Hull number query and Ericson model Identification

[Merrimist]

Good day fellow owners,

Can some one please confirm he following is correct regarding the hull number on Merrimist, my E38.

This is what I know but am not sure
ERY = Ericson Yachts
38 = 38 ft
220 =model 200 hull number 20. Is that right? Not sure about this.
- = ?
686 = June 1986 build date or launch date?


This is how the vessel number is noted on the transom
ERY38220-686

 

[Loren Beach]

I believe that you have hull # 220, and that molded-in date is supposed to reflect the month that it was molded out, June of 1986. The piece of reverse-image Dymo tape with the HIN was placed on the mold before the first layer of gel coat was sprayed in.

It was probably finished out within a month of that date, altho some late fall boats (any builder, not just EY) might have been sold new at a January boat show and titled for the following year, which can confuse the issue further decades later.

The only 'wild card' in the hull numbering scheme was that sometimes (often?) they would start a model run with hull #100, arbitrarily.
That's why our boat is numbered as 108 on the HIN, even though it is actually hull #8.

Loren

 

[Merrimist]

ok, thank you.

I was of course wondering, is it hull number 20 of the E38 200 series or hull number 220 of the E38200 series?

The head and shower are aft Stbd side, the Engine is fitted underneath the angled sink bench, NOT under the companionway stairs. I have no idea of how many were made with this layout. Any idea of the reason, advantages/disadvantages? Or why this design was changed back?
I find these kind of things interesting.

I believe that you have hull # 220, and that molded-in date is supposed to reflect the month that it was molded out, June of 1986. The piece of reverse-image Dymo tape with the HIN was placed on the mold before the first layer of gel coat was sprayed in.

It was probably finished out within a month of that date, altho some late fall boats (any builder, not just EY) might have been sold new at a January boat show and titled for the following year, which can confuse the issue further decades later.

The only 'wild card' in the hull numbering scheme was that sometimes (often?) they would start a model run with hull #100, arbitrarily.
That's why our boat is numbered as 108 on the HIN, even though it is actually hull #8.

Loren

 

[Tom Metzger]

Hammy - According to my info you have #220, or the 21st boat of the series:

E/38 – III (382 series)

# 200 (1985) thru # 230 (1986)

<tbody>
</tbody>

I suspect that they started the aft cabin version in 1987 with hull #231, but I am just guessing.

Oops, I see you refer to Merrimist as an E-38-200, so then the aft cabin version started with #200. ?????

 

[Merrimist]

Merrimist does indeed have the aft cabin and aft cabin door. Am guessing that she is 1986 build #20 of the 200 series. Tom, why do you say she is #21?
Just as a matter of interest, I am wondering how many other E38 owners on this site have the engine like Merrimist situated under the sink island?
Or in fact how many were produced with this layout?

Hammy - According to my info you have #220, or the 21st boat of the series:

E/38 – III (382 series)

# 200 (1985) thru # 230 (1986)

<tbody>
</tbody>

I suspect that they started the aft cabin version in 1987 with hull #231, but I am just guessing.

Oops, I see you refer to Merrimist as an E-38-200, so then the aft cabin version started with #200. ?????

 

[Loren Beach]

The wandering diesel

Merrimist does indeed have the aft cabin and aft cabin door. Am guessing that she is 1986 build #20 of the 200 series. Tom, why do you say she is #21?
Just as a matter of interest, I am wondering how many other E38 owners on this site have the engine like Merrimist situated under the sink island?
Or in fact how many were produced with this layout?

"Rumor has it" that EY did this in '86 and part of '87. Then they went back to the former location beneath the entry into the cabin.
The E-38-200 that I have been privileged to do a coastal delivery on is an '86 and has the engine under the galley. That configuration also has a larger galley counter build-out to house it.
Even with lots of factory sound-deadening around it, I would personally judge that it is a bit noisier inside the boat than having the engine aft. No scientific basis for this, but in sleeping during the off watch in the aft cabin, it helps quite a bit to close the door.
OTOH, I slept well on one watch in the forward cabin... the hull shape (courtesy of NA Bruce King) is very kindly in the open sea & seldom "pounds".
My subjective opinion is that this design series of Ericson's will always be popular with experienced sailors and passage makers. Not like I have an opinion of course!

One other note: my friend's 38-200 has a Yanmar, and it was factory installed. I wonder if EY was promoting more customization by the mid-80's? This is not the only Yanmar installation I know of, but the bulk of EY and Olson's were were built out with Universal's until production stopped in late '90.
Of course, when three of the EY models were acquired by PSC, they would mostly have Volvo's, since PSC had a long relationship that supplier.

Worthless trivia dispensed on the hour, deposit one visual cent.


Loren

 

[Cory B]

Incomplete HIN

Good day fellow owners,
This is how the vessel number is noted on the transom
ERY38220-686

That doesn't look like a full or valid HIN number. Where the "-" is you should have a letter, A-L. The 86 actually denotes the model year, and the 6 actually indicates its build year (86). The missing letter would indicate its manufacture month.

Ericson was more helfpul than most manufacturers by including decipherable "model" and hull sequence number in the serial number portion of the HIN (38220).

There are lots of resources on how to decode HIN's, but mine is at "http://www.hinsearchplus.com/hs_userguide.aspx".

 

[JPS27]

I thought I'd share this post with a discussion that helped me out a lot.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...3592-Hull-ID-Number-interpretation&highlight=

But past on this current thread, are you/we saying that if my hull number, for instance, is 126, that that means that it was the 26th ericson 27 manufactured that year? Or the 126th for that year, or for all years? These are questions that have persisted but didn't want to ask...until now

Jay

 

[bgary]

I don't remember where I found this (somewhere on the site, but I screen-shotted it in case I couldn't find it again)... probably not definitive but may provide some clues.

 

[bgary]

this is for *sure* not definitive, but may also provide some clues. Of the EYO members that have a 38 (of some flavor) and have mentioned a hull number, here's what we've got from 1984 on...

it "seems" to indicate that 1 1986 38-380 would have a 1xx hull-number, a 1986 38-200 would have a 2xx hull number, and an "original" 38 (or 381?) built in 1986 would have a 5xx hull-number.

 

[Tom Metzger]

Mtterrimist does indeed have the aft cabin and aft cabin door. Am guessing that she is 1986 build #20 of the 2nglis00 series. Tom, why do you say she is #21[ /QUOTE]

The series started with #200 which was #1, 201 was #2, etc. It's about that English - Metric counting crap. A mistake I've made many times.

 

[Christian Williams]

I have seen the so-called aft stateroom--if that's what we're calling a quarterberth/chart table surrounded by a door and louvers--on a 1983 E38. (head forward, galley starboard).

I remain confused about the Ericson 38 "series".

Can anybody state the differences between "381 Series I,II and III" on the chart Bruce posted above?

At the moment, before correction, the full interior redesign (recessed companionway, mast in the cabin table) is the 38-200....

Help!

 

[bgary]

For clarity, I claim no knowledge of the distinctions between -38, -381, 38-200, etc.

The data in that snip, above, simply reflects the way in which EYO owners described their boat in their profile...

B

 

[Loren Beach]

My understanding is that the E-38 hull was introduced in 1979, and continued up to the last one built by PSC in about 1997 or 1998.
The first iteration was the E-38, and had the head & shower forward, a solid fuel stove across from it, and an enclosure around the port side aft cabin berth. That aft area also incorporated a full nav table.

A few years later they modified that model interior to open up the aft cabin and add a larger locker where the forward solid stove stove had been. To me that model looks a lot like a very large E-35-3, on the inside.

When they built the 38-200, they built a new deck/cabin mold with an enclosed aft cabin on one side, head and shower on the other, and a small nav table on starboard facing aft. This gave them a little smaller central cabin, but with the desirable marketing feature of a larger aft cabin.
Both the modified E-38 (know as the E-381) and the E-38-200 were built at the same time. At the end only the E-38-200 was in production.

When PSC bought the tooling for the E-38-200, they renamed the model # and made only cosmetic changes inside for a couple years, and then modified the stern mold to incorporate an open transom with steps.

Given that the hull form was so successful and looks to my untrained eye like it was scaled down in various iterations for all the smaller Ericson's in the 80's, it would say that the whole "design family" was one of the most successful design collections from any modern boat builder.

Anyone with better details please do weigh in.

Loren

 

[Christian Williams]

Clarity approaches. One more question:

The recessed companionway--what does that identify?

Is it perhaps a feature only of the 380, built by Pacific Seacraft?

I see on Yacht World several 38-200s (aft cabin and head), but they have the same companionway as my 381--a flat bulkhead.

To put it another way, when does the recessed companionway appear in the production run? Does it affect the size of the "owner's cabin"?

 

[Loren Beach]

Interior Options = Exterior Consequences

Christian, your two pictures are very helpful.
In any boat in that size range, when you design in an aft cabin on one side and a head compartment on the other, there is a need to push the boundary forward inside. This puts some standup headroom in both of these cabins. To do that you need to move the entry into the interior of the main social/galley/dining area of the boat... forward. This arrangement uses the interior space forward of the mast where the old "type a" interiors always have a head compartment.
So then the central part of the interior is ended right where the forward sleeping area commences, i.e. the forepeak berth.

This was done in the E-32-200, the 80's E-34, the Olson 34, and the E-38-200.
One minor note: the engine-forward-under-galley version of the 38-200 does have the companionway aft like the earlier model, and I can only guess that the engine location forced that; and to enlarge both of the "aft areas" they moved the engine back and then pushed the entry way forward. (Otherwise you cabin interior steps would have been against the larger galley module.)

While we really like our interior layout - enough that it was a feature that attracted us to buy the boat - there are always trade offs.
For instance, we almost bought an E-32-200, and it's good that we did not. The aft head and aft cabin was really too small for us. Another buyer would likely be happy with it, however. "Enough" room in any given part of the interior is subjective.

If you were to make little paper cutouts of the interior living areas, you would be moving them around in a sort of "zero sum" design exercise. (Strictly IMHO).

For a comparison of what is gained/lost, I refer to our friend's E-33RH, with a head forward - their main cabin is more spacious than ours, for instance.

So, back to the pix above. The aft cabin/head layout pushed the entry forward and causes you to "shuffle" under the dodger through an alleyway to get to the entry to the interior. In a "type a" interior, you can more easily step over the bridge deck on down onto the interior steps.

It's a classic situation of "Everything's a compromise". :rolleyes_d:

*Aside: once we got to spend an hour aboard a Santa Cruze 52C at a boat show...... very few compromises! And for $750000. I would not expect many either.


Loren

 

[Joliba]

Christian,
For what it's worth, our 1988 model E 38-200 (built late 1987) has the recessed companionway.
Mike

 

[Roger]

My $.02:
Regarding the differences between the various 38 models, I'd refer you to a previous thread - http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=6882. They essentially came in 3 different flavors.

It's my recollection (admittedly fuzzy after 30 years) that only a few 38-200's were built with the engine under the galley, although it appears that at least hull #20 still had it. The original design called for the engine in this location, but it was eventually moved aft under the companionway for a couple of reasons that I recall: the galley became quite complicated, trying to provide enough removable panels for proper engine access, and some reports of excessive vibration.

-Roger

 

[Christian Williams]

That thread adds nicely to the trove of knowledge about models and options.

It takes reading all 50 posts to figure out where your own boat fits into the grand scheme of Ericson production.

The most simple statement? (it's by Roger)

The 38-200 can be identified on the exterior by an additional opening port aft of the large fixed ports on each side.

 

[mjsouleman]

additional chart information

I don't remember where I found this (somewhere on the site, but I screen-shotted it in case I couldn't find it again)... probably not definitive but may provide some clues.

discovery is a 1983 30+with hull number ERY30599M83H

If you find this list again please plug this info in.

MJS