About to buy a N33 -- getting cold feet?

[mdbee]

Pictures looked pretty good from what I could make out. I would guess you are just having some last minute second thoughts. That's pretty normal.

The list of pluses seem to out weigh the minuses. If a diesel starts easily and has a minimal amount of smoke, sounds good. Diesel oil is always black

It sounds you have a pretty good handle on the pricing and the market. Have you continued to look at others that are available?

[sailorpilot]

Yes, I'm trying to get through the buyer's remorse before I commit... I've looked at Catalina 30s, various Islanders, even a Westsail 32 partnership (wasn't much fun on the bay), plus a lot of other boat ads I've checked out. The only comparable boat (33') is a Ranger 33 that showed up on Craigslist yesterday:
Ranger 33 Sailboat 1978
The new engine is enticing, along with the other new stuff. They seem to have a good rep, but the layout below doesn't look as nice. Also older.
Usually, as soon as I buy somthing all kinds of better deals show up...

[HBar50]

So did how does the story end?

[SimonV]

First time boat buyers are in my opinion the hardest to please, their expectations can be unreasonable. I have seen more than one buyer pass on a great boat because of these expectations only to come back a month or so latter after veiwing other boats hoping to secure the original one that had been snapped up shortly after they pulled out of the deal.

[hellosailor]

sailorpilot. sight unseen it sounds like the po has been paying attention to the big things (sails, rigging) and that's usually a good sign. Whether the stove works isn't a stopper, you may have just missed a safety shut-off switch or a valve, in any case that's "just plumbing" of the repairable sort.

Reefing and heading up by 20 knots is also not unusual. If you can get hold of the VPPs for that boat from another owner, or in the worst case buy them from USSA, you'll get a better idea of what are the optimum points to reef at. The loft that made the last set of sails may also have some ideas and experience on that. MANY boats actually heel less and sail faster with a first reef in the main and jib down to 100% by 15 knots or so. How the N33 compares, I don't know, you'd have to ask around but it sounds reasonable.

[sailorpilot]

So, I bought it Dec 1. So far, I'm really pretty happy. I really like the layout and feel of the cabin (and all the teak), the cockpit size and layout, how its equipped for the most part. Have only been out a few times (either raining or no wind this time of year), but it sails great in light conditions. Have been working on cleaning up a few things: saloon table -- replaced the hinges with heavier SS and widened the split leg, making it much more stable (used cherry and stained it to match as teak is $30/bd-ft (!!) and hard to come by in small pieces around here); glued various bits of broken teak trim; Fixed the AC outlets that all had hot and neutral reversed; added GFCIs; bought a new water heater to replace the long-dead one, but haven't started that yet. The biggest issue are the various leaks -- rain is getting in around the port saloon windows (I think) and somewere in the V berth. This spring I'll pull the windows and rebed them, but I need to figure out if its getting through the rubber or bedding. Not sure what to do if its the rubber; the aluminum frames are one piece of extrusion formed around the plexi and molded gasket. Looks like you'd have to bend the frame open to get at the rubber gasket. Am thinking of doing the shop vac and bagging trick to chase down the leaks. The stove burners work, but the oven's dead, needing both a new control valve and mercury valve. Not sure that's worth fixing; only remanufacturing is available for my CNG parts ($$). The wiring is the patchwork mess I guess you'd expect on a 27 yr old boat, but its got a nice charger, and all the lighting works (found out the masthead and steaming lights were replaced with LED units). Chasing the wiring isn't easy with the full liner. Lots of smallish projects to do, but there don't seem to be any big problems, so I think I did pretty well.

Hellosailor -- What's a VPP?

[steveaw]

on my newport 30 I had the window leaks. It was coming through the rubber. I pulled out the rubber gasket and filled the space with black calk life. I smoothed it down to look like the rubber gasket, as I could not get it back in. Anyways the leaks are gone. The water was getting past the rubber and then coming through the wndow pane itself where it is held in place by the frame.

[sailorpilot]

Thanks, I'll look more closely at the rubber. Did you pull out all of the rubber in chunks, or just the part to the sides of the plexi? Seems like if you pull it all out, there would be nothing to set the plexi position in the groove. There's a polyurathane sealant called Sikaflex that's used for mounting car windows that experimental aircraft builders use for mounting plexi canopies that I'm thinking might work well for this.

[KeelHaulin]

You can use SikaFlex; probably a good choice for this application. Where are you at with this job? I was in a similar situation when I bought my 41 5 years ago. Lots of expensive work done to the boat but needed some brightwork and going through.

On the issue of rounding up violently; try adding some rake to the mast. If you don't know how to do this I can give you some pointers. I had the same trouble with my 41 and the way I fixed it was by adding rake and bend which moved the center of effort aft. The forestay turnbuckle was almost all the way closed when I started making adjustment and a hanging halyard showed almost no aft rake or bend. When I finished I had almost 2' of combined aft rake/bend to a 55' mast. That's only a couple of degrees angle but it made a huge difference. The boat now sails balanced in almost all wind conditions without a reef unless it is gusting or it is above 25kts.

[sailorpilot]

Haven't started the windows yet -- waiting for the weather (and the boat) to dry up. looking on the Sikaflewx website, it loos like they recommend having something to protect the compond from UV exposure, usually a plastic strip or something. Not sure how I would implement this.

Thanks for the info. I find this very interesting -- I don't claim to know much about boat dynamics, but it seems to me that moving the center of pressure rearward by adding rake would increase the tendency to pivot about the keel (larger moment arm), increase weatherhelm, and cause the rudder to stall (and a roundup) earlier. Not disputing that it works, I'm just trying to understand what's going on...

I have Harken roller reefing, and a split backstay with tensioner. I'm not sure what length adjustments I have.