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Selling the Blue Heeler

It seems like just yesterday that we got The Blue Heeler.......Hey wait! It was just yesterday!!! My wife and I have moved up our 5 year plan to NOW. We are waiting for the house, the harley and The Blue Heeler to sell. We are most likely going to end up in a Freedom 36 as our long term cruising boat. We wanted something designed for Pacific and Atlantic Crossings, although it will be a few years before we are up to that big a challenge. However, we will be moving aboard in a few months, hopefully. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we get the house sold.

I just wanted to let you guys know a few things.
1. We had planned to keep our E-29 for 4 or 5 years to train on her and she is a Very solid boat.
2. This is the most incredible board for ANY boat on the net. I have never seen so many helpful people and so much good information on sailing in my entire life. I will continue to use this board and provide my support long after my days as an Ericson owner.
3. To say thank you to all of you for helping us newbies (we are still newbies by the way) with our silly questions as we were getting our boat ready.

Anyway, we are headed down to the boat tomorrow to spend a few days. We have an open house coming up this Sunday, so we might as well be gone and spend the time on the boat. There is a gentleman that called last night with some interest in our boat so hopefully he will come down and see her. He's just a 3 or 4 day motor down the river from where we are.

We have created a website for our family and friends to keep us with us. You are welcome to visit anytime. It's www.nspiteofourselves.com.

Sean, I've put a link to your site on ours.

Take care and please keep in touch!!! We will.

Bart and Cheri
 

Sean Engle

Your Friendly Administrator
Administrator
Founder
Good grief, Bart - first Pacific Seacraft, now this... :esad:

Well, if you're going cruising, I guess I can't complain too much (as that's everyone's goal) - and I'm sure that Mr. Ramsey would never approve of you holding two boats at one time in any case... ;)

Whowever buys your boat is going to be getting one in great condition. I hope that your plans work out for you - and yes, please continue to come by the site and visit, etc...

Ok, the rest of you: no more bad this week - ok??? :p

//sse
 

NateHanson

Sustaining Member
Well, Congratulations!!

Umm . . . can I come? :D

Hope all the sales go well.

Can you tell us a bit about how you narrowed down your boat choice to the Freedom 36? And are you looking for the Cat-Ketch rigged version? What are the attributes of this boat that helps you picture yourself sailing across the Pacific in one?

Thanks for sharing! And good luck!!!
 
Well, the shopping for a boat didn't just include my input. I fell in love with a lot of boats that we have looked at!! I must also satisfy the Admiral!! LOL! The layout of this boat was very accomodating with two comfortable staterooms and a decent size head. The headroom, 6'4" was a big deal for me since I'm a little over 6'2" The lack of stays on the boat means one less maintenance item and no chainplates to change out or monitor for corrosion. The working jib on this boat is a self tacking jib although you can change it out for a full genny. The hulls are very solid and the self supporting mast is a proven entity in ocean crossings and long ocean races. I'm not interested in going fast necessarily but I do want a proven boat. The lines are nice and clean and the mid 80's version of this boat is in my price range.

I personally also liked the more traditional Tayanas and tartans, but my wife did not. We also fell in love with the late 80's 38' Island Packet. It was a little above our price range but the layout again was very practical and nice. The Freedom has a similar layout to the IP's. The only thing I DON'T like about the Freedom, but understand that lots of the major ocean crossing boats are built this way, is the bolted on keel. I was hoping to find a boat that had an integral keel like the Ericson's and the IP's.

I will mention one other boat that we absolutely fell in love with but again, was on the high side of our range. The Stamas 44. This boat has an incredible story. They were only built for about 3 years, from October of 1980 to sometime in 1983 and they built around 32 of them. It's a fabulous boat and was designed by none other than Bob Johnson (Island Packet). If anyone is interested in the story, I'll be happy to tell it here.

I still love the Ericson's and may yet own another some day!
 
I forgot to address the Cat Ketch item. If I found a Cat ketch version, I'd love to have it. This particular boat is the Sloop version with a fractional rig. This particular one that we have our eye on, placed in a long pacific race although I don't believe that it was the Transpac. It's well equiped, low hours on the diesel, great electronics and features and most importantly, well cared for.
 
Sean, I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted that you put my event in the same category as the PSC bankruptsy! :egrin: However, we are very excited about this and are devouring everything we can get our hands on. If we can actually get the boat or bike sold this month, I'd like to make the trip to Annapolis to attend the seminars in early October. We'll just have to wait and see. We're having to conserve pennies right now!! Good training for our long term sailing budget. Mr. Ramsey would be proud.
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
We looked at a well-maintained Freedom 36/38 last year. Liked the layout OK, and the headroom is indeed good.
We asked questions on a Yahoo Freedom owners site (spam city there, BTW ... ick) and while most owners are happy with their balsa-core hulls, some do have concerns. We know of several J Boats from that era with extensive delams in the bottom and another Wylie design that had to be completely recored at huge expense of time and $$$$.
We finally decided to stick with our solid layup Olson for another bunch of years...
We are, admittedly, rather conservative.

Change of subject: ocean crossing... If you are doing this, look for an interior *quite different* from the IP designs. You want dedicated berths for restful sleep while underway. This is a near-impossible design feature in production boats in the last 15 years or so. A settee will do, with a good lee cloth, but a forepeak will not. Big aft cabin beds are no good, either. Back in the 70's it was common for larger boats to be designed for multiple days on the ocean... with all that motion. You might want to look at something like an E-39 or E-39B. Just something to consider when shopping...
YMMV.

Loren in PDX
 
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NateHanson

Sustaining Member
Choosing a long-range, liveaboard cruiser can be a bit of a juxtaposition of opposing priorities, since you want something with a wide open feel, big "beds" and nice living space (the condo factor). But if you want to be safe and comfortable at sea, you want narrow spaces, with joinery and handholds to brace against, tight berths amidships, and perhaps narrower hull sections.

The cat-ketch rig is probably a great trade-winds rig, but on the other hand, I'd wonder what all that weight right up at the pointy end of the boat would do to the motion in a seaway.

The Perry review I read of the Freedom 36 seemed to indicate it has no shower stall. Is that right? For my wife, I know that is priority number one if we are able to move up to a larger boat in the future.

Ahhh, boat shopping is fun! Wish I could do it! :D

(btw, Excuse me for butting into your process, and injecting my own preferences. They're really just there to make me feel like I could be in your position for a second. Obviously what matters is how you've answered your own questions on these issues, not what I think. :))
 
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Thanks for the info on the delam issues. I'll make double sure that the surveyer looks very closely at that for us. As to the motion in seaway...well I have no idea how this will be. I think that since it is rigged as a standard sloop and not the Cat Ketch, it should be a fairly traditional ride.

Choosing a long range cruising boat is really like shooting a shotgun. You can change the choke from Full to Modified and change the spread of the pattern, but you STILL are covering a pretty big area. I just want to find a boat that has between a 5 and 6' keel for deepwater stability, good living conditions inside, not too big or spacious, but not too cramped either, A head that I can sit upon while I consider the ponderances of life without having my knees wedged into a wall or under my chin, a comfortable galley for my dear wife, a solid hull, good engine, good reputation and well cared for. It's a lot to ask for but there are a lot of boats out there. Some love the Hunters and some have even used them for long term big water cruising, although I'm not as comfortable with the solidity of the boat for that type of cruising.

All said, we may not end up with the Freedom, but it really is at the top of our list right now, right beside the IP's, but I don't think we'll be able to swing the extra $30 or $40k required to make that jump.

One other downside to the Freedom is Fuel capacity. She only holds about 40gallons between two tanks. We will need to install a larger tank in the boat PLUS have the ability to carry several jerry cans of fuel.

Keep those cards and letters coming. We need all the input we can get. We've set our budget at about $100k which includes some money for upfits meaning the boat will need to be in the $80k range. We have some flexibility with that value but not a lot if we want to continue cruising for many years.
 
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