youen
Well-Known Member
How do you compare these boats?What are their weakness and quality,what have you to look at when buying?
Thanks
Thanks
Westerly Storm / Fulmar
- Thread starter youen
- Start date
Concerto
Well-Known Member
As a Westerly Fulmar owner, who is a Boatline representative for the Fulmar, I am slightly biased toward the Fulmar. I have never sailed on a Storm, but have been on board a number of times.
The Storm is a later design than the Fulmar, both by Ed Dubois. The Storm is slightly longer and is a masthead rig compared to the ¾ rig on the Fulmar. Both are performance cruisers with a racing background, but with poor light wind performance. The big difference is the interior layout. The Storm has an aft cabin and aft heads, whereas the Fulmar has the traditional quarterberth and heads near the centre of effort of the boat for less movement.
I found this review of the Storm from an old owner that may help.
Pluses?
- powerful, fast and just great fun
- good accomodation for 2, nice big heads
- strong build and good quality, apart from the usual Westerly headlining problems..
- great cockpit layout: unconventional but a real success IMHO.
Minuses?:
- big mainsail that needs reefing really early to keep the helm under control
- shallow forefoot so she will slam a fair bit, and sail around snubbing her anchor all night
- not exactly overpowered with the standard 2002 18hp.
Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?39909-WESTERLY-STORM-33#y0jz24cuorzldqpD.99
My comments on the Fulmar are:
Pluses:
Beautifully balance under sail and great fun to sail (I sail singlehanded).
Large mainsail easy to control and smaller headsail is easir to tack.
Large powerful engine with folding prop.
Long cockpit that can sail with 6.
Used by a lot of sailing schools due to good nature.
Available with fin, bilge and liftling keels.
Minuses:
Genoa winches on end of coachroof (I moved to cockpit coamings).
Not the prettiest design, but considered a modern classic.
Headlining (as per all Westerlys)
6ft headroom below (about 5ft 6in in the heads).
Small heads compartment.
On the Westerly Owners Forum I have a long thread on the renovations I have been making to my Fulmar, plus a link to lots of photographs. http://www.westerly-owners.co.uk/woaforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2748
Ultimately it comes down to personal choice of the interior layout, condition and budget, but either will be a great boat to own. Hope this is some help in your decision.
The Storm is a later design than the Fulmar, both by Ed Dubois. The Storm is slightly longer and is a masthead rig compared to the ¾ rig on the Fulmar. Both are performance cruisers with a racing background, but with poor light wind performance. The big difference is the interior layout. The Storm has an aft cabin and aft heads, whereas the Fulmar has the traditional quarterberth and heads near the centre of effort of the boat for less movement.
I found this review of the Storm from an old owner that may help.
Pluses?
- powerful, fast and just great fun
- good accomodation for 2, nice big heads
- strong build and good quality, apart from the usual Westerly headlining problems..
- great cockpit layout: unconventional but a real success IMHO.
Minuses?:
- big mainsail that needs reefing really early to keep the helm under control
- shallow forefoot so she will slam a fair bit, and sail around snubbing her anchor all night
- not exactly overpowered with the standard 2002 18hp.
Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?39909-WESTERLY-STORM-33#y0jz24cuorzldqpD.99
My comments on the Fulmar are:
Pluses:
Beautifully balance under sail and great fun to sail (I sail singlehanded).
Large mainsail easy to control and smaller headsail is easir to tack.
Large powerful engine with folding prop.
Long cockpit that can sail with 6.
Used by a lot of sailing schools due to good nature.
Available with fin, bilge and liftling keels.
Minuses:
Genoa winches on end of coachroof (I moved to cockpit coamings).
Not the prettiest design, but considered a modern classic.
Headlining (as per all Westerlys)
6ft headroom below (about 5ft 6in in the heads).
Small heads compartment.
On the Westerly Owners Forum I have a long thread on the renovations I have been making to my Fulmar, plus a link to lots of photographs. http://www.westerly-owners.co.uk/woaforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2748
Ultimately it comes down to personal choice of the interior layout, condition and budget, but either will be a great boat to own. Hope this is some help in your decision.
youen
Well-Known Member
I owned a Storm during 7 years was very happy with her, sold her to buy a bigger boat now sold and I am again interested by a Storm or a Fulmar.Do you know which vintage is affected by osmosis?
alant
Well-Known Member
Concerto
Well-Known Member
To my knowledge, neither have had major osmosis problems. A lot of surveyors record high moisture readings and they see lots of micro holes in the gel coat and assume it is osmosis. This was explained to me by a surveyor (now retired) who was a specialist in glassfibre and confirmed by a fibreglass repair guy I know. However the micro holes are air bubbles left in the gel coat due to a lack of brushing out when the mixed gel coat was applied. However Westerly always applied a double coat of gel to the hulls and decks, with a thickness of 2 to 3mm. This is a bonus if you want to clean up any marks. I have used Plastic Padding Gel Coat Filler to repair any scratches, stress cracks and micro holes with a very close colour match without any colour balance. (As a comparison, modern production boats now have 3 thin coats of gel coat sprayed on with an approximate thickness of 0.5mm, but have a splattered texture that contains very very small voids that can collect dirt. This was a comment from the fibreglass guy.)
The bigger problem is not osmosis but UV discolouration to the gel coat. Westerly used a standard Ryland gel coat that was not UV stable and the white can go cream. However this can be compounded out, back to a white. This is what I have done and makes my boat look bright alongside other Fulmars and Storms.
Which boat to buy? The decision is as I stated before, but I love sailing my Fulmar and many owners keep them for years and years. I have no plans to change my Fulmar for at least 10 years as it meets my needs admirably. Chat with any other Fulmar owner (current or past) and you get the same reaction.
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We've had a Storm for three years. It suits two of us perfectly. We had a 100% jib made, as the 140% genoa was a handful with any wind in it. We also reef early to balance the boat. I don't consider it a particularly 'slammy' boat, though I guess it depends on what you're used to. We've found it to be very well-behaved at anchor, though we haven't ridden out any big blows yet. Ours has wheel steering, which means that my diminutive wife can steer in most conditions, but it compromises the cockpit somewhat. Our 1988 boat was epoxied below the waterline years ago.
We still have the original Volvo 2002, which is working well at 3200 hours. Just had a new alternator fitted.
I can't think of any particular faults with Storms, other than the already-mentioned headlining problems. I've secured ours with battens.
I talked to a Fulmar owner once who was very happy with his boat, except that he said there was a maddening thumping under the windward bilge keel in certain conditions.
They're both fine boats, fast in the right conditions, slow in light airs compared to more modern designs.
We still have the original Volvo 2002, which is working well at 3200 hours. Just had a new alternator fitted.
I can't think of any particular faults with Storms, other than the already-mentioned headlining problems. I've secured ours with battens.
I talked to a Fulmar owner once who was very happy with his boat, except that he said there was a maddening thumping under the windward bilge keel in certain conditions.
They're both fine boats, fast in the right conditions, slow in light airs compared to more modern designs.
richardbrennan
Well-Known Member
If the budget will stretch, have a look at an Ocean 33, which was the Fulmar replacement also designed by the late Ed Dubois. It sails like a dream, particularly in light airs, and has a decent aft cabin. I have not sailed a Storm but a "used boat" test I saw a year or two back said it tended to be a bit hard mouthed in a blow. There are also several versions of the Storm, it was originally designed to be a One Design racer, but a cruising version was also built which had a smaller rig from the Tempest, and eventually the Regatta 330 appeared which had a fractional rig and a Ken Freivokh interior, which is a matter of personal taste, but did not seem to appeal too much to traditional Westerly owners.
I don't think there are particular problems with any of these boats apart from the famous "droop", but the early Ocean 33s had a rather marginal mast support pillar which was beefed up on the later boats.
I don't think there are particular problems with any of these boats apart from the famous "droop", but the early Ocean 33s had a rather marginal mast support pillar which was beefed up on the later boats.
brainstorm
Well-Known Member
To add a little bit of balance I would have to favour a Storm, having owned one for nearly 25 years. Personally I think they are better looking boats, personally I prefer a masthead rig, and personally I like the aft cabin. Both Storms and Fulmars are seriously good boats and I would agree with everything said above. With the help of a Hydrovane ours has taken us to the Azores twice and the Canaries once and travelled a good bit of the West Coast of Europe from St Kilda to Gib.
