Pegasus 800

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Billy_Mizzen

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I’ve be eying up a Pegasus 800 and I would be very glad to hear from anybody with experience of these boats or a very similar alternative. The one I’m looking at is for sale @ £8k, fin keel, Volvo diesel, recent standing rigging etc, but fairly sparse on electronics. Any thought or views gladly received!
 
We see lots of them on the Broads: seem to be popular. My impression, formed from not very scientific surveys, is that they are more towards the "floating caravan" end of the market... built for comfort not for speed...and are (to use that most damning of phrases) "forgiving".

Wouldn't be my cup of tea... but every other boat on the following list is a Pegassus of one sort or another, and I'd wager that most had very content owners!

See http://www.thegreenbook.org.uk/clubs/club.asp?pagemode=viewclub&classid=13
 
i built one from mouldings supplied by Rydgeway.
i bolted the hull & deck together & fitted out the interior( totally non standard / no internal moulding). i had an SS Spar made that was far superior to the Holt std mast.Sails by Austin Farrer, she was / is the best 800 afloat.
i owned her for 11 yrs doing many north sea crossings, some times 3 trips a year. she was a good boat & fun to sail. i sold her about 22 yrs ago & she is still local to us on the East Coast & launched 31yrs ago last June. on one trip to Oostende 3 male crew cruising over we managed 25 Nm in under 3 hrs with the spinni up until the halliard parted
 
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I had one for several years and really enjoyed it. It sailed well and the accommodation is good. The sliding nav table actually works well. I did several north sea crossings but mainly used on the norfolk broads. I changed the fin keel to the wing keel for shallower draft. I had the earlier smaller masthead rig which was plenty enough for me.

The only problems were with the stanchion post mounts that are moulded into the deck. They are not as strong as the posts so if you hit something the deck cracks instead of the post bending.

Mine had a stainless diesel tank that rusted through at the bottom . took me ages to find where the smell of fuel was coming from.
 
I sailed one from the Forth to Inverness last year. It was a bilge keeler. The bilge is a little shallow, filled quite quickly if we got water in the cockpit and was a s0d to pump out on a reach. All in all it's a grand little boat if you don't mind the cramped accommodation.
 
Billy_Mizzen said:
I’ve be eying up a Pegasus 800 and I would be very glad to hear from anybody with experience of these boats or a very similar alternative. The one I’m looking at is for sale @ £8k, fin keel, Volvo diesel, recent standing rigging etc, but fairly sparse on electronics. Any thought or views gladly received!
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I currently sail an 800 (built 1979) on Dublin Bay raceing with an ECHO rating of 0.765. She now has a retracting gennicker pole and new sails from Jeckells. The hull and rig is very well built, she is not a flyer but a good sea boat. Accomodation is crampt really no more than 3 people I think. Your price is good if in decent condition. Presume you have a saildrive Volvo if so carefully check out age of rubber seal, not older than 7 years and the condition of the saildrive unit
 
Sorry to put the dampers on this, but a good lot of years ago, we had one of these in our club, Jeremy Bear was her name.
Two incidents spring to mind,
1) On a race to Ross island, the mast came through the deck, forcing a retirement.
2) On a trip to Ramsey , Isle of Man, on drying out with a small single keeler outside, the washboards were impossible to be removed owing to the leaning of the boat outside.
BEWARE.
Dave
 
I had one, a masthead rigged lift keel. It was a brilliant first boat and could be made to go really well. Mine had a couple of mods including a larger cockpit drain!!
It even had the original 7.5 hp Volvo petrol engine.
Yes, I would recommend them.
 
All in all (bar the odd horror story) sounds like a good litle boat, for what we need! As we currently have a wooden boat and can no longer spare the time for the maintenace, we're looking for a "caravan" that we can spend more time sailing and less scraping/sanding!
 
Billy_Mizzen said:
I’ve be eying up a Pegasus 800 and I would be very glad to hear from anybody with experience of these boats or a very similar alternative. The one I’m looking at is for sale @ £8k, fin keel, Volvo diesel, recent standing rigging etc, but fairly sparse on electronics. Any thought or views gladly received!
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Sent you a private message.
 
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