Morgan sailboats

[kevinnem]

Hello all.

it will still be a few years before we get a big boat, but i want to start thinking about that plan. I have seen a number of "morgan" boats for sale. I guess they later were bough by catalina.

Anyway I was looking at the 41 and 44 foot class and they seem like cool boats. I found some good reading already in the archives. Anyone on here have an opinion on them?

I guess they also have the oi or out island version that is the same with a center cockpit?

[Jammer]

I have a Morgan 25. Nothing really wrong with it although being a boat from the 1970s it is, if not an IOR boat, at least a boat that is a product of the IOR era. Narrow cockpit and tender. Many Morgans, even larger ones, are centerboard boats, which is great if that's what you want, but there is a maintenance and reliability penalty that comes with it.

[CassidyNZ]

I have a Morgan 44 centre cockpit built in 1988 by Catalina, designed by Nelson Marek Naval Architects obviously some time after Charlie Morgan bowed out. Details here:

https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/mo...a?units=metric

I bought mine used by probably four previous owners and I believe the dominant part of its early life was as a charter in the Caribbean. The condition when I got her was on the face of it, excellent which is an accolade given the reputation charter operations have. I’ve since discovered that the owner before me had a cosmetic refit done in Mexico and the poor quality of the refit soon became apparent.

But that doesn’t detract from my opinion that it is an excellent boat, very sea-kindly, comfortable, good-looking and immensely strong. I’ve put her seriously through the wringer on some voyages and she always looked after us very well. I’d go just about anywhere with her. We routinely do 150nm/day voyages to and from South Pacific islands and I’ll have no hesitation doing several more.

One thing that is evident when I compare with boats of friends - storage is not as good as some voyagers but she’s probably on a par with the Beneteau/Jenneau/Hanse/etc. in that regard. Another is that being centre cockpit, without suitable protection she’s very wet in poor conditions. We have a full cockpit enclosure that deals effectively with that.

Honestly unless I win a substantial Lotto, this boat will see me through to the end of my sailing days.