Benford 30' "dory", any experience

[basssears]

Hi All,

Came across a Benford 30' pilothouse recently that really caught my eye, curious if anyone has any experience actually out on one of these?

Back story is looking for pilothouse for myself and my wife, preferably full keel and burly, for San Juan Islands (now), Gulf Islands (now), around Vancouver (eventually) and up to Alaska (eventually eventually). Been mostly looking at William Garden designs like Gulf 32, Truant / Saturna 33, Rawson 30 PH (if I could find one) etc.

The Benford is 6000# displacement vs 10000+ for the others, but it is full keel and quite a neatly designed boat.

My real question is how it sails and how stable it feels, particularly at anchor / mooring. I have been out in the islands in a 4000# trailer sailor and we had to find *very* protected anchorages or even just the swirling of the currents was enough to rock us around... I'm concerned this would be an issue with the Benford (although my trailer sailor, of course, was centerboard not full keel).

If anyone has any experience with these designs I'd sure be interested to hear about it.

(Caveats: I know it's more about the sailor than the boat, I'm average but not great sailor with good judgement, so margin of error is still important to me... and I know these were not production boats so the quality of the actual build could vary hugely).

Thanks in advance,

Bass

[Trickymaneuvers]

Hello, Just curious if you ever received any info from your "Benford 30' "dory", any experience" post made back in 2015. Curious to hear anything you may have come across. I only send this since I see you are still active on this forum.

Thanks, Jeff

[basssears]

I never did hear anything. And I never got a chance to look at the boat at the time, the broker was super hard to deal with (think he had bigger fish to fry). Still thought it was super cool boat.


I assume you're asking because it just went by on eBay, looks like it sold for $3,800, wish I could remember what they were asking back in 2015, it was a lot more than this ($20k maybe?)... one of my concerns then was the resellability of a one off glass over plywood design like this.


-- Bass

[Orion Jim]

I’m gobsmacked that someone replied to a five year old thread in eight hours......

[Knotical]

Originally Posted by Orion Jim

I’m gobsmacked that someone replied to a five year old thread in eight hours......

😊😊

Also that the second poster recognized that it’s a 5 yr old thread, usually posters reply to old threads like they were just a few days old.