cal 39

[brasstacks]

I am looking at buying a cal 39, late 70''s vintage with the shoal draught (5.6"). My wife and I are looking at a boat we can cruise the carribean in and still be active with the club racing at home in Ft Lauderdale. The cal seems to fit the bill. My main concerns are its seaworthyness in heavy weather and its passagemaking capabilities as we may decide to go further into the pacific. If anone has owned one of these boats I would really like to hear from you.

[paulk]

Don''t have a Cal 39 myself, but a fellow member of our club does, for what seems like the same reasons as you. The boat is big enough to be comfortable but small enough to be handled without a lot of crew. The construction seems relatively solid, though like the guy who went around the world in a Cal 2-30, you might want to beef it up in a few places. My friend races occasionally, and the boat performs decently, though I razz him about the refridgerator, freezer, watermaker, radar and genset slowing him down. He and his wife enjoy cruising their boat up the New England coast, and it gets them where they want to go.

[brasstacks]

Dear paulk

Thanks for the info on your friends cal 39. Who was the guy who went around the world in a Cal 2-30 and were could I get some literature on this?

Regards

Phill

[paulk]

I think Cruising World did several articles on a boatbuilder from Massachusetts who fixed up a Cal 2-30 and took off (via the Panama canal) for Hawaii. He met & married a woman there, and their first child was born in Australia. Their second was born in South Africa. The most recent thing I remember reading about them is they sold the Cal in Virginia and built a metal (steel?) hulled boat a bit bigger (35'', maybe?). They were fitting it out somewhere on the Intracoastal Waterway in Virginia or Maryland, and getting ready to sail some more. I looked through the indexes at CW back to 97, so this was perhaps four or more years ago, unless I missed it.