considering ericson 30+

[douglas]

Hi everyone, was hoping I could get some advice on a 1980 ericson 30+.
I'm looking for a 27-30 foot boat for mostly day sailing, maybe some club racing, maybe occasional overnites. I'm in west coast florida with shallow water everywhere so shallow draft is impo. This boat has 4 foot draft.
I want something easy to sail, relatively fast, safe, fun to sail, that wouldn't be too bad to single hand.
I'm fairly inexperienced sailing but I windsurfed for years, I crew on a racing boat so I think I would be able to handle it.
I'm curious as to how the 30+ sails. Heard it's fast, tender, powerful.

This boat has a universal raw cooled diesel 16 horse original ending in good shape I 'm told, runs well. 1 year old 130 roller furl jib, pretty good shape main sail.
I looked at the boat, it seems to have been kept up very well, boom seems low and long but I read that about this boat in advance, I can see me hitting my head on it a lot.


Asking price around 17K. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Doug

 

[vernon kleist]

Love the 30+

Hi Doug,

I bought a 1984 Ericson 30+ last summer as a replacement for a 1974 Ericson 35 Mk II that we had owned for two years. We day sail, weekend and do club races in Southern California.

The 35 was very nice but the loads were a bit much for me to single hand and at the end of the weekend I was beat. We started club racing and while the 35 MkII is a great boat, she is no racer by today's standards.

We found a very clean 30 +, with good instruments and old but serviceable sails. We have worked our way up to mid pack in local club races (san diego bay). We need new sails and a folding prop to be competitive but we are not last anyway.

I have been sailing since the 60's and I really love this boat. It is the boat I have been looking for. Why? Balance. The boat moves through the water very easily and with the fractional rig the main is large and keeps some of the load off the bow making her easy to manage when the wind gets into the high teens/ low twenties. The rig is easy to tweak and as long as the lines inside the boom are running freely the outhaul, topping lift, vang, cunningham, aftstay adjuster and halyard allow good control over sail shape. You can adjust until the rig is right.

The boat is well made. Ours is free of spider webbing and the gel coat is good allaround. The interior is teak with a wood sole and while a little tight, is very nice for two. We have a 5'11" draft so you must be looking at a shoal model. Sailing is the best part of the 30+. We paid 21.5 for ours.

Vern

 

[douglas]

thanks

Thank you Vern for your comments, I'm pretty excited about this boat, is seems to be what I want, I'm ready to pull the trigger and make an offer.

Anyone else out there have any opinions on the sailing ability of the 30+, 1980 vintage? Especially anyone who has/had the 4 ft. shoal draft version?


Thanks
Doug

 

[Mark F]

Doug,

If you go to "Owners & Projects" above, you can search owners by boat model. Quite a few 30+'s listed.

 

[Meanolddad]

Hi Doug
We love our 30+. Reef early to keep the boat on its feet, that is a really big mainsail with a low boom. We sail in and around San Pedro CA where the winds are generally above 15-20 knots in the local Hurricane Gulch. When the winds are light the 30+ still moves along well. We also have the deep keel, not a lot of things to hit off the California coast. Not a huge amount of storage space down below. Well built and fun to sail, I think that says it all. In fact we are leaving in a bit to go sailing today.
Ours was a donated boat that we got from the Orange Coast Community College sailing program. Nearly new sails, (Main and 155). Nearly new standing and running rigging. It came with a ton of spares. It was a low option boat when built, no shore power, no wheel, not much in the way of instruments, no hot water and I like it that way nice and simple. Regalus came with spinnaker gear and no spinnaker. We have bought a smaller jib because of the prevailing winds in our area and a used spinnaker just for the fun of it.
I would not call the boat tender, it has a very powerful mainsail that can overwhelm the boat. We have sailed in some pretty high winds when the gulch is in rare form and the boat is easy to keep under control.
We paid 18.5k for the boat. The only reason I would consider selling Regalus would be to downsize.
Hope this helps
Greg

 

[douglas]

took the plunge

Thanks for the input, we agreed on the price, next step is the survey and sea trial, looks like I have a new (old) boat!

 

[douglas]

pic

Here is a pic of the new hopeful purchase ericson 1980 30+

Doug

 

[douglas]

known problems to look out for?

Survey being done in next few weeks, anything in particular known about the 30+ that I should be sure the survey looks at? He says he's surveyed 4 ericson 30+ in the past which I guess sounds pretty good.

Thanks everyone
Doug

 

[Frank Langer]

Re: survey

Some of the E30+ have needed reinforcement under the mast, with a metal plate inserted between the deck and the compression post. Check if this has been done, and if so, done well. If not, look for any compression/dipping under the mast which would indicate that this repair is still needed; also check to ensure the compression post is straight.

The rudder may over time become saturated with water (there is foam under the fibreglass) so a check for any cracks/deformation may be helpful.

The hull/keel joint is often a problem, but should be a normal check for the surveyor.

Other than those areas, nothing I'm aware of--they are great boats!

Frank.

 

[mherrcat]

You mention the hull/keel joint often being a problem. Are you speaking about Ericsons in general or is this a specific "known" problem on the E30+ model? I am about to haul out for bottom painting and wouldn't relish the idea of having to re-bed the keel.

Other than that, seeing as how I am about to replace a fuel tank, I would look closely to see if there is any deisel fuel in the area behind the engine or in the bilge.

 

[Loren Beach]

You mention the hull/keel joint often being a problem. Are you speaking about Ericsons in general or is this a specific "known" problem on the E30+ model? I am about to haul out for bottom painting and wouldn't relish the idea of having to re-bed the keel.

Other than that, seeing as how I am about to replace a fuel tank, I would look closely to see if there is any diesel fuel in the area behind the engine or in the bilge.

The keel/hull joint is not more or less prone to problems on an Ericson than on any of the modern tens of thousands of sailboats with external ballast.
Look at it the way that you view any other engineering system on your boat. In general I would advise re-bedding any keel at 15 to 20 years.
A caring owner, in the case of a 1980 boat, would have records showing that this was done about nine years ago. There should also be a record of changing out all the rubber hoses on the diesel before now, too...

I do these things, and personally know other sailors that do these preventative maintenance procedures as they come due. We are in the minority, though.

An addtional subset answer to your general question is that the purchase price should be appropriate to the cost of the deferred maintenance that the last owner left for the next person.

At the age of the average used boat in today's market, it is kind of like buying cars with over 200K on the odometer... and viewing the Ericson as the Mercedes in this conparison. As long as that Mercedes has the records to show that needed and regular maintenance was done, I would buy it (if it's the model I want).
If not maintained, then I might still buy it at a steep discount as a project to restore, knowing that I would have to invest XX number of bucks into it before it will be a reliable driver.

But that's just my .02 worth. I bought our present boat as a project boat in '94. A good survey told me of the many $$ and mucho time that were going to have to go into it. Our boat is in very good condition now, quite a few $ and years of labor later.

One caution: If you *really* want a turn key boat that is honestly ready to go... be willing to pay almost twice the rate of the average dogs that molder at the brokers' docks....
:rolleyes_d:

Disclaimer: These opinions are worth just a tad less that you are paying!

Cheers,
Loren

 

[douglas]

lots of details

Thanks for the input.

The boat is a few hours from me, have visited it twice so far (it's in the water), I don't notice anything with the compression post or any serious deck compression at mast base, one fairly minor looking 3" long gelcoat crack on the port side but doesn't look serious but I understand what you are saying.

I have no idea on the keel whether rebedded or not, saw a survey done in '05 on this boat and the most exciting findings was some gate valves which were replaced after that survey with ball valves.

I don't have any idea on the keel/hull rebedding. If there is no paper trail to confirm, is there any way to know whether this has been addressed already by looking at it during the survey?

In general the boat looks very structurally sound to me and I've looked at 20 or 30 boats over the last few years.

Thanks for the advice so far

Doug

 

[Frank Langer]

The keel/hull joint is an area of stress for many models of keel boats, especially those where the keel attaches to a fibreglass "shoe" that comes down from the hull. This problem is well known to C & C's (the C&C smile), Catalinas and other boats, but Ericsons are not immune to them. As rebedding the keel is alot of work and expensive, I thought I'd mention it as an area for the surveyor to check.
In general, Ericsons are very well built, and well worth spending some money on, if the boat is generally in good condition.
Frank.