Leisure 20 or Corribee MkII/III

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Johnob

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Anybody have either of these? I'm getting sailing lessons in a few weeks to move on from power to sail, and I'd like to invest in a small sailer that I could 1-man to start me off. Both of these have tickled my fancy and are within my miserable student budget. I would inevitably be looking to do a crossing from Ireland to the Isle of Man & Wales (all in due time of course). I know the Corribee is custom-made for this (following some chap's videos on youtube around Britain) - But I'm not very certain about the stability of the Leisure 20 and if it's truly seaworthy.

Any comments on either of the above would be extremely helpful, and any tips on what to look out for when buying.

Is mise le meas,
John.
 
According to the Leisure Owner's Club

"With its long waterline and generous beam the Leisure 20 is a superbly balanced four-berth family cruiser that can be sailed just about anywhere in absolute safety and complete comfort. Designed for both serious offshore cruising and inshore pottering, it's the ideal trailer-sailer giving you a virtually unlimited choice of horizons."

http://www.leisureowners.org.uk/site/contents/leisure20_new.shtml

Either they are taking the mickey or they are quoting an original brochure here. Absolute safety? Complete comfort? Serious offshore cruising in a 20' centreboard trailer sailer?

I sail a 21' Westerly Jouster and, much as I love her, I'm under no illusions about the (lack of) space on a boat of that length.

I know nothing more than what I've read there about the Leisure 20, but from that I'd put it in a very different class from the Corribee particularly if it has a proper keel and not bilge keels. I find the quoted weight for the Leisure 20 very hard to believe - 1300kg for a 20' trailer sailer? 900kg for the Corribee seems much more plausible

http://www.corribee.org.uk/history.htm

If it was my choice, I'd go for the Corribee any day. It has one of the prettiest yachts hulls ever designed and is well tested for long trips. The only downside in my opinion is that to me the mast looks stepped too far forward and the mast too low. I think the whole thing would look much better with the mast a foot back and three feet higher.

The Corribee owner's club page (above) gives a quick list of things to look for. I crawled over one for a friend a couple of years ago - he didn't buy in the end - and was very impressed with the overall design and construction. If I wasn't happy with my Jouster, and if I was looking for a boat of that general size, my shortlist would be - in no particular order - (a) Hunter 19 or Europa (b) Corribee or Coromandel. The junk rig (Coromandel) looks a bit funny at first, but I hear very good things about it.
 
I had a look at the Europa, but I hadn't heard alot about it. Alot of Corribee success stories had lead to me leaning towards it.

Anything around the 20 foot mark, that looks and sails the part with a cabin to cope with my amazing size of 5'4" for a weekend or so. Max budget is about 4k-5k (or a swop for my sexy shetland 535), give or take. It's a buyers market, or so they say.

Besides the Europa (which looks snazzy, but maybe a bit cramped?), what else is in that range? I saw some Hurleys.. A Seal 22? Leisure 17 (too small) and that's all that spring to mind at the moment.
 
From your short-list of two it has to be the Corribee but for your money (and I admit to some bias here) you could also get a Hurley 22 - another very fine, serious, small cruiser with many ocean passages to her name.


Clickable.
 
I had looked at them - I'm quite concerned about my ability to 1-man whatever I plan on buying. Certainly are a beautiful boat, and I ready the accomadation isn't so shabby either.. How do they hold in the sea? Are they 1-mannable (is that a word?)

I'm being spoilt for choice! I came here to eliminate options, now all I have is options! lol /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Single handing or single handed is the phrase you are looking for. The Corribee, fin or bilge keel is a cracking little boat, as is the Hurley 22, I can't comment on the Leisure 20, as I have no experience there.
 
Eminently singlehandleable - I do most of my sailing this way - and as seaworthy as you will find in a boat of this size. Design weight is 1.75 tonnes with a 44% ballast ratio. She is still a small boat though and bashing into a short, steep sea when going to windward will knock her back to a couple of knots (or a dead stop if you take this too far!) but this is an unavoidable function of length.
 
Hi,

We had a Leisure 20, with bilge keels,which was sturdy and appeared well built.She was ideal as a river/ estuary cruiser and for short coastal hops.However for passages in open water there are boats which may be more suitable.

Rob
 
As a leisure owner I feel they are being under-represented on here /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

The leisure boats are all very good sea boats. The Leisure 17, their most popular model, crossed the Atlantic singlehanded in the early days. There is a Leisure 17 in our marina that regularly crosses the Irish Sea to Wales. A Leisure 23 is currently doing a circumnavigation and has already crossed the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Leisure is undoubtedly not as pretty as the corribee, but wins hands down in terms of internal space and comfort.

Two quick comparisons here:
http://www.leisureowners.org.uk/brochure/20_first_brochure/leisure-20-4.jpg
http://www.corribee.org/technical.html

I think either boat would be a good buy, but from personal experience, the leisure brand name is pretty strong and has a very good following and we sold our leisure without the new owner even seeing her.
 
I dislike the low coachroof of the corribee. I sail a 26' long keel yacht single handed, including marina berthing, picking up piles and anchoring. In my experience, these are the problem areas for a singlehander. I'd go for the Hurley or perhaps a Gallion for the comfort factor. but whatever you get, make sure you'd be happy sitting below doing the chartwork in a sea, perhaps at 5'4" the corribee might not feel as cramped to you as it does to me.. If you plan to do the Irish Sea, I doubt if you'll manage it all from the cockpit.

You may find you have to make some mods to get it comfortable to single-hand.
 
Thanks for posting the link to the Corribee website. I try to keep it as informative as possible and there is a fair amount of information, both about the history of the Corribee, and on repairs, mods and maintenance in the Technical section.
The other Corribee-related link earlier in the thread is to the site run by the Corribee Owners Association, which as I understand it, is more or less non-operational. Their site hasn't been updated for a long time, but still contains some useful information.
There is also a Yahoo Discussion Group for the Corribee and Coromandel which is fairly active - there is a link on the www.corribee.org website.
I have no first hand knowledge of the Leisure. When I bought my Corribee the only other boat on my shortlist was the Hurley as pictured above. To me, both designs look 'right', and certainly both designs have made offshore passages. A previous post on these forums ( #1903174 - 21/06/2008) by 'Lenseman' is worth repeating:

The Corribee was designed by one of Britain's best naval architects.

I met Robert Tucker in the early 1980's when I visited his home on more than one occasion in Hemel Hempstead (I used to live in Hemel Hempstead), you cold never meet a finer man.

He entertained me to tea and biscuits and we chatted long and hard about boat types and designs. His son was there and I believe he now runs the company as Robert passed away in 1998.

At the time, I was the proud owner of a Debutante and its sea-keeping abilities were legendary so I know that the Corribee comes from the same stable. Even 'Sixpence' owns a Tucker Yacht!

All Tucker boats were designed to the Junior Offshore Groups rules (JOG) which stated that the yacht must remain water tight and in case of a knock-down (mast in the water) the boat should be self-righting!

So if you see one for sale, you will be looking at a very well found yacht.

As for the lack of headroom, I would suggest that any 21' sailing yacht with standing headroom would be unsuitable for offshore passages, probably not sail very well and would look like a floating caravan. Just an opinion of course.
 
IMHO you can not beat the Leisure 23SL. This is an outstanding boat. I have sailed one in all conditions in the English Channel and have never found her wanting. I only sold her as I had a growing family. The bilge keels were an absolute godsend. OK she didn't point that well and Channel Crossing took a long time but you felt confident in the boat.
 
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Anything around the 20 foot mark, that looks and sails the part with a cabin to cope with my amazing size of 5'4" for a weekend or so. Max budget is about 4k-5k (or a swop for my sexy shetland 535), give or take. It's a buyers market, or so they say.

Besides the Europa (which looks snazzy, but maybe a bit cramped?), what else is in that range?

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May I, as a long term owner (I've had her 20 years now) put in a word for the Westerly Jouster? It was Westerly's first JOG (Junior Offshore Group) boat - superseded by the GK24 - and is a world away from the floating caravans Westerly built in those days.

They were loosely based on the Westerly Warwick, which is also 21', but weight half as much (1 ton vs 2). To make 'em go fast they got the rig from the 23' Cirrus, although most, including mine, got a slightly cut down cruising rig because the full racing one was seen as a bit hairy. Even so she goes very nicely indeed.

There's a reassuringly massive deep-fin-and-bulb keel on most of them, though some have a lifting keel: the bottom half winches up like a centreboard.

Like all Westerlies of the 70s they are very nicely built, although you would definitely want to have the keel attachment checked as somewhere between Laurent Giles and Westerly Marine Construction a few odd ideas crept in.

Only 147 were built, but they do come up for sale regularly. Expect to pay £3k for a reasonable one, £5k for a good one. The trick is to look for one with the wrong sort of keel for its area: a fin keeler on the Solway or a bilge keeler on the Clyde will sell for at least 500 quid less than the other way around.

Some pictures here

http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/westerly-jouster/jouster.htm

If you want a trial sail, drop me a message. My boat is emphatically NOT for sale, though!
 
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[ QUOTE ]
This looks like a very tidy Corribee

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She certainly does!

And had me fumbling around looking for my credit card statement....... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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I did that before I posted it, had to make sure I couldn't afford it! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
4 - 5k is a fair amount of money at this level, I would be tempted to go for the bigger boat. Whatever you choose it will seem small in a very short period of time. (A pal of mine says this about his 47 footer which he regularly singlehands)
The Hurley 22 is a fine boat and you will bless the extra tad of comfort. A very good one could be got for under 4k a tatty one for under 2k. Don't get the hots for the first one you see, but rather look for one that has remained unsold for a while, then dive in with your modest offer. A chum of mine picked up a very late build 22, with almost new engine, for £3250. It needed work to the hull which was blistered but he did it himself for next to nothing.
"Think on" as they say in Lancashire, before you spend your brass, you could end up with lots of change from 5k.
 
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