1972 Cheoy Lee Model Too Old ?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Good old boats are still that -- good (and old). In the days of wood, they committed suicide, but with fiberglass comes a certain immortality. After that, it's just a question of time and money and how much of each to spend.

Yes indeed.

A friend with whom we sail every summer has a 1969 Cheoy Lee Herreshoff Offshore 31 ketch. That boat is still going strong, including the wooden spars. Small inside, but a very sweet sailer. Of course, our friend takes very good care of her.

[Nc4fl]

Originally Posted by James S

Welcome to the forum Jim...have you got any pictures or her?

yep lots of pix I took while restoring her...
https://picasaweb.google.com/113070887042444457472/CheoyLeeWebSite

[capttman]

Great boat I would never walk away just because of the year... The 107 can be rebuilt several times and keep kicking not like the $#!+ they build today.. If the spruce Spars are worn replace em with Alumn Any problems you may have on that boat you may also have on a modern tub... Hmmmm is she resonably priced?

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Blue Stocking

Don't say that in front of my 1965 Cheoy Lee-built Rhodes Reliant.
More solid hand laid-up 2oz mat and 24oz woven roving than any 3 "built- by -the- mile, cut- at-40ft" modern wonders.

Many of them are sure to pull at the heartstrings, sweet designs. I just dont like fiberglass over cheap plywood much, and the fact that two examples are reported to have come apart (deck from hull) at the toerail in heavy offshore use, due to chopper gun use. The hull may be 1.5" at the keel, but if the deck is held to hull with a spray of chopper gun and brittle resin mix.... well... it's the weakest link in a chain that counts. Lovely boats though and good for many purposes for sure. No harm intended.

[zeehag]

the one my friend sailed to so pacific recently had only tang and chain plate snappage, hull and deck are excellent. the 4 here in mazatlan are fine--no hull to deck problems. perhaps the fact these are made in same yards as formosas is making a prejudicial attitude towards them???? after all, the formosa has abad rep because of some few not all having a few too many problems--HOWEVER--most problems are repairable and removable from the list of problems as time goes on. many early owners make sure this is done, some do not. isnt good to make an entire marque negative because of a couplafew bad ones. is like people--are ALL bad because there are a few bad ones in the mix?? NOT AT ALL.
condition is dependent on previous owner--but there are many out here in great shape.

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Many of them are sure to pull at the heartstrings, sweet designs. I just dont like fiberglass over cheap plywood much, and the fact that two examples are reported to have come apart (deck from hull) at the toerail in heavy offshore use, due to chopper gun use. The hull may be 1.5" at the keel, but if the deck is held to hull with a spray of chopper gun and brittle resin mix.... well... it's the weakest link in a chain that counts. Lovely boats though and good for many purposes for sure. No harm intended.

And I respect your contributions too much to be offended.

Interestingly enough, I have crawled thru enough Cheoy Lees to believe that they did vary their final product to meet designer intention for price positioning and intended use.
A good friend had a Midshipman 40 that was younger than my boat, but it had terrible blistering and was not as well constructed as my older boat.
It had bad deck core problems, whereas my boat, when I completely removed the teak, and cut off the entire glass skin, had 1/2" F&A laid mahogany that we just scrubbed and put back with epoxy.
The Midshipman also had deck to hull joint problems, as you describe. Bluestocking was built with the deck bedded in epoxy, overlapping the hull, and 12 to 18" wide, 4 x chop and woven epoxied tabbing to underside of deck and to hull.
Phil Rhodes drawing are very specific on this point, and David Toombs saw to it that no short cuts were taken.

[zeehag]

seems that , as with ct, formosa, and some other marques, the yard building the boat iw the determining factor, not the marque.
is easy to give a bad name--is more difficult to over come one.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Blue Stocking

And I respect your contributions too much to be offended.

Interestingly enough, I have crawled thru enough Cheoy Lees to believe that they did vary their final product to meet designer intention for price positioning and intended use.
A good friend had a Midshipman 40 that was younger than my boat, but it had terrible blistering and was not as well constructed as my older boat.
It had bad deck core problems, whereas my boat, when I completely removed the teak, and cut off the entire glass skin, had 1/2" F&A laid mahogany that we just scrubbed and put back with epoxy.
The Midshipman also had deck to hull joint problems, as you describe. Bluestocking was built with the deck bedded in epoxy, overlapping the hull, and 12 to 18" wide, 4 x chop and woven epoxied tabbing to underside of deck and to hull.
Phil Rhodes drawing are very specific on this point, and David Toombs saw to it that no short cuts were taken.

You make a very good point. The early days of Chinese building were interesting to say the least. Somewhere I have an article written by Bob Perry on his experiences in Taiwan attemting to get what he designed built properly. The gist was, If you dont tell them specifically what you want done on everything, they will do whatever comes to mind. So if your design was well managed by someone on site, it could be completely differnt than one just ordered and delivered.

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

You make a very good point. The early days of Chinese building were interesting to say the least. Somewhere I have an article written by Bob Perry on his experiences in Taiwan attemting to get what he designed built properly. The gist was, If you dont tell them specifically what you want done on everything, they will do whatever comes to mind. So if your design was well managed by someone on site, it could be completely differnt than one just ordered and delivered.

which is exactly what i said.......but wordier.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Many of them are sure to pull at the heartstrings, sweet designs. I just dont like fiberglass over cheap plywood much, and the fact that two examples are reported to have come apart (deck from hull) at the toerail in heavy offshore use, due to chopper gun use. The hull may be 1.5" at the keel, but if the deck is held to hull with a spray of chopper gun and brittle resin mix.... well... it's the weakest link in a chain that counts. Lovely boats though and good for many purposes for sure. No harm intended.

I think whenever you have a boat whose production run spans years or decades, you are going to have some inconsistency in materials and methods. That has to do with the availabilty of those materials and evolving methods over the years, some of which prove later to be not such a good idea. Think of the American-built Valiants and their blistering problem due to using a different resin. Or, the use of whatever-was-handy for deck coring material in some of the Taiwan boats. It's just something you've got to take into account.

[Curmudgeon]

There's another Cheoy Lee with wooden spars parked near my boat, which was just hauled for the Winter. This one is a double headsail schooner around 40 ft. LOD with a beautiful clipper bow. Looks like one of the early 70's Cheoy Lee Clippers designed by Bill Luders. Beautiful boat, and this one is also still going strong.

[reiner]

Originally Posted by capttman

Great boat I would never walk away just because of the year... The 107 can be rebuilt several times and keep kicking not like the $#!+ they build today.. If the spruce Spars are worn replace em with Alumn Any problems you may have on that boat you may also have on a modern tub... Hmmmm is she resonably priced?

The boat we are looking at is here in Brisbane/Australia and the asking price is around $100,000. There are not many in Australia to compare to.

[James S]

Have a look here

LudersOwners

..scroll down and you'll find 25 owners of 40s of various ages.
You'll be able to get some firsthand current info from them.
Also a good page here
http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=1831

[bigpuff]

i once delivered one from auckland to mana(500mls)loverly teak work sailed quiet well eased,stopped a bit in a chop in anything hard on the nose,leaked a bit in some of the deck fittings but felt very sterdey,osmoses was a problem later on....

[boatman61]

If the hull is sound... go for it..
Cheoy Lee Rocks...