Tartan 37 questions

[zaldog]

Hello all I am seriously considering a Tartan 37, love that boat . I looked at a 1978 deep fin yesterday overall the boat was in good shape very clean has had no upgrades at all except for a nice set of lewmar 52 ST winches a dodger and bimini. The Listing and the Booker say she has a Perkins 38 ( I thought they all came with Westerbeke's) see pic, original hours unknown. Original sails and standing rigging. Original Auto helm instruments. One concern was the mast looked slightly skewed to the starboard and had some foam rubber inside the cabin on the port side at the deck where the mast comes in, is this normal. (see pics). The boat has sailed on the great lakes all it's life and stored indoors most of that time in the winter. What is a fair price for this boat. Asking price is 69k. pics are here siska.net

[paulk]

Older Tartan 37's have a reputation for being solidly built. They look fairly pretty, and should last a long time. Several belong to members at our club. One of them has been able to singlehand his on Wednesday night races and do pretty well against assorted C&C's, and Catalinas. (Though not against J/boats.) They seem to be capable cruisers; he and his wife have taken her down to the Carribean and up to Maine. Most Tartan 37's seem to perform better downwind, because they can raise the centerboard. The fin keel should improve upwind performance, but since not many were built with fin keels, you may have a hard time finding someone (online or otherwise) who can give you first hand information about that. For a fair price you'll have to see what others are asking, check out a few of them, and compare. $69k sounds quite high for a boat this old with foam scraps stuffed alongside the mast at the partners, original sails, rigging and instruments. Why are they selling? How much does she draw? Last I heard, the Great Lakes were getting shallower each season...