to by or not to by

[lv4sailing]

I am looking at a C&C cutter 39'' pilot house designed by RON AMY and built by Seno- American. Built in 75 she is a land fall what ever that means her loa is 45''6" with her bow sprit lwl 30''7" beam 11''7", could any one tell me about her good points as well as her bad points ,Yes I am thinking of a live aboard so any help would be great thanks.

[Jeff_H]

I think that you need to clarify what this boat is in a bit more detail. In the Mid-1970''s C&C''s were designed by C&C and were built by C&C. So I don''t know where Ron Amy or Seno-American fits in.

Landfall was C&C''s bargain line of lower performance boats. I don''t know of a 39 foot C&C landfall series that had a pilothouse or a 6''6" bowsprit.

Jeff

[lv4sailing]

this is what I have found out manufacturer is SINO-AMERICAN model landfall 39 desinger RON AMY its full keel drafy is 5''7" displacement 23,500 ballast 8,800 and its a cutter I hope this helps its all I know right now .thank you so much for your reply.

[WHOOSH]

LV, I know this isn''t giving you the specific info you''re requesting, but my hunch is that this story directly relates to your query. Some years ago, I was living in Annapolis and attended the fall boat show there, one of the world''s finest. W-a-y out at the end of the longest floating dock, in a berth arranged for at the last minute by an importer, was a 36'' sloop. From a distance, it looked similar to the sailboat that many of us have seen over the years, the knockoff of a Union 36 or Baba 36 designed by Bob Perry. The boat was dreadfully built; everywhere you looked there was poor workmanship, poorly cast hardware, access issues galore, and so forth. But the thing that most struck me was that this pirate builder not only stole the building rights for the boat, but then stole a designer''s name to put with the boat (perhaps to avoid Bob Perry''s attentions). The reason I knew this is that I had been the Best Man that same year for the designer he claimed for the boat, Bruce Bingham. As if that wasn''t bad enough, he even claimed the boat was a Saga 35, an entirely different boat that Bruce had indeed designed.

So please imagine: there I am, attending perhaps the premier sailboat show in North America, standing in front of a Taiwan yard President while he tries to sell me a boat who''s design he didn''t purchase, that he horridly built while slurring an innocent designer & defaming another design, all at the same time.

At its extreme, that was the kind of boat building that could come out of Asia not all that long ago...and your description of the boat that''s caught your interest sounds to me (admittedly, without fact on my part) like it MIGHT be this kind of boat. E.g. that 38% ballast ratio could, in fact, be cement slurry with steel punchings in it, and with the rest of the boat of comparable quality.

You''re doing the right thing: dig and dig some more until a) the identity and build specifics of that boat are certain in your mind, and b) the design & build quality acceptable to you. Good luck and sorry for the dire warning...but then again, it might be an antidote for a lot of potential heartache.

Jack

[Jeff_H]

Although I am not familiar with Sino-American, the boat sounds like it is a way over weight 39 footer that is a bit short on ballast. There were a lot of "character" boats built in the orient during this period that featured poor workmanship, scary glasswork, and worse than mediocre sailing ability, coupled with nice finishes. This sounds like one of what became known as ''leaky teaky''s"

Jeff

[CBinRI]

If you haven''t done so already, and are still considering the boat, check cncphotoalbum.com for references to it. Or try posting on the Sailnet C&C owner''s e-mail list.