MountainSailor
Member II
Mountain Sailor,
Here is how your Hull Identification Number (HIN) breaks down:
http://boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/hin.htm
ERY (Ericson) 26 (Model) 346 (hull # in series) 1788 (date of mfg). FWIW, Something is wrong with the HIN you listed in your profile. The fourth and third to last digits '17' need to be 12 or less to correspond to the 12 months of the year. I would check the actual HIN stamped in the upper stbd side of the transom to double check.
Your E26 is in the last series Ericson built starting in 1987. These have hull numbers starting with 300. (My E26 was a 200 series built starting in 1984).
The 300 series have a bolt-on keel and much deeper bilges than the 200 series boats. I suspect Ericson changed to bolt-on keels because they were either cheaper and/or allowed for a wing keel option for the shoal draft version, very popular due to the Americas Cup at the time.
The 200 series boats had internal ballast (lead inside the fiberglass molded keel fin) and came in 4' 11" std and 3' 11" shoal fin keels only. The design had very shallow bilges maybe 4-5 inches deep below the floor and no keel bolts. The 200 series boats are identical in hull and ballast to the previous E25+. My hull #205 came with only the manual bilge pump with just the strainer/pickup in the bilge. There was very little space to fit an electric pump in the actual bilge.
Mark
ERY263461788 is the number stamped on the hill I'll post a pus later today. Very strange!