Apache

[roverhi]

Jeff will tell you it's a POS because it's a CCA design. Personally, I like the CCA designs over the ugly, plum bowed, fat assed, floating condos that are the current rage.

The boat was designed by Sparkman/Stephens which is about as good a design pedigree as you can get. Their boats are typically sweet handling, and fast with the emphasis on windward performance. Long overhangs, when heeled, help to make up the for the short waterline length dictated by the CCA rule. Boats from that era tend to be be over built but may be suffering from age problems with the rig and hardware. Interior wise, it's small by modern standards but should do well at sea and be comfortable when the waves kick up. Large main, small 'J' should make for easy short handed sailing. The boats from this era typically have relatively low aspect ratio rigs and not a lot of sail area for displacement. Team this up with a lot of wetted surface and light air usually isn't their strong point. On the other hand, they should have a comfortable motion in a seaway and perform very well under normal sailing conditions.

The only negative I've heard of is possible mild steel backing plates for the shrouds. I've heard this but haven't been able to positively verify it, however. In any case, if they are mild steel could be prone to corrosion.

I'd look very carefully at the rigging as the chainplates could have hidden corrosion and the wire swage ends, cracks. S

[Jeff H]

RoverHi,

I would suggest that you not try to read my mind. I have pretty consistently said that the Apache 37 was one of the better boats of the CCA era in terms of sailing ability and build quality. While they have most of the liabilities of a short waterline and long overhangs, and liabilities of a rig designed to be sailed with huge headsails, their comparatively modern keel and rudder mean better than average sailing ability for most 37 footers of that era.

Per prior discussions of construction techniques of the mid-1960's and 1970's, these are comparatively light boats for their day and I would never say that these boats are 'overbuilt'. They were built to comparatively heavy boats by modern standards but not especially sturdy.

One apparent short coming of the Apache 37 that came out in an earlier discussion of these boats is rudder post problems.

Jeff