Surveying an E 38-200

Well it looks like I am about to become the proud new owner of a 1989 E 38-200. I am going to have the survey done hopefully next week. There are a few things I have found in question on the boat and I anticipate the surveyor will uncover more. I have been perusing the archives here for about 2 weeks and have found this site to be very informative. What I would like to know is if there are some specific areas I should have the surveyor look very closely at? One concern I have is the lack of access to the chainplates. There are rods that run from the underside of the deck then attach to the hull grid. There appears no non-invasive way to inspect that connection point. One reason I am concerned is because all of the standing rigging appears to be stretched. All of the turnbuckles are bottomed out and there is still a fair amount of play in the shrouds. The mast step does not appear to be compressed nor does the attachment points at the deck for the shrouds appear damaged. This leads me to believe that the shrouds are simply stretched out. I am also aware of about 1/8" of play in the rudder post and am curious to know how difficult it is to remove the old bearings? Thanks guys and I look forward to the assistance this site will lend.

The late 80's Ericsons and Olsons have a similar method of passing the rigging load down thru the deck to an FRP molding glassed to the hull. The deck hardware just conveys the load from the above-deck shrouds to a connecting plate or solid SS rod that carries it down to the molding. BTW, if you have a large SS rod that goes down behind a settee, you should find that it is threaded into an aluminum round bar. There is inside adjustment in that system, by turning that rod.
For a starting point, sight down the side decks and see if the deck is slightly bulged upwards where the shrouds meet the deck eyes. Sometimes you need to "flatten out" the deck by turning the inside rod....
As to the rigging wires, if they are original, replace them pronto. It's time.


Sorry that I cannot comment on the rudder bearings.

Those 38/200 series Ericsons are really nice boats. [If Rag Doll had been in the NW my wife would have forced me to buy it!]


Best,
Loren
'88 Olson 34

Survey

Sounds good. I did not notice any bulging at the deck but will definately take a look. Is there any way to inspect the ends of those rods where they attach to the hull? It looks to me like I would need to cut some inspection holes behind the setee cushions to gain access. I suppose that will have to wait until after the survey. We are doing that wednesday and so far it looks like it will be in the 60's so should be a nice day for a sea trial!

On our boat, the access to the structure where the tie rods terminate is behind each settee back. I popped the bungs and removed the SS screws and took each back off. (It was a good excuse to strip each one and varnish both sides. Since the seat back cushions cover the teak-faced settee backs, there is no reason to re-bung the screw counter-sinks, IMHO. There are out of sight and this make future access easy.

I sorta doubt that your deck has risen, but that did happen with another Ericson 33 that I know of. It could be seen by resting one's head on the side deck and sighting up the surface with the ol' Mk One Eyeball.


Loren

Have a look at these threads for possible problems relating to the chainplates. One way of detecting the corrosion of the backing plates without disassembly (many hours work) is to unzip the headliner and feel around the aluminum blocks. I could feel a lot of salt residue around the most corroded plates.


http://www.ericsonyachts.com/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=1645

http://www.ericsonyachts.com/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=1501

Shrouds

Okay so the end of those stainless rods thread into an aluminum block which is embedded in the fiberglass grid. In theory one cold make some adjustment here by turning the rods if for some reason it was necessary. Is there likely to be a problem of a stainless rod threading into an aluminum block and corosion/electrolosis/dissimilar metals etc? I know that stainless and aluminum are not exactly the best of pals...

Good catch, Ted.

I would expose the lower end where the rod threads go thru the aluminum and put some MacLube or similar on it. Like others here I would really want to get at the top where (surmise on my part) you have a large aluminum bar up against the deck with the headed rod turning in a chamfered recess in the top. That is where you would also want some lube.
If there has been any leakage around the shroud plate, you will find evidence here, not to mention some corrosion.

Our boat has a piece of half inch teak about 3 by 6 inches, nicely shaped around the edge, that covers the spot where the rod pierces the headliner. That particular piece of teak trim is held up by a couple of SS screws with bungs. I removed the bungs and the screws and then the trim to get a good look at the top plate. No corrosion on ours, and when the mast was down for re-rigging the yard removed the base plate on the top and checked the deck for possible water intrusion into the balsa. We had none, and it was all bolted up tight for another 15 years....


When you replace that piece teak trim, consider changing to bronze screws and leaving out the bungs. The bronze is nearly invisible against the teak.

All the best,

Loren in PDX
1988 Olson 34

Loren, you must have a different design. My u-bolts hold the base plates down. There is no way to remove them without taking out the u-bolts.

To answer Ted, one of my rods had started to fuse in the aluminum mandrel that secures the rod to the grid. They should turn freely with the aid of a small spanner (each rod has a flat spot for this purpose).

Blisters and keel-hull joint

Ted,

Lots of good comments so far. The only things I can add from my experience with our 1989 E 38-200 (The Rag Doll that Loren mentioned above) are:

1) Blisters. The late 80s hulls suffered a lot of blisters. This is a no-brainer to look for, but don't be suprised to find it. If you do find it, it is unlikely to be structural, so I wouldn't get too concerned, but it will need fixing eventually.

2) Keel-hull joint. When we had the hull peeled to fix the blisters, we also had the keel rebeded. The original factory job had never worked because they forgot to remove the mold release before applying the 5200. When the boat is hauled pay particular attention to any crack at this keel hull joint, and whether you find water seeping out of the joint. If so the joint is not sound, and you will need to have the keel dropped and rebeded. We had ours done with epoxy, and after that our bilge was bone dry (at least when it didn't rain).

Improved control cable run

Just thought of a couple of other things. First, the boat may not have a raw water strainer - mine didn't. If not, you'll want to add one.

And more important, search the archives of this forum for a thread called "Improved control cable run". I had the gear cable snap on me while entering an anchorage, and discovered that the cable had been routed through much too tight a bend, and snapped as a result. You'll want to check the run to see if yours is the same, and if so change it soonest.

Surveying E38-200

Thanks a lot for the tips. The boat is out of the water now and has been for I think almost a year. The keel joint is visible for about 8" from the leading edge back. Can't tell if there is any leaking going on here. There was water in the bilge when I last looked at the boat and this area of the keel was dry on the outside. It doesn't look like a problem but I will certainly have the surveyor take a look there. The rest of the hull looks great. I cant see any blistering yet, but I plan to apply an Interprotect barrier coat before launching this spring and may see more when I start sanding.

Have you guys had any problems with leaking ports? There appears to be some water stained wood around one of the ports but I could not detect any wetness inside the boat anywhere and we had recently had a lot of rain, just water in the bilge from the mast I suppose.

Also I would love to hear from you guys about installing a staysail stay, or baby stay. I viewd another 38 in Annapolis prior to making an offer on this one and it had a staysail shroud set up. There was a shroud with a lever devise below in the v-berth to support the stay and it looked like it had been done very professionally. My thoughts here are that a staysail would be much better in heavy air with a double reefed main than any roller reefed genny. The staysail keeps the sail plan together, where as when you reef a furler the headsail center of effort moves forward while reefing the main lowers its CE. The reefed furler could give you a lot of helm?

You might want to look into an ATN Gale Sail as a compromise. Do you realistically plan to cross oceans? If not, then a staysail seems like overkill. I've been through a Force 10 storm in the Atlantic on a 42 foot boat with just a triple reefed main. That worked well enough.

As for the other items, staining around the wood on the fixed ports means they are leaking. You can either remove them or do what I did, which was to tape the seam on either side of the joint on the outside, smush in clear sealant, and remove the tape. Looks neat and works and is a lot less work.

I had my keel rebedded and the front 8 inches or so opened up after a few years. I don't know about the 38, but the 32 has little keel bolt support in that area. You should have a keel bolt removed to check for corrosion under the bolt. One list member had to replace all keel bolts because of such corrosion. Because of mast leaks, there is no way to keep the bilge dry.

Leaking ports

On our boat I had to rebed all four large deadlights, the main hatch, and the forward hatch. None of the opening ports were a problem.

But a water stain might not actually mean the port is leaking, as I noticed that condensation that developed on the inside of the deadlights would collect at the lowest point, and drip down the woodwork, leaving the same stain you would expect if the deadlight were leaking from outside.

Still, I would probably suggest you rebed all of them eventually.

Oh, and watch out for leaking around the cockpit coaming box. Took me quite awhile to figure out that a small amount of moisture on the shelf in the lazarette came from the coaming box. I cut away the existing fiberglass tape holding the polyethylene box to the deck, roughed up all the surfaces, rebedded it with 5200, and reglassed it in. No problem after that.

cockpit coaming box

I am a little confused by what you are referring to here. But I will take a look at that area. Something I did notice was on the steering quadrant there are 2 stops, one for each direction. The stops seem to land against the cockpit floor where it turns up towards the helsman's seat. These stops look like they have cracked the glass some from hitting this area. Any thoughts here?

38's, staysails, etc.

Ted,

You will love this boat-as for the topic of a baby stay/staysail set up, it is cerainly not necessary as you have forward and aft lower shrouds. The forward lowers accomplish most of what a babystay will do in terms of mast support (maintain a slight forward bend in the mast and reduce pumping in heavy seas). Note that the more you induce bend (keeping the forward lowers tighter than the aft lowers), the flatter your mainsail will be, which will reduce heel and weather helm.

In terms of heavy air sails-you said one thing that sounded incorrect: You said a furled Genny would cause more helm. You said (correctly) that a reefed furler moves the CE forward-but this REDUCES weather helm-not increases. A reefed main does lower the CE in the main, which reduces both heel AND weather helm. Using a staysail instead of the genny MAY yield slightly better balance in really heavy conditions, but would have slightly more, not less helm than using the furled genny.

Having said all that, if you want to go with the babystay, then the setup you saw with the Hyfield lever is the right way to do it, and you can hank on a storm staysail for those conditions-BUT, in real world terms I don't think there is any real benefit: the boat will sail very well with a deeply furled genny and reefed mainsail and not have any balance problems, the forward lowers eliminate the need for a babystay, and this is an expensive mod that will require some real engineering. IMHO, the added weight and expense make this a net loser-not a gainer.

Happy Trails!

Seth

My rudder stops are beefy aluminum brackets bolted to the underside of the cockpit that the PO managed to bend (undoubtedly by letting of the wheel in reverse.) That's probaly how yours were stressed. I "fixed" the problem by putting another layer of rubber hose over the peg on the quadrant to reduce the rudder movement to the original dimensions, more or less.

38's Staysails and Helm

Thanks Seth,

I cuncur with your thoughts here. When I was referring to furled Genny I meant reefed. The helm I would imagine it causing would be LEE helm due to the CE of the furled genny being so far forward. When you reef a furler while you are reducing sail which helps heeling and weather helm you are at the same time moving the CE of your headsail forward. As you reef a main (slab reefing) you move the CE down. So my thoughts would be that when you got a point where your headsail was seriously reefed in and the main was double reefed there could be a potential for out of balance? I have no personal experience with an E-38 in 30kts+ which is where I would imagine you would be reefed like this. I do sail year round on the Chesapeake frostbiting in a Jet 14 and cruising my current boat a Columbia 28 (no furler). And I hope to do the same in the E-38. I certainly don't want to go through the hassle of installing the staysail system if I dont have to. I do like to sail when it is really nuking out on the bay in the winter.

when she's blowing a gager

You might want to talk to your local sailmaker about a foam luff pad to use when "roller reefing" your headsail. They take the "fullness" out of the middle of the headsail when partially rolled up to make the sail "flatter" & depower it. The one's I've seen run up the spare grove in the luff foil. A lot less hassle than a staysail and much cheaper. (A couple hundred bucks) Unless you're going seriously off-shore this should work for you. Good luck on the purchase. Have fun & sail fast
Bud E34 "Escapade"

The problem with a furling sail is that the the CE rises the more you furl it (just the opposite of the main, when reefed). That's the big advantage of a storm head sail; it's low to the deck. Also, in my experience, a furled sail is not worth much when furled more than a couple of feet. In fact, my UK Tape Drive came with a blue mark on the foot about 18" back from the luff denoting the maximum the sail should be furled. That translates to about 25 knots apparent in use. That's why I got a Gale Sail (although I haven't had to use it yet). It keeps the CE low, and protects my expensive genoa from flogging in high winds (which are few and far between on Long Island Sound). Anyway, that's the idea.

Furling Genoas, etc

Hi Geoff,

Well, the truth (having built hundreds of them) is that a properly built furling genoa can be furled very well down to 70-80% of LP (starting from the typical 135%). Properly built means the right materials, correct shape distribution, and a correctly installed foam luff insert. I am not a fan of the preset marks to indicate where to furl the sail-even if extra patches are fitted there. If the materials and construction are good, you don't need it, and more importantly, it tends to reduce one of the best aspects of a furling sail-the ability to set EXACTLY the amount of sail you want.

You will get different ideas from different sailmakers, but I have the benefit of having built many of these, and have sailed thousands of ocean miles with them. If you don't believe me, check out the Vendee Globe boats-they use very few headsails and furl them anywhere from wide open to storm sail size.

You are correct that the CE rises as you furl, but I assure you this is not detectable interms of balance, and is such a small effect that we do not even consider it relevant-in fact, I would argue that you would prefer to have the sail up away from the water-the round the world guys do-All sailmakers design heavy air jibs with high clews, and often with tack pennants specifically to get the sail up and away from the waves. A low cut sail is the last thing you want in extreme or even heavy conditions. This is much more important than CE considerations.

The Gale sail is a good option, though-depending on how your big genoa is built, it may not be suitable for use in very heavy air, in which case you would need something to use, and the Gale Sail is much easier than changing sails at sea. However, you would be advised to set the Gale Sail with a tack pennant to get it up in the air and off the deck if you end up needing it. You will need to do so anyway to get a proper lead to the rail track on the Ericson!
Good times!
S