The Offshore was produced by Cheoy Lee as a follow on to the highly popular and much loved "Frisco Flyer." The main differences are the two feet greater length-over-all, a deeper set to the rudder which is moved from a transom mount to a through-hull rudder-shaft design, full stand-up head room in the main cabin, and a little more sail area. On later versions the auxiliary is raised from 7 Hp to 10 Hp.

These up-grades from Frisco Flyer (which is Folkboat based) are achieved in a fairly integral way, despite the fact that it is hard to provide full head room in the cabin of a craft under 30' in length. Therefore the design remains something of a transition piece in Cheoy Lee's output, and the design never achieved the polish and maturity of the later Frisco Flyers. The increase in cabin windage which results from the full standing head room is compensated by the full keel (cutaway forefoot), and 2700 pounds of lead ballast.

The result is a boat with a good level of cabin comfort for the size, and a hull shape and weight which is very sea kindly. Because of the design's narrow beam the boat will sail almost half a knot faster than the rule-of-thumb hull speed of HS = 1.34 xSQRT(LWL) predicts. This ability for the boat to sail a little faster than the equations predict leads to its desirable (for the time) CCA rating.

The relatively large fore-triangle also shows that this is a boat built to CCA rule, since the CCA tended to under-rate headsail capacity. Still, by contemporary standards the boat's velocity potential in moderate winds should be seen as "stately" rather than "fast".

Dear James,

My boat is a Mark II.  The Mark II's are distinguished by fiberglass dorade boxes, a traveler for the main sheet, full teak veneer on the interior bulkheads, and a fiberglass hull liner, in place of teak stringers to prevent contact between a sleeper in his bunk and the cool inner surface of the hull.  
At some point in production, the bow navigation light was moved from a position on the bow pulpit, to a pair of hull mounted port and starboard lamps below the toe rail on the bow.   This increased reliability of the lamp, and  reduced visibility some as well.  
A 10  Hp Volvo MD-1B was made standard on the Mark II rather than the 7 Hp MD-1A which was fit to the Mark I.  An Atomic Four was an extra cost option on either boat, and the engine box will fit engines such as Universal's M3-20 diesel, which are sold as Atomic Four replacements.
A dinette was offered on the Mark II in place of the starboard bunk. I have one of these, and yes, it barely fits. 
The Offshore production started in 1968 according to Ruth, and I have never seen a boat later than mine which is a 1971.  From the number remaining my guess is that several hundred were produced during that time, or a little more than one a week for four years. Perhaps all were laid up from a single mold and finished in parallel by Cheoy Lee's subcontracting boat wrights around Hong Kong.  
The Cheoy Lee "28" which is in the picture on the cover of Casey's book, however, is a rare bird. From the hull shape, plus cabin and window treatment the boat unmistakably draws a very great deal from the Offshore 27, if in fact it is not an Offshore 27 with minor changes.  
At the present time there is usually a Newell Cadet / Offshore 27 for sale somewhere in California. The Bay Area has the most listings followed by LA and San Diego. ... I think that your web site is a wonderful forum for the exchange of this kind of information.
Best Regards,

Robert C...

Here is another e-mail from Robert
to clarify the issue on the different models

When you talk about Newell Cadets I think that you have to be a little careful about which one, because I now think that there were four of them.

Newell Cadet #1:

The Cadet as Newell first designed it. This boat was probably never built.It did not have standup headroom.

Newell Cadet #2:

The Cadet design as modified for Cheoy Lee and Lion Yachts.  This was built in at least one example in teak around 1965, and at least one of these boats was shipped to Lion Yachts for approval.  I suspect that this is the boat which is described in the Yachting Magazine review of May 1965, which describes the "The Semi-Custom 26' Cadet by Taylor Newell".  The time of the review is right, and although they describe a fiberglass hull rather
than a teak one, fiberglass is the way the hull was going to be sold, so the review speaks to the anticipated production boat.
This vessel was a few inches shorter than the production boat, had a inch or so less draft. The head was on the center line, rather than off to port as on the later versions, and the galley arrangement did not include the externally accessible ice box. 
It would be unusual if there were not a few changes in cabin layout and hull outline between the teak prototype and the final protoduction version. Certainly the difference between the 1965 article and the Offshore Mark I production boats  are easily explainable in this way.

Newell Cadet #3:

The Cadet as made and sold by Cheoy Lee with a fiberglass hull.  This was sold at first under the Newell Cadet name and later under the "Offshore 27" name or both names.  The Offshore Mark I probably did not become a "Mark I" until they built a "Mark II".

Newell Cadet #4:

The Cadet as made and sold by Cheoy with the same hull as the Mark I, which had some further improvements and refinements.  These include additional teak veneer in the cabin, a stainless steel traveler for the main sheet, a bigger single cylinder Volvo engine as standard (10Hp) and so forth.  This was the last, and in my opinion, best Offshore 27 (but perhaps I think so because I own one).

Do these descriptions help or hurt confusion on the issue of which is the real Cadet?  
Regarding Cadets and Flyers, it is easy to discern between a Frisco Flyer of any type and a Cadet, because all of the Flyer's have transom mounted rudders, and all of the Cadets have keel hung rudders, with the rudder post emerging in the cockpit.
Best regards,
Robert