Sealine S23 advice and help needed

Nautibusiness said:
Doesn't rock like a rocky thing on rocky day either.

Silky smooth and virtually silent at Windermere speeds too.
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and an absolute hoot to drive in any kind of swell. If you are a big bloke though you have to back into the loo hunch back style. I would have bought one but for this reason.
 
Having read this thread through I'm going to sell my pokey, useless 32footer and buy an old S23, its clearly the perfect boat, the Princess V45 I fancied as my next boat will just be a waste of money :D
 
We have looked at a lot if other brands this week right up to 34 foot and although we could spend more we don't see the point at the moment for what we want. Nothing against any other boats, everyone is differrent thats why theres so many boats! We want a cruiser but not too big (we have a bowrider now) we don't really like the look of that many we have seen. We think for us the sealine has a much nicer finish than the majority of boats in that market we looked at, and that is also important to us. I'm sure it's not the best boat ever, those we probably could not afford! You are right that The diesel is irrelevant, that's just what the boat is we have looked at has, we wouldve had petrol. Thanks for all your feedback as we are very new to boating and it's so different to buying a car!! I am sure we will be back on here in a few years ready to change again but at the moment a really big cruiser feels a step too far and a large bowrider feels a sideways step.
 
Nautibusiness said:
The one comment which I must pick up is the one about thicker gel coat. With the utmost respect, what on earth is that comment about?
You certainly don't want overly thick gel coat. Being completely brittle it will snap and cause cracks and crazing. You want a protective layer of gel coat. Enough to stop water absorbtion and enough to keep a nice shine and good cosmetic look. Too thick is asking for trouble, particularly around any radius that may flex as the boat moves.
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I had never seen a bad example of this until a local guy brought a 1993 Falcon 3000 (sports cruiser) to our marina a couple of years ago. The entire deck and cabin moulding is completely covered in crazes, every square foot of it, which will result in a complete paint job.
More recently a similar aged Sunseeker Caribbean 52 was brought in with a very similar condition.
I assumed it may have been something to do with the harsh sun in the northern part of this country where the boats had spent most of their time.
One suggestion was the thick gelcoat, is this something you have seen much of previously?
 
CX54WEK said:
We found that the Bayliner 245 in particular is very light and anything but a very gentle breeze sends it off course immediately. Not good in tight marinas.
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What sort of weight and air draught differences would the two boats have?

I find its hard (impossible?) to find a boat that does it all for you. You mentioned previously cleat location/size issues. One of the first things I do to a small boat is throw the standard cleats in the bin and put on ones that suit me (in whatever location on the boat) and the type of boating I do, complete with proper backing plates, and extra rails if needed.
Its a very inexpensive but functional exercise.

You are very clearly satisfied with your choice of boat, and that is evident by the huge amount of hours you run up each season, in fact inspirational for such a sized vessel. :)
 
AndieMac said:
I had never seen a bad example of this until a local guy brought a 1993 Falcon 3000 (sports cruiser) to our marina a couple of years ago. The entire deck and cabin moulding is completely covered in crazes, every square foot of it, which will result in a complete paint job.
More recently a similar aged Sunseeker Caribbean 52 was brought in with a very similar condition.
I assumed it may have been something to do with the harsh sun in the northern part of this country where the boats had spent most of their time.
One suggestion was the thick gelcoat, is this something you have seen much of previously?
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I had a Jeanneau Cap Camarat 625. On the whole it was a great value for money centre console. Very good on the water and great fun to go and play in the tide races off the various headlands around our way.
It was playing in these tide races that ended up showing the weak spots. It wasn't the hull, that was excellent. It wasn't the general handling and sea keeping, for it's size, that was great too. But, around many of the concave radius edges there were long stress cracks in the gel. Nothing structural, but rather ugly. Not on the convex edges, just the concave ones.

After investigation it was pretty obvious it was simply down to the gel coat being too thick and it just happened to be thicker on these radius edges at the very point the boat would flex a little when she hit steep, short chop.

Since finding out about this, it's one of the first things I look for on all boats and rather unsurprisingly it is usually on the same sort of concave radius. Far more boats than you imagine will have these little cracks, often in out of the way places. I don't see it as an issue, but people do think your are a bit odd suggesting that their gel coat is too thick...

Shame the OP didn't look at the Cap Camarat 755WA that was suggested by another poster. It would have ticked every single box without being horribly cramped and squeezed in. Oh well, best of luck to him with his decision and I am sure he'll love the boat regardless.
I love mine, despite her being far too slow, uneconomical and rather harsh in a headsea.
Mine is the very best boat ever! ;-)
 
S23 heating

Some of the boats where looking at have no heating is this an issue ? Would be intrested to now how many people on the forum use their diesel heating or do you just use a portable electric heater when hooked up to shore power, if so how noisy is the diesel heating and how reliable
Dan
 
We've only got heating via shore power, but the £20 halogen heater we use below was fine down to -14C during the winter, though we did need to wear a coat in the cockpit.

http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/acatalog/Royal_Halogen_Heater.html

Guy behind us on the pontoon lives on his 26' Rinker and he's only got shore powered heating.

Last winter, we left one of the small oil-filled electric heaters, turned down to minimum, on during the week, which seemed to keep the chill and damp out till we get back to the boat at weekends. Additional cost on the electric bill worked out at about £10 for the half year, which wasn't bad.

Not heard anyone complain about their Ebersbachers though and to be honest, if we had it, we'd use it and unless you've access to shore power at Fallbarrow, you'll probably regret not having it, as it doesn't just get cold in winter.
 
You could fit a two outlet Webasto or Eberspacher system in your boat for about £1,500.

One in the saloon and one in the cockpit will be loads. You could probably get away with one outlet as it is a very small space to warm up and with the saloon door open the warm air will easily transfer to the cockpit too.

Cheapish and pretty quiet.
 
dannie said:
Some of the boats where looking at have no heating is this an issue ? Would be intrested to now how many people on the forum use their diesel heating or do you just use a portable electric heater when hooked up to shore power, if so how noisy is the diesel heating and how reliable
Dan
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Luckily naughty-cal had it fitted when we bought her. The diesel heating proved invaluable last winter when it was on pretty much non stop from firday evening to monday morning week in week out. It even manages to keep the cockpit reasonably warm after we had a few modifications done to the canopy to include a flap over the transom gate. The heater unit depending on where it is fitted (ours is in the engine bay adjacent the midships) can be noisy, you can hear the fuel pump ticking, however you dont notice this unless in bed. We found that we could turn off the heating over night iit annoyed us and turn on the electric blanket instead to keep some warmth in the midships. It hs been nothing but reliable though with no problems in 2 years. It just needs cleaning out every now and again. ETA: We have two outlets one in the cabin and one in the cockpit with a closeable cover to divert more heat below.

We do keep a couple of electric heaters (greenhouse type ones) aboard for during the week. They are on thermostatic switches so that when the temeprature drops below a set value (7 degrees in our case) the heaters come on. We keep one heater in the engine bay and one in the cabin. This year we will be adding a thrid heater in the heads after we suffered a freeze induced water leak last winter that was a cow to find, involving cutting out the sink.
 
CX54WEK said:
We do keep a couple of electric heaters (greenhouse type ones) aboard for during the week. They are on thermostatic switches so that when the temeprature drops below a set value (7 degrees in our case) the heaters come on. We keep one heater in the engine bay and one in the cabin. This year we will be adding a thrid heater in the heads after we suffered a freeze induced water leak last winter that was a cow to find, involving cutting out the sink.
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It's a good idea to keep all the doors and cupboards open as well when not occupied (especially any doors under sinks etc) to allow for warfm air circulation
 
nicho said:
It's a good idea to keep all the doors and cupboards open as well when not occupied (especially any doors under sinks etc) to allow for warfm air circulation
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Unfortunately the pipe that sprung a leak had no door or other access point to leave open. We have since replaced the pipe and heavily lagged it so hopefully we wont have the same issue again. We also replaced the plastic T piece that connects the two taps together as that wasnt at its best. We replaced it with a brass replacement so hopefully that wont cause a problem again either.

Interestingly the water leaks appeared during the one weekend that we didnt visit the boat (and the only weekend in the last two years) due to bad weather and not being able to get the car off the drive. It just shows that having the heating on during the weekend raises the ambient temperature of the vessel for a few days helping to stave off the freezing. Hopefully this winter wont be quite so harsh.
 
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