Gulf 32 for Alaska

[Chinook92]

By year's end I will be in the market for a sailboat. I have many reasons for wanting a boat, but the main reason is for liveaboard. My thoughts regarding liveaboard would be half the year in Alaska, half the year in Washington, so, I'm after an inside passage boat that I can do the back and forth with. I commercial fish up north, but live in WA and work as a marine diesel mechanic

My thoughts regarding the gulf 32 are 1) motoring a sailboat in the rain sucks, 2) sailing in the rain sucks, 3) it rains ALOT in Southeast Alaska, and it rains ALOT here in WA, 4) there isn't the greatest sailing in the inside passage, but there are spots it can get nasty, and a stable comfortable boat that can for example, slog through the Queen Charlottes, or other spots, handle some tide and currents, and keep you dry doing it, seems like. Match to me. I guess you could say, I'm after a true coastal cruiser suitable for northern latitudes

So, I don't plan on racing, I just care about getting from point a to point b and be dry warm and safe, and having something comfortable to live on and am after a true Pacific Northwest boat that I can explore Alaska and BC in the early spring and late summer.

I realize I'd probably have to do a prop swap because it's a full keel, a 4 blade seems almost required, especially for the tides in the areas I'm talking about


I've seen alot of talk about the Rawson's and other boats, but, I'd rather hear about personal experiences and useful knowledge about the gulf 32 specifically. I worked on a 29 years ago and hated it, but the 32 seems to be a different beast all together but my reason for thinking about the gulf 32 is that it seems to be a model that's consistently available at a reasonable price, and, I really like the galley layout...

Seems like the gulf is designed for the kind of use I'm talking about doing...

[Steadman Uhlich]

I can't help you with personal experience with the Gulf 32 boats, but here is a search or list of the previous threads or discussions in CF on "Gulf 32" where you may find owner comments.

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=011403...032&gsc.page=1

I appreciate your post, with what you wrote about rain. For the same reason I would want a pilothouse boat or at the very least a solid windscreen or dodger and full enclosure.

Good luck on your boat search.

[Cheechako]

The Gulfs are decent boats. I've looked closely at the 32 in my past boat searches years ago. Similar to the Rawson 30 PH actually. Aren't they both Bill Garden designs? A bit old school with shorter waterlines than modern boats but good boats. Most of the Rawson 30 PH's I've seen are built a cut above some of the older Rawson 30 sloops. My friend has the PH. Last I heard he was thinking of selling actually.
I think the Gulf is a good NW boat for the reasons you mention. One of my favorites is the Islander Freeport 36 PH.
ISLANDER FREEPORT 36 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

[robert sailor]

Had a dock friend with one for many years. The pilot house does make sense for the Wet Coast. I've sailed it and it's ok but not very close winded and not all that fast but it gets the job done. I think for what you have to pay for one they are a fairly high value boat. Motor is in the bilge but not bad access.

[rbk]

We looked at both the Rawson and the Gulfs (and there are 3 or 4 in our local harbor alone). From what I remember both are full keel (except the G29?) med displacement hull and can hold full sail well into 20knts of wind. There’s a few for sale in AK if you wanted to extend your cruise time in the North (Seward and Whittier). Another popular SE AK boat are the Fischer’s (30 and 34 I think?) Another full keel PH. We’ve been sailing SE AK for the last 7 years and ultimately decided that with the size of our family that a PH was just too broken up for our needs in the size we wanted and you can generally do just fine with a good canvas enclosure as we had on our last boat of 7 years. I’ll be bringing our new to us boat back up this spring, probably mid to end April.

[seasick]

I've owned a Rawson 30 and a Gulf 32. I too commercial fished in SE Alaska or many years. We sailed both boats to the Queen Charlottes and Alaska. Bill Garden was a family friend and we have had other boats of his design.

The larger diesels these boats typically have, Westerbeakes 4-107s, make up for their inability to go to weather well, but who goes to weather?

The majority of storage space on these two designs is in the forepeake and laserette which is a recipe for hobbyhorse.

We cruised with a family of six and it was fun I.e. Room enough.

The Rawson 30s of old have an iron incapsulated by cement ballast keel that is unusually wide. This ballast was not glassed over which renders the possibility that the ballast could pop free in a wild pitch pole scenario and well... I hate to think about the consequences.

Read "First Time Around" for an account of a circumnavigation by a Rawson 30 with a family of three aboard.

As a diesel mechanic you will find it a challenge to work on the engine from directly above it. Buy a bolt and tool retrieval snake right off.

Bottom line, for what you are hoping to do, where you want to do it and for the money you have to spend, you can't go wrong with either of these boats. Look for one with a wood stove. They hold their value and are relatively easy to recoupe your investment from if you don't get carried away with the additions. These are well known and well loved boats in the PNW. Pedigree matters to some extent and those boats built in the USA seemed to be preferred. Not all were. There are several owners groups online which will keep you reading for days.

[basssears]

Where to start... I'll start off saying I think the Gulf 32 is a GREAT boat. But I'm biased, because we own one. That being said, I'll just share a random string of thoughts on it... but first a disclaimer: we've only owned this for 1 1/2 years, I don't have a lot to compare it to, and my information / advice is worth only what you're paying for it:

* First off, take the other forum posts with a decent sized grain of salt. You'll find some people who claim to know all about it but they're actually talking about a Gulfstar, not a Gulf, and other people are claiming to know all about the boat just by reading the SA/D numbers off sailboatdata.com. Check into people who have actually owned and sailed these boats. You can check out our blog for some feedback:
Sailing Idaho, the Salish Sea and beyond – Cruising a Gulf 32, a Nimble 20, chartering and traveling
and another great Gulf 32 blog is:
Stories of Aeolus- Our Gulf 32 Pilothouse

* To be clear, the Gulf 32 is a completely different animal than the Gulf 29 or Gulf 27. Gulf 32 was designed from keel up by William Garden (I believe he actually built and sold the first few boats in the late 60's), same designer as Rawson PH among many others. It is 16,000# displacement, full keel heavy cruiser. The G29 and G27 are Gulf 32 style pilothouse cabins plunked on top of fin keel / spade rudder hulls that were Newport 29's and Newport 27's.

* Best thing a broker ever said to us, rather casually, was "Hey, this is a 5 knot boat"... yes, we've gone faster, at times, but most of our travel for hours and hours has worked out to right around 5 knots. Not bad, we're fine with it, but just use that as a traveling plan perspective, don't expect to be knocking out 60nm in 8 hours, it's just not realistic

* We have a two blade prop, does fine pushing that boat (again, haven't had anything else to compare to), we do 5.5 knots into wind and current same as we do on flat water. 3 or 4 blade might help with backing though... review in Cruising World (they did a Plastic Classic review of it late 2015) describes it as "backing like a drunken elephant"... I personally think that's offensive to drunken elephants!

* Engine access is actually pretty good, albeit somewhat upside down. The engine is under the pilothouse floor so everything's below you which can be a pain, but you can get to all sides and front and back of engine. Transmission is a little harder to get to, it's deep down to the point that there's a bulge in the hull where the tranny sits.

* Tranny, if it's stock, is a little on the light side for this boat so you'll be doing some work to keep it from overheating (only takes about 1/2 liter of ATF fluid to try to keep it cool).

* People will try to call this a motorsailor, I disagree. This is a sailboat with a pilothouse on it. We sail whenever we can, although that's tough in the PNW for sure (we're based out of Belilngham), but we bought this to sail with and it's proven itself a good sailing machine. Doesn't point super high (some of that is probably old sails for us, and a lot of that is operator error, but for sure some of it is the windage of the pilothouse). Surely isn't going to ghost along in 3 knots of wind. We reef the main right around 18-20 while keeping the full genoa out, much above that we furl the genoa and put second reef in (so far doesn't seem to be a big gap between when we first decide to reef and when the second one goes in). She heaves to quite nicely, although she sits on her ear a bit when hove to.

* We love the interior. To be able to steer from inside, have a legit chart table, and have all the light and air from the pilothouse windows is great, good weather or bad. Very nice to be able to look out the pilothouse windows while in the galley, but you still get good privacy and a "snugged in" feeling if you're down below in salon. Highly recommend heat of some sort... we put in Wallas forced air and it has made ALL the difference... no cold spots in the boat, everything dries out, it's killer.

* That being said, visibility from the interior steering station is not spectacular... you definitely need to keep moving around if you're cruising from below to make sure you see what's coming at you, especially debris in the water... boats are relatively easy to see, although even that can be a bit of a challenge when our dinghy is on the foredeck. I think windshield wipers were an option, so far we've only wished we had them once (we don't), we're going to try some RainX next time see how that works.

* V berth is a bit snug, although has good storage on port side. I'm 6'5" and can JUST fit squished up tight against the starboard side. If there are two of you in there the person on the port side has to move for the person on the starboard side to get out.

* I believe some (many? a few?) of them originally drained their head sink and head floor drain (i.e. shower) straight into the bilge... ours has a small sump box with its own pump in it that pumps out its own through hull, totally separate from bilge.

* If you go far on looking at one, when you survey be sure to have the rudder foot checked very carefully. Ours looked decent on the outside but the yard manager thought it looked corroded and recommended we replace it; after casting the new one he was able to break the old one in half in his hands... YIKES!

* Engine is Universal 5432 / Westerbeke M40, seems reliable enough to me. There's a charging wiring change you need to make if it hasn't been done already, check out MaineSail's site for details. This is a Kubota block, if you can build a list of Kubota comparable part numbers you'll be much happier ordering those. We had our fresh water pump fail while away from our home marina, Westerbeke part was going to be ~$480 and was out of stock, call to Kubota dealer got it for us (in stock) for ~$150.

* We eventually have plans for going to Alaska, my concerns with this boat right now would be on the open stretches N and S of Queen Charlotte where you're exposed to full Pacific swell... in very heavy weather the pilothouse windows would be a weak point (although we would be doing our best to avoid that kind of weather), and the v berth hatch is not a watertight hatch it's just a sliding fiberglass hatch (nifty that part of it isn't gelcoated so light gets through though) that certainly keeps the rain out but would let water in if you took green water over the bow, and you have to be careful of it when washing the boat.

* Being a pilothouse, be ready to do some duplication of electronics / gauges etc. Everything is down by the interior steering station (water temp, oil pressure, ignition key) so anything you want up in the cockpit you'll have to repeat / duplicate etc.

* Again, don't have a lot to compare to, but build quality on our 1988 seems pretty decent. 30 year old boat so that might have more to do with how it was kept up than how it was built, but seems solid, and interior is really quite attractive.

* I agree with the previous post about hobby horsing, although we don't have enough in the bow as it is we still ride stern heavy because of the two big cockpit lockers (which are NOT sealed off from the interior so another potential "bluewater" issue) and because I store all my tools and stuff under the cockpit or in the quaterberth.

There seem to be quite a few of these around (they made over 400 I believe), going rate is high $20's to high $30's although I think the high $30's is a little overpriced. But they seem to stay at that level and sell at that price over and over, they're quite well thought of in the PNW.

Feel free to message me if you have specific questions, happy to try to answer if I can.

-- Bass

[msrcal36]

Another consideration might be the Cruising Cal 35, our current boat. Bill Lapworth designed her for long range cruising: 110 gallons water and 170 gallon fuel, tons of storage, mostly midships, and a Perkins 4-107. Original sales literature (from mid 1970s) boasts 700 mile range under power. AND she sails like a dream. !5,000 lbs displacement, full keel cutaway forefoot and spade rudder. She draws 4'8". Pretty much the same underbody as the Cal Cruising 46.
No inside steering but that could be accomplished via remote auto pilot. I know of one CC35 from the West Coast that circumnavigated the Pacific, as far as Malaysia, another went from Southern California to Nova Scotia and back. See profile pictures below. I know there are a few CC35s in the PNW.

[msrcal36]

Photos below Cal Cruising 35

[Kenatsea]

FYI, there are a couple of Gulf 32's for sale right now in Seward AK.

Try Sailinginc.com

Ken

[nwdiver]

This is what you really want.........
A good friend runs his Vancouver to Mexico every second year......

1986 Truant Pilot House Sloop Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

[joel383]

Originally Posted by Kenatsea

FYI, there are a couple of Gulf 32's for sale right now in Seward AK.

Try Sailinginc.com

Ken

Randy is very helpful and knowledgeable. Did some ASA classes with him.

I keep a Rawson 32 pilothouse in Seward. PM me know if you need some help. I'll be living aboard at least part time in a few months.

Joel+Jeanette

[Volkeno]

I love the Gulf 32 and looked at them a lot, but bought a 29 which is a completely different boat under the deck.
My 29 did not have the inside steering, but I did have a remote for my auto pilot that I could take inside. I would rather have the full inside steering. I did an all night and all day run in January cold and rain with a friend who was on a regular sailboat with a dodger and I was very happy to be inside my pilothouse with the heater rather than outside in 35 degree rain. It was hard to see and I hit a submerged log that knocked out my auto pilot until I went outside and reset it.

The only advice I know from reading about a 32 cruising in Mexico was mentioned is to build up a lip in front of the forward hatch or find another way to secure it from water over the deck.
I used to get spray on my pilothouse windows and once the salt dried it was hard to see out, so I kept a hand spray bottle to squirt them to clear off the salt. Since they are protected under the lip of the deck, the rain doesn't wash them.
I always keep Gulf 32's in mind in case I switch boats again. I was on a 1966 which is a lot different again from the ones built by Capital. There was a company out east that was trying to build them again a few years ago, but I don't know how many they made compared to 800 that Capital Yachts made.

[basssears]

According to sailboatdata.com, there were about 400 Gulf 32's built.

There is some basic information on a website here:
Newport, Neptune, Gulf sailboats built by Capital Yachts
(not sure who's in charge of that one). According to one review there, there have been two attempts to revive the G32... once in 1994 with a change in layout to galley down and dinette up, once again in 2005 or so by Gulf Pilothouse LLC in Connecticut, who appears to have possibly made one boat but maybe not:
Info: The New Gulf 32 Pilot House - SailNet Community

I think I'd stick with the Capital Yachts manufactured ones myself

[Juho]

We bought a pilothouse sailboat for very similar reasons. The pilothouse extends the sailing season considerably up north. Cool weather and rain are not a problem. 32 feet is exactly the right size for a boat .