​
  • Comfortable cabin: A small salon with a folding table, V‑berth, and pop‑top gives students a sense of living space below decks.​

Underneath, she’s fiberglass construction with about 1,980 pounds of displacement and 600 pounds of ballast, giving a solid, stable feel on the water for new sailors.​

From Craigslist Find to Training Vessel

This particular Windrose 22 started its second life as a Craigslist find, tucked away in RV storage and waiting for attention. When we first hauled her out, she was classic “good bones, needs love”:​

  • Weathered topsides and tired paint that needed to be stripped and renewed.
  • A swing keel that needed to be dropped, cleaned, repainted, and remounted.
  • Deck rot under the mast step that required cutting out, replacing, and re‑glassing the core.​
  • Interior woodwork ready for fresh brightwork, plus a missing sliding galley that had to be completely rebuilt.​

We also planned upgrades: a depth finder, a 7.5 HP outboard with a new motor mount, and proper winches for the cockpit so she could be sailed the way she was designed.​

What looks like a long punch list to some is exactly what makes this boat so valuable for students. Every repair is a hands‑on lesson in structure, tools, materials, and marine systems.

Specs for the Boat Nerds (and STEM Projects)

For students who like numbers, the Windrose 22 is a built‑in STEM lab. Her key dimensions and sail plan invite all kinds of math and physics questions:​

  • Length overall (LOA): 21.58 ft
  • Length at waterline (LWL): 19.00 ft
  • Beam: 8.00 ft
  • Sail area (main + jib): about 206 sq ft
  • Displacement: 1,980 lb
  • Ballast: 600 lb

Rig measurements like I, J, P, and E (24.0 ft, 8.75 ft, 23.0 ft, and 8.75 ft) give us real data to talk about center of effort, sail area, and balance, not just theory. For our program, these numbers turn into projects: estimating hull speed, calculating sail area to displacement ratios, and understanding why this design feels the way it does under sail.​

Why We Named Her Argo

In Greek myth, the Argo was the ship that carried Jason and the Argonauts on their voyage for the Golden Fleece. Our Phoenix students are the Phoenician Argonauts, and this Windrose 22 is their Argo — the vessel that will take them from a high‑school campus in the desert to real wind and water on Lake Pleasant.

Naming her Argo gives us:

  • A story the students can step into: they’re not just fixing “a boat,” they’re preparing their own Argo for a modern voyage.
  • A shared identity across the program: VoyageOfTheArgo.com, the Phoenician Argonauts team, and the training boat Argo all point to the same adventure.

From Restoration Project to Classroom and Beyond

As we restore Argo, students will:

  • Learn basic boatbuilding and repair skills: sanding, painting, fiberglass work, hardware installation, and trailer maintenance.​
  • Install and troubleshoot real equipment: depth sounder, lights, electrical circuits, winches, and safety gear.
  • See how every part of a boat connects to safety and performance on the water.

Once she’s lake‑ready, Argo becomes the heart of Phase 3 of our program: tightly supervised sailing days at Lake Pleasant where students rotate through skipper, crew, and safety roles and watch the physics they learned on campus come alive.

A Boat With a New Purpose

The Laguna Windrose 22 may have started as a modest California trailer‑sailer, but in Phoenix she’s becoming something more: a bridge between desert and water, between classroom and real‑world challenge. Donating Argo to the Phoenician Argonauts program means this little boat will outlive any one owner and become part of dozens of young sailors’ first memories on the water.

If you’d like to follow Argo’s restoration and see how students turn this Craigslist find into a fully functional training vessel, keep an eye on VoyageOfTheArgo.com — we’ll be sharing updates as the project moves from tools and paint to wind and sails.