The Atlantic is a one-design keelboat, designed by Starling Burgess in 1928. It is a 30-foot open-cockpit day sailer, typically used for day racing, rather than for overnight or ocean races. In the years following its design, fleets were established in several US ports along the eastern seaboard.

Today, the Atlantic is raced primarily in Long Island Sound and in coastal Maine, and boats are distributed among five fleets, with a total of approximately 50 boats in present use.

The design has been built by Cape Cod Shipbuilding and Seafarer Yachts in the United States, as well as by Abeking & Rasmussen in Bremen, Germany.

In 1928, Starling Burgess, then a well-known naval architect age 50, decided to try to design and establish a one-design sailboat that would be raced in fleets along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Working with German boat yard Abeking & Rasmussen, he designed a prototype which he showed to yacht clubs along the east coast. The initial cost of the boat was $1800, below that of competing boats.

The Atlantic is a racing keelboat, with early examples built predominantly of wood and later ones from fiberglass, with wood trim. It has a fractional sloop rig; a raked stem; a raised counter, angled transom; an open cockpit with no cabin; a keel-mounted rudder controlled by a tiller and a fixed fin keel. It displaces 4,559 lb (2,068 kg) and carries 2,835 lb (1,286 kg) of ballast.

The boat has a draft of 4.75 ft (1.45 m) with the standard keel and a hull speed of 6.21 kn (11.50 km/h).

The boat is supported by an active class club that organizes racing events, the Atlantic Class Association.

In 1930, there were 99 Atlantics, sailing in 13 fleets along Long Island Sound, the south shore of Long Island, Narragansett Bay, and Maine.