As a
current Irwin owner I’m compelled to respond to this thread which has been going on for over eight years.
My wife and I along with our two small
dogs have been, except for the holidays, living full time on our 1984 Irwin 65 cutter-rigged owner’s version ketch for nearly three years now. While minuscule to some or most of you, we’ve put 4000 miles under her keel and all the while generally thrilled with her and the fabulous life
experience she has allowed us. Have we had issues? Boy have we! But our boat is 40 years old and every 40 year old boat on the planet will come with issues.
Here’s a little bit about the Blue Pearl: she is hull #23 of 51 and is most certainly a big girl weighing in at 80,000 lbs. Her 23,000 lbs of ballast is of cast lead. Sail area is 2400 SF after a recent trimming of the
Genoa. She doesn’t point very high, but we’ve seen more than
hull speed when reaching. She was originally fitted with a six cylinder Perkins
diesel engine and this same original
engine still purrs like a kitten while moving the boat at 7.5 knots at 1800
RPM. She mashes through the bumps like nobody’s business. Her comfort ratio is 46.9 and her
capsize ratio is 1.6. To say she is safe and comfortable is a huge understatement, and she’s is a head-turner wherever we go.
Of course every boat has issues, and the Irwin is no exception. The following are the Irwin issues you will usually hear about
:
1). Original mast steps were of ferrous
steel for some horrible reason. Thankfully ours had been replaced with SS prior to our
purchase.
2). Originally our boat came with the drop-down center board option which proved to be problematic. Apparently when the board stuck, it would stick in the down position preventing marina entry. Thankfully, the board on our boat had been eliminated and the trunk covered over with a
steel plate.
3). AFAIK all (?) Irwin’s have hidden and inaccessible chain plates. It wasn’t until years after construction of these boats ( and others like the Island Packet) was it discovered that Type 304
stainless steel could suffer corrosion if buried in a non-oxygenated
environment. Type 316 stainless should have been used.
4). A boat this size should have come with a bow thruster. Thankfully the previous owner had one installed on ours.
Repeated BS I have heard on this and other sites:
1. The bulkheads are not properly secured to the hull. All our bulkheads are in fine shape and I know every inch of my boat. I know two other Irwin owners and have met two more. None of these owners have an issue with bulkheads.
2. The deck to hull connection below the cap rail is lag-screwed and fastened with
adhesive instead of being fiberglassed together. I’ve seen no indication whatsoever that this is a problem and the person who claimed it to be an issue didn’t own an Irwin. Hearsay again.
3. The
hardware is of RV
parts. I call BS on this. My wife and I RV’d full time for three years before
buying a boat and I’ve refurbished three travel trailers and one fifth
wheel. There is no “RV”
hardware on our boat.
4. Standing
rigging is light weight. This is an absurd statement. The
rigging is massive on my boat. If it were too light-weight it would have been broken by now.
5. The boat is too flexible. I don’t know how to respond to this except to say that I’ve not felt hill flex but definitely would expect some since the boat is made of fiberglass. Perhaps the person who came up with this is used to sailing a ferrocement boat.
To wrap up this too long post, some folks say on here that the smaller Irwins were built less robust than the larger units. I can’t speak to that. But I will say that our Irwin is a hell of a boat. She’s safe and comfortable, her storage is vast, her tankage is outstanding, we never get wet because of her wonderful freeboard, and my wife and I have absolutely no problem sailing her by ourselves.
Chris and Jessica on Blue Pearl