Etap boats

[organic snowman]

Hi everyone,

Wondering about peoples opinions on Etap boats. Thinking about buying a 28 or 30 as my first boat.

[petermjdavies]

Sadly Etap no longer makes yachts. But we have had our Etap 28i for 29 years and still love it.

In theory unsinkable, we haven't tried, but you should float full of water. No electrics or engine at that point, but should be able to sail home!

Because of the foam which makes it unsinkable, you suffer from storage. So be prepared relative to other boats the same size.

We find that we can sail here to windward up to about force 5 and have sailed downwind in a 7-8. But the boat is light so she does bounce.

For light wind sailing, using the right sails, she is a dream. We have sailed all over the south and east coasts of england with trips to Netherlands and France, Channel Islands and the West Country. We have sailed her with two reefs and a pocket sized jib in quite bad weather.

We have never spent the cash for heating, but do have a chart plotter, all the nav instruments and a autopilot. We have replaced sails three times in 29 years. We had a major service on the engine 15 years ago! We have replaced the sail drive seal three times.

For a couple or a couple with small children this is a good boat that will be enjoyable to sail. Much smaller than most boats in the Channel these days, but manageable by female crew. My wife can do everything on board without an electric winch in sight.

[Cloroxbottle]

Ours is a 38i

Extremely high quality construction, one of the "tighest" fiberglass boats I've ever been on.

In addition to the "unsinkability", the boat doesn't suffer from condensation as a result of the foam. It also does a good job of maintaining temperatures. There's a good bit of peace of mind knowing that "abadoning ship" outside of an onboard fire isn't really an issue...and even in that situation, you could conceivably try and put out the fire by intentionally opening the through hulls, flooding her, and staying with the boat if you couldn't control it with hand held extinguishers.

Negatives: because of the design that gives the above advantages, there is less interior space than single hull designs of the same size. Installing built in air may be difficult or impossible. I've had two A/C guys look at ours and give up. It does have a saildrive. I would prefer a traditional transmission drive unit.

It has light displacement for a boat it's size which makes it a great light air sailboat but it can bounce a bit in chop.

Would I get one again? Yes.

Note: the draft of our 38i is only 5.1". The draft of the 30 as listed on sailboat data is 5.9". 5'9" could be problematic in shallower waters.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by Cloroxbottle

Ours is a 38i

Extremely high quality construction, one of the "tighest" fiberglass boats I've ever been on.

In addition to the "unsinkability", the boat doesn't suffer from condensation as a result of the foam. It also does a good job of maintaining temperatures.

Negatives: because of the design that gives the above advantages, there is less interior space than single hull designs of the same size.

ETAP 37s here - and all the above is very true. Everything is high quality and well thought out. Even bouncing around in bigger seas there is no hull flex - no hint of movement of bulkheads etc.

Ours has the deep keel at 1.9m, which lets it point with the better cruiser / racers. Moderate width stern makes it pretty relaxing downwind.

We lived aboard as a family of 4 for 6 months, and had enough space. (enough as defined by my family got to bring enough stuff to keep them happy, but not so much that it overly annoyed me.). Good sized head.

No real bilge - rather there is a number of separate compartments. Never had any water inside anyway, so not an issue. Dust under the floor occasionally.

Fun to sail powered up, or reef down and cruise at about 10 degrees of heel at a comfortable 5 or 6 knots. Boom end sheeting is nice for sailing but makes it hard to have an 'oxygen tent' over the cockpit. Choose your compromise. Inside stayed pretty cool, it was just hot on deck in the sun when sailing some days. Life's tough...

We bought without much knowledge, and are were happier than expected. There is no perfect boat, but this one did most things pretty well. Short of full on racing that is.

Mike