Cheoy Lee 35 Sloop

[mickeyd]

Anyone have any experience sailing a 35 Cheoy Lee? Wonderling how it might sail in the chop of the SF Bay.

[Jeff_H]

Cheoy Lee built a number of 35 foot long models. The three that I think of quickly are the Robb designed Lion, Luders designed Offshore and a Perry designed 35. There may have also been a Richards design (although that may be called a 36). Of the bunch the Perry and Richards designs would be okay, and the Luders and Robb would be poor choices.

Jeff

[T37Chef]

What about the Pedrick 35?

[Jeff_H]

I think the Pedrick is referred to as a Cheoy Lee 36.

Jeff

[mickeyd]

Its the Perry design. Why just OK?

[eolon]

Well, it's "just ok" because Cheoy Lee boats of that vintage were made with a lot of "wood", a cheap fibrous material that backwards Chinese boatbuilders used before the discovery of plastic.

Also, all Cheoy Lee sailboats are funny looking; they don't look at all like the much-beloved modern designs that remind us of a giant floating Cool-Whip container.

Oh, sure, numerous Cheoy Lee boats of Luders, Perry, Richards, etc design have circumnavigated, but how many berths do they have compared to say, a Hunter 36?

Best Regards,


e

.::.

[CharlieCobra]

Sarcasm at it's best...

[Jeff_H]

The current thinking on optimizing for a short chop is that a boat with a long waterline, vee'd bow sections, and a finer entry results in a gentler motion and less energy lost in each collision with each wave. Also minimizing weight in the ends of the boat also result in less pitching in a chop.

The Perry design has a long waterline and appears to be the kind of design that would be work quite well offshore, but its full-ish bow sections and weight of the main mast far forward would make it less than ideal in the kind of short steep chop for which San Francisco is notorious.

With regards to eolon's comment, I am a big fan of wooden boats, having owned and built quite a few in my day. Traditional wooden boats were actually quite light for their strength and stiffness. My problem with many of the Cheoy Lee's is that they tended toward the crudest forms of wooden boat construction, mixed with the crudest forms of fiberglass construction. The result is boats with very heavy weight hulls, interiors and rigs for their strength and as a result compromise a mix of carrying capacity and ballast ratios resulting in boats that are a bit tender and so carry smaller than ideal sail plans for their weight and drag.

Jeff