Morgan 41

[Old Partner]

I am considering buying a Morgan 41 for liveaboard and coastal cruising in California. Any advice? Anthing in particular to look for?

Thanks

[CSY Man]

Aye them Morgans.

Good roomy boat for coastal cruising...But, there is some issues..

BListers have been a problem in the past.

Also deck / window leaks.

Alot of the above depends on how the previous owner took care of the vessel.

I have been doing some work on an 1984 Morgan 41 O/I lately and, uh...Some stuff is good, some is bad.
There was some short-cuts made in the design.

To get the engine out for example, ya got to cut the cockpit floor out.
Also the fuel tanks and other stuff is rather tucked away......

At any rate, good luck...Some people love 'em, some people hate 'em

[Jeff H]

These boats make very nice liveaboards for the dollar, offering a huge amount of room and reasonable layout. The one negative is that they have poor ventilation for a liveaboard.

It is really hard to respond to the 'coastal cruiser' part of the equation. I generally think that coastal cruisers need to be able to respond to the kinds of more rapid weather shifts that occur along the coast. Boats like the Morgan 41 are at their best in a very narrow range of wind speeds. They begin to come alive at 12 or so knots and are really not very good heavy air boats. There were of course pretty big variations in rig and keel designs over the production run of these boats so some are better than others. Sailing ability on all of the models are worse than mediocre with thier strongest suit being reaching between a beam reach and a broad reach. They are miserable dead downwind, beating and in light air.

My big concern with the Morgan Out Island would be build quality related. These were very much price point oriented boats. Systems like wiring and plumbing were done as cheaply as posible and at least on the boats that I have been involved with, would not meet any kind of modern standard. While heavy glass construction, they suffer from a pretty poor structural design and laminates which contain a larger percentage of non-directional cloth than is ideal to prevent impact damage and fatigue. The hull to deck joint is a real achilles heel being very vulnerable and not terribly robust. If you are looking at an older model these kinds of issues are bound to come back and bite you.

Good luck,
Jeff

[thefantasea]

When the Morgan 41 was introduced in the seventies, it's selling price was $41,000. Built at this price to gain market share in the Caribbean charter industry, where boats were replaced every five years or less, meant that far lower than Chevrolet equipment and finish standards would be used in an industry that catered to Cadillac owners. Charter operators lapped them up.

Somehow, these sturdy boats endured and hundreds of them are going strong up to thirty years later. The strength of fiberglass was still not fully understood and 'overbuilding' is a feature of models well into the 80's.

The 'shell' is just about indestructible and in many of them, very little on the interior remains original. But with upgrades and replacements, quite a few are classier than when new.

With the hefty winds winds blowing steadily through the island charter cruising grounds, sailing ability was second to stability and comfort.

What you are looking at is a compromise. You'll get where you're going. It may take longer, but it will be pleasant. If you're handy and can do your own maintenance and minor repairs, you'll be way ahead of the guy who must pay someone else to do everything that must be done.

All that being said, it's hard to find a boat in this size range today that offers so much for the price, provided that the surveyor finds no skeletons in the closet.

[CSY Man]

Surprise to me, but a firends Morgan 41 here in Florida was actually built by Catalina.

This boat has no deck leaks and no blisters and seems to be holding up pretty well.

Wonder how many Morgans Catalina built?

Is there a sharp contrast in quality between boats built at the different factories?

[AnchorageGuy]

Some time, I believe in the 90's, Catalina bought out the rights and molds etc. to the Morgan line. But they have never built any of the Out-Island series. The Morgans that Catalina still builds, I believe and the ones in the past are totally different animals than any of the original lines as far as construction, material and quality control. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the original question referred to the Out-Island.

[CSY Man]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the original question referred to the Out-Island.

Not sure what the difference is.

The boat I am mentioned above that was built by Catalina sure looks like an O/I:

Beamy, center cockpit, large interior, ketch rigged, etc.

The keel however seems different from other M-41s I have seen on the hard.
Instead of a long shallow keel, it has an extended fin-keel and skeg hung rudder.

Also a rather small engine for this heavy boat: 45 HP Yanmar.

So is that an O/I, or a "regular" Morgan 41 built by Catalina?

Not sure of the production year, 1987 perhaps...Or early 90s.

[CSY Man]

Well, here is a few answers:

Had a beer or 5 with the owner of the Morgan / Catalina tonight.

The boat is built in 1987.

It is called O/I Classic.

Yes, the keel is different than the original O/I and according to the owner, it sails better.

Draft is 4'10" as opposed to 4'5".

Did not take notes over the beers so this info could be a bit blurred, but uh, the point is, yes Catalina built the thing.

[Jeff H]

The way I understand it, Catalina bought Morgan at a time when Morgan was not in Great finacial shape in order to acquire an east coast manufacturing facility. The acquisition included the tooling for the boats that were in production at Morgan. Depending on which version you believe, Catalina either revamped the Out Island 41 by building a more modern keel and altering the rig proportions, or else Morgan had already done that work and was planning to offer the revised design as an option but sold the company instead.

While I have heard it claimed that the revised design is a little faster, the difference seems to be negligable as both versions rigged as a sloop have the same 195 PHRF rating (which is rediculously slow- roughly the same rating as a tall rig Catalina 27 or 84 seconds a mile slower than a Catalina 42 or 30 seconds slower than an Island Packet 40) .

Again depending on who you believe, the build quality either went up or down when Catalina took over. From my point of view, the Catalina version still had the fragile and vulnerable outward facing flange, hull to deck joint that the earlier boats had and to me that should be a deal breaker on a boat this size.

Jeff

[CSY Man]

the difference seems to be negligable as both versions rigged as a sloop

Correction:

I said Ketch rigged earlier.
The boat I am talking about, the Morgan Catalina 41 Classic is indeed a sloop.

[PM]

"The hull to deck joint is a real achilles heel being very vulnerable and not terribly robust."

The hull to deck joint on my 1978 O/I 41 is built similar to most sailboats built during the last 30 years. It is a deck level, solid glass, wide flange sealed with 5200, through bolted through a heavy aluminum toe rail. The stanchion bases are also bolted through this solid glass flange. 41s prior to '74 or so had a different style hull to deck joint that was lower down below the ports and supposedly prone to leakage.

Port leakage can occur on any boat with aging Beckson ports. But they are cheap to replace. I replaced mine with stainless. The problem is that many of these boats came out of the charter trade in not the best condition. Now though, many people like myself have brought these older Morgans up to top shape.

They are purpose built boats. They were built to island hop in the Caribbean. If that's close to what you intend to use it for, you will like it.

[captqrunch]

The Morgan OI series was conceived to take advantage of '70s tax law, which allowed big deductions for the owners of charter yachts. The boats were built for service in the then wild and woolly Bahamas, not the Caribbean, so were very shoal, reef-proof and mechanically simple. Since charterers were presumed to care more about their sun tans than performance, the boats didn't need to sail well (Charlie Morgan certainly knew how to design boats that did) --- the 41s had relatively big diesels and fuel tanks to compensate for their tiny lateral plane. The OI-41 offered charterers a moveable studio apartment, while owners got a nice write-off. Obviously, the formula had wide appeal since the boat was still being built after the tax break went away.