Opinions wanted on 1989 Hunter 40

[beniwood]

Hi there all. I am looking for a liveaboard/daysailer for the S.F. Bay. The late 80''s Hunter seems to be a lot of boat for the money, with a generous interior. I''m attracted to the aft master cabin layout for the liveaboard.

There''s one for sale here and I plan on looking at her soon. What are your thoughts? Budget is an issue, or I''d be looking at a J/42L... Other things that matter to me:

Easy and fun to sail short/single handed

Fairly low maintenence (not a lot of wood and brass to polish, etc.)

Are there any other boats you think I should consider?

Thanks!

Ben

[Denr]

SailorMitch...do you have an opinion on these butt ugly bath tubs? I don''t know much about them.

[beniwood]

denr- I think the recent hunters are pretty ugly, too. But the late 80''s ones were less beamy and didn''t have the "modern" styling on the tail end... I specifically am avoiding the recent ones, and not just because of my budget.

Thanks-

Ben

[halyardz]

While I''m no expert on Hunters, I''ve heard it said that the older "79-80ish I think," Hunter 37 was a well constructed boat with reasonable features.

[Jeff_H]

The Hunter 40 is a pretty decent boat for coastal cruising or living aboard. They actually sail quite well. They have a very clever layout that results in two nice staterooms, especially for living aboard. The interior is not a pretty poor layout for offshore work with no real seaberths but that is not what these boats were designed to do anyway. In talking to surveyors, Hunter did a very good job on designing and building regulation compliant systems such as propane, electrical, waste, and water systems. The deck hardware on these boats were a little undersized for hard use but it is not that not all that unusual for coastal cruising boats of that era to be under winched and have higher friction traveller setups than more performance oriented or offshore boats.

Other options in that price range might be the Beneteau First 38s5 which I think is a very nice boat that has a little nicer build quality, galley, and a much nicer deck layout. The Hunter has a better aft cabin.

Jeff

[tsenator]

Yes. I won''t speak for the new Hunters. But The Cheribini designed Hunter 37 is a "club footed" cutter and very "shippy" looking. Very traditional and solid from what I hear. (no fat behinds on these boats).

Check it out here.
http://www.sailboatowners.com/reviews/revlist.tpl?fno=0&brand=Hunter&model=37-cutter

[beniwood]

Hi again-
Thanks to all who replied. Here I offer a little clarification: The Hunter models I''m interested in are the Legend 37 and legend 40 from the late 80''s.
http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/model.tpl?sku=30179116948441&fno=0&bts=T
and
http://www.sailboatowners.com/boats/model.tpl?sku=30179116948436&fno=0&bts=T

I like the older 37 cutter, but liveaboard space requirements are better filled by the later models with the aft cabin. Does anyone have experience with such a beast?

Thanks again

Ben