1979 Hunter 27 owner

[dlsflorida]

I am 2 years new to sailing and basically inherited this sailboat. I have been boating all my life but this is very different and I really enjoy the peace when things go well. After much TLC the boat is beginning to come alive again after much neglect from previous owners. I am looking for any others with a similar sailboat to share information with. We do not have the diesel inboard usable so we have a 9 hp outboard which works out ok. The head has been replaced with a porta potty. The rudder was sheared off so we have had a new one replaced, however, the packing gland is now leaking so we have just this little problem to solve and hopefully we will be out sailing again without fear. Overall the boat is wonderful. I am looking forward to learning much information from this site. Thank you.

[Teknishn]

dlsflorida, Good to see another Hunter Cherubini owner here! I too have a similar boat, an 81 Hunter 27, although I haven't set foot onboard her yet. Purchased my boat a few months ago in preparation for repatriating to the States next April and intend to be living aboard the boat and sailing up and down the east coast for the following year.

If you are interested, I have basic drawings of the Hunter Cherubini 27 which include electrical and plumbing systems. Also I have copies of the Hunter 27 Owner's manual and an advertisement brochure from that era (Kinda cool nostalgic stuff). PM me if you are interested and I will be more than happy to share my info with you. And I will pick you brain about the layout of your boat as I haven't been on mine yet and am armchair planning at the moment for outfitting and modifying my boat when I get Stateside.

FYI, There is a forum here for Hunter owners (listed under Builders on the site's menu bar). Best of luck with the rudder gland packing repairs

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, disflorida.

[dlsflorida]

Also, from what I am reading the 27 Hunter may not be a blue water boat. You can sail the intercoastal waters I believe along the east coast. I hope to go to the keys with mine.

[ctl411]

You can also go to Hunter owners.com. They even have a sub group for Cherubini Hunters.

[SailingFan]

Originally Posted by dlsflorida

Also, from what I am reading the 27 Hunter may not be a blue water boat. You can sail the intercoastal waters I believe along the east coast. I hope to go to the keys with mine.

You definitely can sail the ICW (well, the parts that are navigable after Hurricane Matthew and that are deep enough to navigate with a sailboat, as this body is barely a river in some areas); I took mine from Daytona to Jacksonville, and from there entered the St. John's River, then proceeded south again (upstream for this river) to Palatka. I know I could have gone quite a bit farther, but Palatka is where we were heading to as a destination. I can tell you that this boat easily takes up to 6 ft waves head on (I did that in the St. John's when all the shipping traffic and even law enforcement folk were plowing through at full speed, and wakes were all over the place, so I piloted into them each time).

I also am going to be taking my 1978 H27 to the Caribbean, probably across the Gulf of Mexico along the southern US coast, and possibly to some places along the Mexican and South American coastline. I would not say this vessel is blue water in terms of navigating open seas far beyond the reach of land based rescue operations, but if you pick your days and keep aware of the weather, it has been done on smaller vessels than these. My boat is a shoal keel variant, so I suppose it may be less useful in large waters than the long keel fin versions.

My boat has been using an 8 HP sailboat outboard, and got to about 5 knots land speed with about 2-3 inches of growth on the hull. A clean hull would have made a real difference.

However, I can freely state with authority that if you get into rough water, the outboard will be far less than useful. It will cavitate a great deal, and will not give much power as your stern bounces around in the wakes of other boaters who just don't understand what their wakes do to other boats (common in this area, apparently).

I can also state that you must be careful in some areas, specifically near the Matansas river (St. Augustine area) and the associated inlets because the tidal flow in those areas can drastically affect your progress in a sailboat that at best has short of a 7 knot hull speed. You can go through a great deal of fuel fighting the tide in the ICW!

Fuel is available every few miles in much of the ICW this far south, but is more distant in some areas, enough so that you will want a safe means of storing some along your trip. A six gallon tank capacity of gasoline/oil mix will not be enough to make the transit without constant refuelling stops, if you are motoring most of the way (how many seem to travel this often winding and at times treacherous body of water). Sandbars are everyplace and often are shoaled in areas that are not marked on charts, so proceed carefully or lose your rudder again. I would also suggest a side trip into the St. John's, as this water tends to be deeper, wider, and more suited to actually sailing a sailboat versus using an engine to navigate, especially once you get south of the Main Street rail bridge. Stop at Hooters on your starboard side (they have a dedicated public landing dock there, free to stay overnight!) and get either the cod sandwich (if you are severely hungry, it is massive), or the medium cooked hamburger (again, you had better be hungry). Also, give me a call when you are in the area of Palatka and I can offer a couple other locations for great grub! The fishing is great on this freshwater river as well (it is brackish until just north of Palatka)...

My vessel was already largely stripped internally when we took delivery in Daytona, so she rides a bit high from her lines, but we had a really hard time in the major shipping channel areas in Jacksonville because of the issues caused by wakes when it came to keeping the prop low enough in the water column that full throttle did not simply turn the outboard into an inefficient bubble machine. We made it, and it was quite the adventure. The Admiral is still smiling from her "I caught a freakin' shark!" event.

Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY!