Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 yawl to --> sloop

[heronspeak]

Hello. I am not a rigger of any sort, but I am eyeing a Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 yawl and I would like some opinions.

I am not sure I would fly the mizzen much and it seems the second stick and boom make for dinghy crane overkill. The aft deck area could possibly be put to better use if the mizzen mast and rigging were eliminated. If a stern arch were designed right, that seems like a good option.

So, I know well enough that the calculations for the two rigs are obviously different and it would not really be wise to just take down the mizzen as noted and call it a sloop.

However, based on the information I can find online, the one less alterable difference between the two configurations is the main mast on the yawl is about 4 inches further aft than the sloop. Apart from that, the boom on the sloop is about a foot longer, which seems like an easy fix. Otherwise the rig dimensions look to be identical.

My question then is would it be wise to eliminate the mizzen, get a longer boom, and call it good? All of this would be done under the supervision of a qualified rigger... I'm just speculating right now.

And I have never sailed a yawl. Perhaps I would find it to be the bee's knees, but really it doesn't seem like enough of an advantage in balancing the boat under sail to be worth it. A ketch might be a different story. Given that nobody builds yawls anymore, this seems like a valid take.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

P.S. I am aware of all of the other characteristics of a CL Offshore 40. Some advantages, some weaknesses... and I would buy the boat if everything checks out. Even if it were to remain a yawl.

[chris in SG]

I owned a Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 yawl for 20 years and for about 5 years in the middle of that time, she was rigged as a sloop.

This was not an experiment. The mizzen succumbed to rot where a radar bracket had been added. It was a few years before I had the funds to build a new mizzen (from the best spruce from the old main mast) and a new main mast made from imported spruce. The main mast was not rotting but the original glue was crumbling. Apparently this resorcinol glue is well known to have a 50 year lifespan - so this is something to be aware of.

During the period of time sailing as a sloop, obviously without adjusting boom length, I did not notice any difference in balance or power. My determination to restore the original rig was almost entirely a matter of aesthetics, hence my crazy decision to spend money on spruce and experienced carpenters, rather than buying alloy spars.

[chris in SG]

The 2 photos accidentally appear to reinforce my preference for the yawl rig..

[heronspeak]

Excellent information, Chris. That is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, and quick too!

I may be considered a charlatan and a hack for this... but my idea would be to replace the main mast and boom with aluminum (painted white) and re-rig the boat with dyneema.

Though I am under no illusion that a boat like this would ever be a competitive racer (not even back in the day), I think lightening the load aloft might squeeze out another .5 knots now and again. Also, it would heel over a bit less in a strong breeze. Given the relatively short waterline of these boats, perhaps any performance gains would be negated, but I am more interested in a comfortable ride than speed anyway. In theory, these changes would also make it less prone to severe roll at anchor in a swell. Plus dyneema has some pretty amazing longevity to it if you cover it to block UV and chaffe. Not to mention, aesthetically it looks pretty classic (oddly enough).

So we will see. I appreciate your comment.

Cheers!

[heronspeak]

Also while I've got you here Chris, I have only seen this boat online so far and I am hoping to make an appointment to go and see it soon.

I have researched this and I know this boat shares a lot of design with the Rhodes boat... but the Rhodes has two companionways-one for the main cabin and one for the aft stateroom. What I can't seem to find is if the Cheoy Lee shares this arrangement or if the aft cabin is accessible from the main salon?

TIA

-Maxx

[heronspeak]

Originally Posted by chris in SG

The 2 photos accidentally appear to reinforce my preference for the yawl rig..

Great pics. They really are a beautiful boat!

Thanks for sharing.

[chris in SG]

Originally Posted by heronspeak

I may be considered a charlatan and a hack for this... but my idea would be to replace the main mast and boom with aluminum (painted white) and re-rig the boat with dyneema.

Though I am under no illusion that a boat like this would ever be a competitive racer (not even back in the day), I think lightening the load aloft might squeeze out another .5 knots now and again. Also, it would heel over a bit less in a strong breeze. Given the relatively short waterline of these boats, perhaps any performance gains would be negated, but I am more interested in a comfortable ride than speed anyway. In theory, these changes would also make it less prone to severe roll at anchor in a swell. Plus dyneema has some pretty amazing longevity to it if you cover it to block UV and chaffe. Not to mention, aesthetically it looks pretty classic (oddly enough).

I would forgive you for going with alloy spars, as long as you commit to the white paint! I can't comment on dyneema.

For sure, the original design heeled too readily, so you could be almost rail-under when close hauled in 20 knots of breeze. I had some success club racing in PY class for several years after investing in new sails and with assistance from the handicappers who consistently under-estimated our performance. The very narrow beam (10' 9"?) allows the overlapping genoa to be trimmed much closer than most beamy cruising monohulls and the long keel prevents the hull from stalling and making leeway.

[chris in SG]

[QUOTE=
I have researched this and I know this boat shares a lot of design with the Rhodes boat... but the Rhodes has two companionways-one for the main cabin and one for the aft stateroom. What I can't seem to find is if the Cheoy Lee shares this arrangement or if the aft cabin is accessible from the main salon?
[/QUOTE]

I think both the Rhodes and the CL O/S40 had companionway options. The general view was that the internal space was insufficient to justify 2 sets of steps. You can see from the attached photo that the 2nd (optional) companionway would be replacing the rectangular port light and hatch above it. The proximity to the primary offset hatch is very obvious. In both cases the aft cabin is accessible from the main salon. [Note the blue masking tape - the varnishing is never-ending..]

The difference between the Cheoy Lee and the Rhodes (built by Cheoy Lee) was that Cheoy Lee took the Philip Rhodes design and shifted the offset companionway from stbd to port in order to avoid the accusation that they stole Rhodes' design, although it was an exact mirror image. The story goes that by the mid 60's Philip Rhodes was 'getting on a bit' and decided it was not worth pursuing CL in court.

I would be interested to hear how your inspection goes, either here or by PM.

Chris

[heronspeak]

Very nice! Yeah... communication has been a bit... sporadic, so I am not sure if it will happen. But I will post here if it does.

The second companionway seems superfluous in any case, and yes, that would certainly take up real estate down below. Strange design. But, with some work the second companionway could be eliminated.

Such a beautiful boat. Speaking from the position of not being a current owner, I don't really mind maintenance (e.g. varnishing).

Thank you again.

[OS2Dude]

Not trying to be snarky, but if you dislike the layout of the boat so much why don't you keep looking for a boat that fits your needs better?

[Clivevon]

You will see I own a ketch. Having a mizzen has several benefits. A place for a radar & wind generator; balances a storm jib in strong winds when mainsail dropped; reduces sailing around an anchor; looks pretty; lowers centre of effort of sailplan so boat heels less; use as a dinghy crane; did I mention looks pretty?

[auwekamanu]

I agree about the ketch. I have a Cheoy Lee 36 cutter ketch, and single hand it most of the time. I took off the inner forestay and sail balanced in higher winds, Niot a Rhodes design, of course, but I like the look of the ketch rig, and having the radar rig on the mizen. Easy peasy for an old guy like me (78 yr old), and I get hull speed at least with the balanced rig at 15 knots or more. Of course, can't point as high as I would like, but then I can't either at my7 age...

[heronspeak]

Originally Posted by OS2Dude

Not trying to be snarky, but if you dislike the layout of the boat so much why don't you keep looking for a boat that fits your needs better?

Not sure where you got that I "dislike the layout of the boat so much," but any boat is a bit of a compromise. All in all I like this design, I just think the second companionway down into the aft cabin is not necessary (on the Rhodes version). I will likely customize the layout down below of whatever boat I eventually end up with to some degree because I want things how I want them and virtually no boat I have seen thus far hits all of those notes. Good thing I know my way around a set of tools, eh?

There are a few comments here about the benefits of a KETCH, whereas the boat in question is a yawl. In my mind there is a bit of a difference between a ketch and a yawl. IMHO, the down-sized mizzen in a yawl is not typically quite as useful in balancing the boat as it would be with a ketch. As one responder said above, he had a Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 and sailed it for 5 years without the mizzen and did not notice a loss in performance. This tells me it really is not necessary to me, which pretty much answered my original question.

[Hene]

My late husband and I had a Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 for 30 years, including four years cruising in Mexico, a 13-year circumnavigation (too fast) and another trip to Mexico after that. She had wooden masts, which are heavy, but after returning from our circumnavigation, we stripped the paint off, splined the cracking seams, and repainted. We had mixed feelings about the mizzen mast.

Yes, that is a lot of weight back there, and the clutter of shrouds on a slender afterdeck was a nuisance when setting a stern anchor, taking a line ashore, or adjusting the wind vane (until my husband installed a fitting for a control line that led all the way to the bridge deck).

However, we liked the mizzen for a lot of reasons. It's a great place to hang a mizzen staysail, which adds at least an extra half knot of speed on a broad reach,
and is easy to deploy. Of course, its halyard is useful for lifting the outboard off the dinghy, though an arch or a motor-lift davit could easily replace that function.

Our favorite thing about the mizzen was how much easier it made anchoring, and how much fun it was to sail off the anchor without using the engine. Flattening the mizzen kept the bow into the wind when setting the anchor, whether under sail or motor. When leaving an anchorage, particularly a crowded one, we could control which way the bow would fall when the anchor came up by lashing the mizzen boom to a mizzen shroud with a sail stop (slip knot so that it was quickly removable). Either one of us could anchor or sail out of an anchorage single-handed. Though I preferred having the engine ticking along in neutral, that original engine (still in the boat and fifty years old) had several rebuilds in our 30 years and it was nice to know that we could do without it when we had to.

When we splined the masts, we did the mizzen first, and, while it was out, sailed down to China Camp in San Francisco Bay with some other boats from our marina. Returning from a picnic on the beach, we had trouble "seeing" our boat on a sunny afternoon. The mizzen was so much a part of her that we didn't recognize her, and when we finally did, she just didn't look "right".

Finally, we generally only sailed with "jib and jigger" on windy daysails with timid friends aboard. However, our good friend, Ben Stavis, was on his way back from Bermuda board his Reliant, Astarte, and encountered some heavy weather. Like us, he had an inner forestay for a storm jib, and deployed that, a storm trysail, and a double-reefed mizzen. He continued to make reasonable progress toward home with that sail configuration.

Whether you keep the mizzen or not would depend on the kind of sailing you intend to do. If you are going to do a lot of cruising, and anchor a lot, I would suggest that you keep it. If you are going to spend most of your time daysailing, racing, or in a marina, the extra windage and clutter on the after deck probably wouldn't be worth it.

Regarding the wood/aluminum choice: a friend in San Francisco Bay did get aluminum spars, and said that his boat was both stiffer and faster than when she had wood ones. This is certainly a point for aluminum. Also, re-painting wooden masts every few years in the tropics is tedious! However, we were glad that we had wooden spars when we were in the Queen's Birthday Storm in 1994, because we felt that their slowed our roll, and improved our righting moment.

That odd cabin arrangement worked very well at sea; the longship galley meant that the cook didn't have to stand to leeward of the stove, and the quarter berths by the engine compartment were great sea berths. We didn't have a second ladder, but had a sliding hatch and could climb below over the chart table if it was too rough or we were in a hurry. Cheoy Lee did build the Offshore 40 (but not the Reliant) with different cabin arrangements, and we met a few in our travels. They were all more open and modern. Our boat took good care of us, and when it was time to sell her, I am glad it was to someone who wanted to "restore" her, and has done a lot more varnish, replaced the cockpit teak, etc.

If you get that Offshore 40, I hope you enjoy her as much as we did ours, but do be prepared for some extra maintenance.

Carol

[Clivevon]

Ah but there are ketches & ketches. They have relatively different sized mizzens. My mizzen might suit a yawl but the mast position means Its a ketch. Similar benefits in many cases…