Inselaffe
Well-Known Member
Sorry if I blather on a bit but I thought that after all the great advice I have had
from this forum, it would be good to give all the info I found from various sources
about the boat that I ended up buying, an ETAP 22, a 22 ft lift-keeler designed in
the early 70’s by E.G. Van der Stadt. I don’t for one moment pretend to be an
expert, but maybe it might save someone some time doing a similar search to what I did last year...
A: WEB SITES:
In French but loads of info:
http://isuisse.ifrance.com/LaVoile/mc-e-image/etap/etap22/etap22_sommaire.htm
From ETAP yaching:
http://www.etapyachting.com/index.cfm?Part=Yachts&Page=EarlierModels&YachtType=22
For sale (most on continent, but gives idea of price. At time of writing (Dec 05) one
in Wivenhoe Essex for £7,750 (Built 1980) )
http://www.boatshop24.com/web/en/su...ap+22&FZART=s&STARTSUCHE.x=15&STARTSUCHE.y=11
http://www.boats-for-sale.com/displ...page=0&startpage=1&clicked=1&searchtype=boats
In Dutch but piccies:
http://home.hccnet.nl/f.d.groenewoud/
http://home.hccnet.nl/f.d.groenewoud/page2.html
http://www.missetap.nl/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B: MAGAZINE REVIEWS:
1. PBO No 74 February 1973 “A boat to trail and sail“
2. PBO No 66? OCTOBER 1980, “Intelligent ETAP refuses to date” Including test
sail from Nieuwport to Poole, starting in F6/7 across 15 miles of shoals, “on test
she proved handy, well balanced and sea kindly. In short a thoroughly sensible,
nicely made yacht.”
3. Yachting World: Test of Time, April 1990, pp 76-78, “ETAP 22”
4. Yacht (in German) No 19, 1976, pp 84-86, “Yacht Test ETAP 22.”
Summary:
For: Well balanced sailing characteristics, Easy movements in waves, Very
maneuverable, High end stability, Unsinkable, Room organization under deck.
Against: Forepeak bunks short, Distance between cockpit seats to small, No
backstay tensioner (mine has one), Genoa tracks too short, No sheeting point for
jib, cockpit drainage not problem free.
Basically though they loved it and thought that the ‘againsts’ were just splitting hairs
5. Yacht (in German) No 19, 1976, pp 84-86, „Safest boat of the year 1976“, they
flooded it and it was unsinkable, floated just a bit under the waterline and wouldn’t
capsize
Interesting that in the German tests everything is scientific and very thorough,
whereas the English ones seem to be more waffely - one talks more about the
owners flu than the boat and another seems to be obsessed with the toilet
arrangements and the fact that it’s an ETAP 22 as in 22 of ‘our good old English’
feet and not this damn newfangled metric system. Seems to sum up the two
cultures well for me!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C: EMAILS FROM OWNERS:
(also see my posts on this forum)
Hello Leigh.
I'm still very satisfied with my boat. End I can recommand you to buy one as well.
My motor is only on 4 hp and move the boat about 5 knots. If Í should keep the
boat I think I will try a motor on mabye 8 hp.
But it's a very fine model and strong in rough sea. I'we had mine for 7 years now,
but havent got the time anymore. And it's a shame.
Yours faithfully
Jeppe Holm
Hi Leigh
About the Etap22, just buy it. I bought mine together with my neighboor and it is a
very good boat if you are asking for my opinion. There is enough room for the 2 of
us to go on a vacation for a couple of weeks, but i do not think that there will be
enough room for more than 2-3 persons for a longer period of time.
The boat is not the fastest you have seen, but it is a plesure to just be out there. I have been sailing in mine in situations with a lot of wind and i still feel safe sailing it.
Regards
Jan Pedersen
Dear Leigh,
My name is Jan van den Brink and in the Netherlands' EtapClub I am the editor of
the club magazine. I sail an Etap 22 that I ordered new in the fall of 1978 and it was delivered in spring 1979. That is appr. what you are looking at. At the age of 73 I am still sailing that boat and enjoy it.
Two years ago my boat was seriously damaged in a grounding accident and I have
witnessed the repair. About the foam I can inform you as follows:
During manufacture the foam is injected. The foam is very sticky and it then adheres to both walls, that of the outer shell and of the inner one. Over the years,
due to slight deformations and small movements of both shells, the adhesion to the walls deminishes and local gaps can exist between foam and shell allowing any
water ingress to seep to the lowest point in the hull. But the important thing is, that
the foam stays firmly in place and consists of closed cells which keep their gas volume enclosed even when a few of the cells may be opened up by the loss of adhesion to the shell. I experienced that when the rescue boat towed me into port
and the swamped boat of over 22 years old was floating beautifully.
So, yes, I do believe in the unsinkability that this Belgian boatyard claims.
Now that you found me on the net, I shall be pleased to try and answer any other questions of this boat that you might have.
I think the best place for looking for moisture is under the pot for fixing the cabin
table leg. In normal boat position this is the lowest point and will thus collect most.This pot can be undone via three parker screws.
Unless there is a lot of water, say more than an inch in this opening, I would not
worry too much. As I said before, the moisture will not be in the foam but in the gaps around it.
Kind regsards,
Jan van den Brink.
I have just two things
1) the screw closing the skylight. thats an aluminiumscrew and a brassnut.
I have used some grease with graphite.
2) Look for water in the foam. Lift one of the aftermost chests in the salon.
Willy
Hello
Yes you are welkomme, but what do you want to now?
My frends and I buy the boat in 1991. Its is small and safe boat, and we and our
family sailing everey year. My wife and our to children have saíling i holliday , and have a lots of nice time on the water. Sorry my English,
Niels Schou
Hej
Yes we had a problem with water. but no problem. I have taken avay the great
part of the foam. its a hard job. I did not found some delamination
At first I think the water vas coming from the keel, but it vas rain. I found a problem where the 2 part of the boart are get toghether, the hull and the deck.
I have removed the rubber band and the alulist and put in a new "gasket" with Sikaflex, speciel produkt to a boats . I have a talk with other owners, and all have the same problem. All is wery glad for the boat, becauce it a safe boat and easy to sail.
You are welcome to buy my boat, becauce I want a boat where we can standing, my wife hav e problems with her back.its make problmes when she make food.
Venlig hilsen
Niels
Dear Leigh,
Sorry for not responding earlier to your email. The only things we have heard of is
to look out for osmose (you better let te underwatership have tested before you
buy one) and the place where the iron cords to hold the mast are going into the
boat. This last can cause the boat to leak water if this is not right.
Furthermore the Etap is a very safe boat because it cannot sink. That was the
main reason why we choose for the Etap. Especially because we have two small children.
Thank you for visiting our site and in the course of the year we are trying to give more info on the site and will make an English part as well.
With kind Etap regards,
Raymond and Christel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D: COMPARISONS WITH OTHER BOATS CONSIDERED
Simple spreadsheet comparing ‘vital statistics’ with other possible boats - mainly
based on what was available and within my price range (up to 6000 pounds) on the German market. Don’t know how to put it in here but can send it to anyone who is interested
Other boats:
Atlas 25, Bandholm 24, Dehler Sprinta 70, Dehler Varianta, Granada 24, Hurley 22,
Jaguar 22, Leisure 17, Leisure 20, Leisure 22, Leisure 23, Neptun 22, Shark 24,
Sunbeam 22, Hunter Sonata, Anderson 22, Virgo Voyager
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E: PURELY PERSONAL VIEWS:
Some background to put my choice in context, but like I say I’m no expert and it’s
only personal opinions:
I was looking at a budget of max 6000 pounds, wanted variable draught (to sail in Wattenmeer Germany north coast of “Riddle of the Sandbanks”), came from 25 years dinghy and windsurfing to first ever ‘slow-boat’ to explore with, sleep on and
learn loads of new stuff about navigation etc etc, definitely didn’t want to race, did
want to sail with my German bird and not scare her (or me) too much but also
with reasonable performance, thought about possibility of breeding a crew,
wanted to be able to sail single handed, wanted something that I should be able to
sell easily enough if need be, wanted to be able to put it on a trailer for longer
distance holidays in the future and to easily and cheaply lay it up somewhere for
winter (or if funds or other things forced me to opt out of sailing it for a year or two), wasn’t too worried about headroom – more about sailing characteristics and a well thought out design (I should point out that I am 5’3’’!).
In the end, despite the fact I was a bit worried about the fact that it was an old
boat with foam sandwich (well, hull-in-hull with injected closed cell foam, mainly
for buoyancy I think) construction, I decided that I would never get a boat that was perfect in every way for my budget (or perhaps any budget), that it was time to start sailing and I decided that I wanted an ETAP 22. The second one I saw said “buy me”, so I did.
I like: only slight pressure on helm for all heel angles/wind strengths and ‘feels
good’ to helm, relatively good room underneath for size (I put a simple tent over cockpit for more room in rain), absolutely everything seems to have been thought
right through from design viewpoint, feeling I wont sink if I cock up big time, lift-
keel gives flexibility sailing and trailing, foam construction gives good warmth and
almost no condensation even when cold and wet outside, outboard in well in cockpit doesn’t come out of water in waves (gusting to F9 on my anenometer), very stable with 40% ballast and most of this in a bulb at bottom of keel, I could go on…
I don’t like: Winding the keel up (too many beers not enough exercise!), the fact
that I have to lubricate the keel mechanism this year, puddles form in the cockpit
because the slope is a bit away from drain. But these are not important. I do still worry about foam construction a teeny bit (with no justification to date, it’s a dry as a bone and I checked with a moisture meter before I bought it), but I think in the end it’s an old boat and I know that I worry too much, I’d find something to
worry about with a new boat no doubt….
Overall, absolutely no regrets at all, it’s been such an unbelievably ‘Wunderbar’
year!!! But then it seems to me after reading around here that everyone likes their
particular boat too…
<hr width=100% size=1>
from this forum, it would be good to give all the info I found from various sources
about the boat that I ended up buying, an ETAP 22, a 22 ft lift-keeler designed in
the early 70’s by E.G. Van der Stadt. I don’t for one moment pretend to be an
expert, but maybe it might save someone some time doing a similar search to what I did last year...
A: WEB SITES:
In French but loads of info:
http://isuisse.ifrance.com/LaVoile/mc-e-image/etap/etap22/etap22_sommaire.htm
From ETAP yaching:
http://www.etapyachting.com/index.cfm?Part=Yachts&Page=EarlierModels&YachtType=22
For sale (most on continent, but gives idea of price. At time of writing (Dec 05) one
in Wivenhoe Essex for £7,750 (Built 1980) )
http://www.boatshop24.com/web/en/su...ap+22&FZART=s&STARTSUCHE.x=15&STARTSUCHE.y=11
http://www.boats-for-sale.com/displ...page=0&startpage=1&clicked=1&searchtype=boats
In Dutch but piccies:
http://home.hccnet.nl/f.d.groenewoud/
http://home.hccnet.nl/f.d.groenewoud/page2.html
http://www.missetap.nl/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B: MAGAZINE REVIEWS:
1. PBO No 74 February 1973 “A boat to trail and sail“
2. PBO No 66? OCTOBER 1980, “Intelligent ETAP refuses to date” Including test
sail from Nieuwport to Poole, starting in F6/7 across 15 miles of shoals, “on test
she proved handy, well balanced and sea kindly. In short a thoroughly sensible,
nicely made yacht.”
3. Yachting World: Test of Time, April 1990, pp 76-78, “ETAP 22”
4. Yacht (in German) No 19, 1976, pp 84-86, “Yacht Test ETAP 22.”
Summary:
For: Well balanced sailing characteristics, Easy movements in waves, Very
maneuverable, High end stability, Unsinkable, Room organization under deck.
Against: Forepeak bunks short, Distance between cockpit seats to small, No
backstay tensioner (mine has one), Genoa tracks too short, No sheeting point for
jib, cockpit drainage not problem free.
Basically though they loved it and thought that the ‘againsts’ were just splitting hairs
5. Yacht (in German) No 19, 1976, pp 84-86, „Safest boat of the year 1976“, they
flooded it and it was unsinkable, floated just a bit under the waterline and wouldn’t
capsize
Interesting that in the German tests everything is scientific and very thorough,
whereas the English ones seem to be more waffely - one talks more about the
owners flu than the boat and another seems to be obsessed with the toilet
arrangements and the fact that it’s an ETAP 22 as in 22 of ‘our good old English’
feet and not this damn newfangled metric system. Seems to sum up the two
cultures well for me!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C: EMAILS FROM OWNERS:
(also see my posts on this forum)
Hello Leigh.
I'm still very satisfied with my boat. End I can recommand you to buy one as well.
My motor is only on 4 hp and move the boat about 5 knots. If Í should keep the
boat I think I will try a motor on mabye 8 hp.
But it's a very fine model and strong in rough sea. I'we had mine for 7 years now,
but havent got the time anymore. And it's a shame.
Yours faithfully
Jeppe Holm
Hi Leigh
About the Etap22, just buy it. I bought mine together with my neighboor and it is a
very good boat if you are asking for my opinion. There is enough room for the 2 of
us to go on a vacation for a couple of weeks, but i do not think that there will be
enough room for more than 2-3 persons for a longer period of time.
The boat is not the fastest you have seen, but it is a plesure to just be out there. I have been sailing in mine in situations with a lot of wind and i still feel safe sailing it.
Regards
Jan Pedersen
Dear Leigh,
My name is Jan van den Brink and in the Netherlands' EtapClub I am the editor of
the club magazine. I sail an Etap 22 that I ordered new in the fall of 1978 and it was delivered in spring 1979. That is appr. what you are looking at. At the age of 73 I am still sailing that boat and enjoy it.
Two years ago my boat was seriously damaged in a grounding accident and I have
witnessed the repair. About the foam I can inform you as follows:
During manufacture the foam is injected. The foam is very sticky and it then adheres to both walls, that of the outer shell and of the inner one. Over the years,
due to slight deformations and small movements of both shells, the adhesion to the walls deminishes and local gaps can exist between foam and shell allowing any
water ingress to seep to the lowest point in the hull. But the important thing is, that
the foam stays firmly in place and consists of closed cells which keep their gas volume enclosed even when a few of the cells may be opened up by the loss of adhesion to the shell. I experienced that when the rescue boat towed me into port
and the swamped boat of over 22 years old was floating beautifully.
So, yes, I do believe in the unsinkability that this Belgian boatyard claims.
Now that you found me on the net, I shall be pleased to try and answer any other questions of this boat that you might have.
I think the best place for looking for moisture is under the pot for fixing the cabin
table leg. In normal boat position this is the lowest point and will thus collect most.This pot can be undone via three parker screws.
Unless there is a lot of water, say more than an inch in this opening, I would not
worry too much. As I said before, the moisture will not be in the foam but in the gaps around it.
Kind regsards,
Jan van den Brink.
I have just two things
1) the screw closing the skylight. thats an aluminiumscrew and a brassnut.
I have used some grease with graphite.
2) Look for water in the foam. Lift one of the aftermost chests in the salon.
Willy
Hello
Yes you are welkomme, but what do you want to now?
My frends and I buy the boat in 1991. Its is small and safe boat, and we and our
family sailing everey year. My wife and our to children have saíling i holliday , and have a lots of nice time on the water. Sorry my English,
Niels Schou
Hej
Yes we had a problem with water. but no problem. I have taken avay the great
part of the foam. its a hard job. I did not found some delamination
At first I think the water vas coming from the keel, but it vas rain. I found a problem where the 2 part of the boart are get toghether, the hull and the deck.
I have removed the rubber band and the alulist and put in a new "gasket" with Sikaflex, speciel produkt to a boats . I have a talk with other owners, and all have the same problem. All is wery glad for the boat, becauce it a safe boat and easy to sail.
You are welcome to buy my boat, becauce I want a boat where we can standing, my wife hav e problems with her back.its make problmes when she make food.
Venlig hilsen
Niels
Dear Leigh,
Sorry for not responding earlier to your email. The only things we have heard of is
to look out for osmose (you better let te underwatership have tested before you
buy one) and the place where the iron cords to hold the mast are going into the
boat. This last can cause the boat to leak water if this is not right.
Furthermore the Etap is a very safe boat because it cannot sink. That was the
main reason why we choose for the Etap. Especially because we have two small children.
Thank you for visiting our site and in the course of the year we are trying to give more info on the site and will make an English part as well.
With kind Etap regards,
Raymond and Christel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D: COMPARISONS WITH OTHER BOATS CONSIDERED
Simple spreadsheet comparing ‘vital statistics’ with other possible boats - mainly
based on what was available and within my price range (up to 6000 pounds) on the German market. Don’t know how to put it in here but can send it to anyone who is interested
Other boats:
Atlas 25, Bandholm 24, Dehler Sprinta 70, Dehler Varianta, Granada 24, Hurley 22,
Jaguar 22, Leisure 17, Leisure 20, Leisure 22, Leisure 23, Neptun 22, Shark 24,
Sunbeam 22, Hunter Sonata, Anderson 22, Virgo Voyager
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E: PURELY PERSONAL VIEWS:
Some background to put my choice in context, but like I say I’m no expert and it’s
only personal opinions:
I was looking at a budget of max 6000 pounds, wanted variable draught (to sail in Wattenmeer Germany north coast of “Riddle of the Sandbanks”), came from 25 years dinghy and windsurfing to first ever ‘slow-boat’ to explore with, sleep on and
learn loads of new stuff about navigation etc etc, definitely didn’t want to race, did
want to sail with my German bird and not scare her (or me) too much but also
with reasonable performance, thought about possibility of breeding a crew,
wanted to be able to sail single handed, wanted something that I should be able to
sell easily enough if need be, wanted to be able to put it on a trailer for longer
distance holidays in the future and to easily and cheaply lay it up somewhere for
winter (or if funds or other things forced me to opt out of sailing it for a year or two), wasn’t too worried about headroom – more about sailing characteristics and a well thought out design (I should point out that I am 5’3’’!).
In the end, despite the fact I was a bit worried about the fact that it was an old
boat with foam sandwich (well, hull-in-hull with injected closed cell foam, mainly
for buoyancy I think) construction, I decided that I would never get a boat that was perfect in every way for my budget (or perhaps any budget), that it was time to start sailing and I decided that I wanted an ETAP 22. The second one I saw said “buy me”, so I did.
I like: only slight pressure on helm for all heel angles/wind strengths and ‘feels
good’ to helm, relatively good room underneath for size (I put a simple tent over cockpit for more room in rain), absolutely everything seems to have been thought
right through from design viewpoint, feeling I wont sink if I cock up big time, lift-
keel gives flexibility sailing and trailing, foam construction gives good warmth and
almost no condensation even when cold and wet outside, outboard in well in cockpit doesn’t come out of water in waves (gusting to F9 on my anenometer), very stable with 40% ballast and most of this in a bulb at bottom of keel, I could go on…
I don’t like: Winding the keel up (too many beers not enough exercise!), the fact
that I have to lubricate the keel mechanism this year, puddles form in the cockpit
because the slope is a bit away from drain. But these are not important. I do still worry about foam construction a teeny bit (with no justification to date, it’s a dry as a bone and I checked with a moisture meter before I bought it), but I think in the end it’s an old boat and I know that I worry too much, I’d find something to
worry about with a new boat no doubt….
Overall, absolutely no regrets at all, it’s been such an unbelievably ‘Wunderbar’
year!!! But then it seems to me after reading around here that everyone likes their
particular boat too…
<hr width=100% size=1>
