Does Anyone Know Westsail Sailboats ?

[endoftheroad]

I happen to be a fan of the Westsail.

But......Why the hell are there so many for sale?

The asking prices are low and the owners have to sit forever waiting for a buyer.

I have been following nicely equipped W32's for under 40k that have been for sale for a couple years.

I'm baffled.

btw,
I am on the westsail owners forum everyday and still want to buy one.
I check craigslist, yachtworld and Bud's website everyday 7 days a week.
In fact I was on the owners forum and followed a link to this thread.

SOMEONE SELL ME A WESTSAIL, I HAVE A GREAT INCOME, A NICE DOWN PAYMENT BUT CAN NOT GET 40K FROM A BANK FOR A WESTSAIL!

My wife and I even live on Wrightsville Beach, NC where they made them, I study the boat on the web for a couple hours daily. The only W32's around here anchor in the local anchorage from time to time and I feel like a STALKER out there in my inflatable RIB drooling over them.

YEAH, thats me out there fishing without any bait, besides I don't even eat meat not would I hassle a fish for my personal amusement!

FWIW, I am a minimalist and they say my type of personalities are "drawn to the Westsail".

[maxingout]

I predict that there is a Westsail 32 in your future. It's just a matter of time. When I set my mind on a Westsail 32, it took about four years before one sailed into my life.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by endoftheroad

I happen to be a fan of the Westsail.

But......Why the hell are there so many for sale?

The asking prices are low and the owners have to sit forever waiting for a buyer.

I have been following nicely equipped W32's for under 40k that have been for sale for a couple years.

I'm baffled.

.

Probably because banks don't like to loan money on 20-30 year old boats. So, most people buying a Westsail have to come up with cash or get a loan based on other collateral like a home equity loan. Makes the boats harder to sell and cheaper. Plus there are just a lot of them out there.

Also, beware some of the Westsails do have problems including:

- underpowered, very small engines,
- some few poorly finished kit boats
- leaky teak decks
- soft plywood core
- occasional blister problems in the hull

NOTE: this is not all Westsails, just something to look for in some of them.

[dkall]

Only about 3% of those made are for sale! If you want to see a lot for sale check out the Catalina 30.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by dkall

Only about 3% of those made are for sale! If you want to see a lot for sale check out the Catalina 30.

Westsail 32 about 830 were built. Catalina 30 approximately 6500 over 25 years. Even if only 3% of the Catalinas are for sale that would be almost 200 on the market.

[Bloodhound]

Westsail built right about 1000 +/- boats total, about 830 of them 32's, the rest 28s, 42s and 43s. Dave Kall is correct --- only about 3% are currently for sale. There are 1,170 Catalina's of all sizes listed on Yacht World alone. Nearly 70 are 30's but the total number is staggering in and of itself. My point? The worth of a boat cannot be found in such statistics as the number or percentage for sale. The worth is in how well she sails when being used for the purpose intended. Any other measures are conversational.

[MikeinLA]

For those romantics who love Westsails as I also do, there is a very nice article on the last page of either this month's or last month's Sail magazine. In a column called "Love Stories", a fellow waxes on about his lovely Westsail 32 Antares. A very nice article and an interesting story. This will be you someday, Endoftheroad.

Mike

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Bloodhound

The worth of a boat cannot be found in such statistics as the number or percentage for sale. The worth is in how well she sails when being used for the purpose intended. Any other measures are conversational.

Exactly. What is or isn't for sale on the market has nothing to do with the boat. Plus there were so many more Catalinas built that Westsails there will certainly be more for sale.

Bottom line, I don't think anyone, whether or not they are a fan of the Westsail design can deny that the Westsail is far better built than the Catalina and a better choice for a serious offshore boat.

[dkall]

I owned one for 15 years. In full disclosure I now own a Westsail 42. Most everything said so far is correct. A couple of slanted comments though on the sailing.

She's definitely not a round the buoy boat. She takes some work to sail. Work in setting her up, not work in the steering. If she's rigged right and the spar is set correct she'll balance well and you'll be more comfortable in her than most other boats. She will in bay chop, even the GOMEX under the right conditions hobby horse. If you get enough power into her though; like in the video above, she'll punch though happily for hours and days. In spite of the Wetsnail slam she sails very well but can't point as high as a round the buoys racer. Once you fall off from beating to any kind of reach she finds her legs and can really move. The motion is kind to the body and inspite of one poster saying he was tired after sailing a day, she got us to ports generally in fine shape without our teeth having been knocked loose. We sailed her 25k miles, about 10 k offshore and the rest coastal. We had an Aires wind vane that steered almost all the time. The key to moving the boat is having the right sails and large enough. I believe she first earned her snail slam because the boats shipped from the west coast to the east had sails designed for California and not the finicky winds we have on the east coast. We used for 90% of our sailing on the east coast the 130 Genoa, the staysail and well built main. In the trades we changed to the Yankee, keep the staysail furled and then a reefed mainsail.

Look for one that has at least the 36hp Volvo or larger. The 25 hp put her as underpowered and that's the engine we put on her. Thank you Lynn and Larry P for that purchase. It was the only purchase on the boat I really regretted.

As for factory built vs owner: Look the boats over closely. I'd say of all the owner built boats I've looked at about 1/2 are significantly better then the factory built and 1/2 are worse. By now after almost 40 years most all boats have been owner modified enough that everyone is custom.

There were I think 3 deck mods so make sure the year you're looking at is what you want. The earlier boats had a large teak lazzerate hatch, the next mod was a center skylight, and the following was putting stanchions bases molded in, a flush lazzerette, a cockpit locker a molded in shim fo rthe bowsprit (that may have been in the second mod) and a cockpit locker. We had the last mod.

If you want to sail around the world or do some serious offshore stuff the boat will stand up to anything you can handle. There is more room than you'll generally know what to do with. (We had over 50 lockers storage areas). She isn't however a condo at the dock. There is room for stuff and things and not for playing charades down below.

All that being said I think a well found one is the best bang for the buck in todays market. If you price boats by the pound (that's how builders figure much of the cost) then you're easily buying a 40- 50' boat in a small effecient package.

Fair Winds

[Liam Wald]

Sometimes derisively refered to as "WETSNAIL 32", one of these boats actally won the Pacific Cup on corrected time. I think that it might have been in 1992.
They are not fast and do not point very well but are very very strong and track like a freightrain.
During my years as a broker I sold six of these. With wind at 10 knots the boat will only make about two knots. Wind at 20 and she will do five and a half and that is just about it. You won't do much reefing unless the wind gets to thirty plus.
The cockpit is really small and uncomfortable with no backrests. But then the cockpit wouldn't hold much water if pooped.
Also, some were factory finished and some were owner completed. Not all of the owner completions were good. The factory finished boats are quite nice.

[zeehag]

goood heavy cruiser and roomy inside as well......

[Jamel]

A guy in Perth WA copied the W32 and fashioned a 33 foot mold and proceeded to turn boats out here. I bought one second hand and it allowed us to circumnavigate safely over a period of 6 yrs. We were never outsailed by any similar sized yacht ( may of which had every right to) and we actually moved ahead of many more. Tradewind sailing around the world is very manageable, with the Fleming windvane Passage West tracked straight as a die with a comfortable motion, rolly yes but every boat does in such conditions. Westsails still my favourite boat!

Gentlemen never go to windward, nothing goes to windward like a 747 was the old saying!

[Bloodhound]

Originally Posted by Liam Wald

Sometimes derisively refered to as "WETSNAIL 32", one of these boats actally won the Pacific Cup on corrected time. I think that it might have been in 1992.
They are not fast and do not point very well but are very very strong and track like a freightrain.
During my years as a broker I sold six of these. With wind at 10 knots the boat will only make about two knots. Wind at 20 and she will do five and a half and that is just about it. You won't do much reefing unless the wind gets to thirty plus.
The cockpit is really small and uncomfortable with no backrests. But then the cockpit wouldn't hold much water if pooped.
Also, some were factory finished and some were owner completed. Not all of the owner completions were good. The factory finished boats are quite nice.

The winner of that race was Dave Kall, the poster of Post #24 above.

[GWB]

Dave King actually.

[roverhi]

"With wind at 10 knots the boat will only make about two knots. Wind at 20 and she will do five and a half and that is just about it."

The wind in your area must not have as much density as the winds I sailed our W32 in. With 10 knots of wind, our boat would do 4, maybe 5 knots. We did use an overlapping headsail in lighter air. Maybe that's a new fangled innovation that hasn't yet been introduced in your area. At 20 mph, we'd be making more than 6 knots, probably closer to hull speed with the working sails and have a reef in the main. We probably sailed 1/2 our 10,000plus miles with a reef in our main and, more often than not, a second reef.

The reason that the "Wetsnail" nickname became so popular is many of the owners just didn't know how to sail properly. They bought the boat on Lynn Vick's marketing of the dream of cruising without having done much, if any, sailing. Any boat has to be sailed properly which requires having more than just working sails and the willingness to put a little effort in flying the right sail combination. Working on our Kit Boat in Costa Mesa, a block from the original factory, we saw quite a few of the boats that were being sailed in those days and made a couple of deliveries of supposedly offshore equipped boats. Most of those didn't even have a boom vang, a light air headsail, and still had the crappy self tending staysail boom. In short, they weren't really ready to be sailed.

Southern California with it's prevailing light air, isn't the best sailing conditions for the W32. Think the boats that sailed in light air areas showed the boats in the least speed producing conditions and didn't help the speed reputation.

"The cockpit is really small and uncomfortable with no backrests. But then the cockpit wouldn't hold much water if pooped."

We found the cockpit to be very comfortalble. We just threw those vinyl boat cushions, the kind that used to be advertised to double as life preservers, up against the bulwarks and lounged in the cockpit. It was way more comfortable than the boats with backrests that are invariably too vertical for my back and seating too cramped. It's not a cockpit for more than 2-3 people on a side at one time, however.


"Look for one that has at least the 36hp Volvo or larger. The 25 hp put her as underpowered and that's the engine we put on her."

We had the MDIIb Volvo diesel. It was fine for our use but, hey, I'm a sailor and only turn on the engine to get out of the slip when I couldn't sail out. First, the 25hp claim for the MD2b was rumoured to be way way over optimistic. It gave us a six knot max speed in calm water. Ours was over propped so probably could have done better with the proper sized propellor. The boat didn't accelerate, it gained momentum, and we sure didn't rely on it to power out of self induced trouble. We cruised at 5 knots and burned less than a 1/2 gallon an hour. Pretty damn economical for a 22,000 + pound boat. The two boats we delivered did have bigger engines, one with the MD3b and the other with a Perkins 4-107. These boat were definitely more responsive and maneuverable under power.














You won't do much reefing unless the wind gets to thirty plus.
The cockpit is really small and uncomfortable with no backrests.