Worst thing about your boat!

[RichardS]

My cat has winches on either side of the mast and several cleats of various kinds down either side.

It has a large overlapping genoa and trying to tack without one of the genoa sheets getting caught in the mast "furniture" is virtually impossible.

I don't know what the solution would be - perhaps something like granny bars which extend above the height of the winches?

Richard

 

[LittleSister]

1) Sprayhood has been made (for previous owner) too tall and upright. Great for getting in and out of the cabin, but fouls the boom when close hauled, so has to come down when beating - the time you'd most want it up! Unfortunately it's been rather well made and refuses to expire, and a replacement can't be justified until it does.

2) Beam across top of saloon (supporting the mast) has a magnetic attraction for the First Mates head, so she often bumps her head on it. Strange, as I'm taller and have rarely done so.

 

[The_man_from_ABBA]

What is the worst thing about your boat?

The berth in the forward cabin is the only double berth on the boat.
So this tends to be the berth we sleep in when in the marina or at anchor (we sleep in the pilot berth when underway).
However, the berth in the foward cabin is a pullman berth - so SWMBO has to clamber all over me if she needs to spend a penny in the middle of the night.

 

[aquaplane]

I have never quite been able so see the point of sacrificing fore cabin space to store a lump of galvanized steel which is perfectly happy to live on deck.

My biggest bugbear with the Centaur is the poor anchor/chain set up. If you sick with a Danforth it's only the chain that's a problem, it just won't stow without several trips to arrange the chain in the locker and then feed more down, it's a 2 man job really.

I haven't used my Delta anchor because there is nowhere to stow it up front where it's needed.

My First 18 had a nice anchor locker. My Copland Harrier has a nice anchor locker, why couldn't Westerly manage with a 6' or 8' longer hull?

Apart from the anchor the other pain is the lack of stowage, the boat really needs a cockpit locker to put a dinghy in.

 

[oldsaltoz]

Worst thing about my boat is the way that they (the builders) used silicone sealant to bed all the fittings in, which bit by bit is now breaking down and leaking. And if there's one thing that really annoys me is a boat that leaks.

Boy are you in for some fun.
You do know that new Silicon will not old and nor will any other type of sealant. So you have to remove all traces of the horrible stuff before you can do anything.

Look out if you ever plan to paint anything, just a tiny bit of the s stuff will spoil the finish and again every trace of it must be removed.

You should have a total ban on the use of it on board, and ban anyone who has been working with it for a least a week.

Good luck and fair winds.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

Great video:encouragement:

Thanks! It's my son's first effort. He promises that the next one, hopefully while flying a genniker, will be better. Steven Spielberg, here we come!

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

My biggest bugbear with the Centaur is the poor anchor/chain set up. If you sick with a Danforth it's only the chain that's a problem, it just won't stow without several trips to arrange the chain in the locker and then feed more down, it's a 2 man job really.

My previous boat was a Centaur. I solved the problem of where to stow the Bruce by fitting an Iroko plank at the bows. The rear part of it served as a plinth for the windlass while under the front end I fitted a roller for the anchor chain. The Bruce would self-stow and the protruding plank served as a foothold when berthed bows-to. I can post a picture if you're interested.

 

[JumbleDuck]

My biggest bugbear with the Centaur is the poor anchor/chain set up. If you sick with a Danforth it's only the chain that's a problem, it just won't stow without several trips to arrange the chain in the locker and then feed more down, it's a 2 man job really.

It's all about the height, I think, or rather the drop. My 21' Westerly needed the chain pulled down by hand every single time, but on my current boat, the same size as yours, it falls down beautifully ... I am pretty sure that's because the locker is significantly lower, giving a foot or so more of chain below deck level pulling it down. That's one reason I put up with 30m of chain ... another 50m might lose me the self-stowing feature but hardly be used. I have a 100m drum of Octoplait, just in case ...

I haven't used my Delta anchor because there is nowhere to stow it up front where it's needed.

Will it not sit on chocks of some sort? One of the nice things about a CQR is that it sits surprisingly well on a flat surface (not counting the seabed, before anyone starts).

 

[aquaplane]

My previous boat was a Centaur. I solved the problem of where to stow the Bruce by fitting an Iroko plank at the bows. The rear part of it served as a plinth for the windlass while under the front end I fitted a roller for the anchor chain. The Bruce would self-stow and the protruding plank served as a foothold when berthed bows-to. I can post a picture if you're interested.

Thanks for the offer but, a Centaur is a Centaur, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear and I'm on the page of keeping it "original" so that the next custodian get's the full benefit of the Centaur experience.

I already looked at fitting a double bow roller so that I can stow an anchor and use my swinging mooring. The cost of the double bow roller wasn't too off putting. Removing the whole of the front of the boat to fit it didn't fill me with enthusiasm. I'll buy a boat with an anchor locker and a double roller to solve the problem.

 

[Hydrozoan]

... Beam across top of saloon (supporting the mast) has a magnetic attraction for the First Mates head, so she often bumps her head on it. Strange, as I'm taller and have rarely done so.

Try hanging a small yellow duck on it.

 

[Spuddy]

My galley must be similar to silerdawn's. Groucho Marx would be be ok with the sink - I mostly wash up in cockpit. I've had my Hustler 30 for nearly two years; still suspicious of the saildrive and would have preferred shaft plus stuffing box for easier and cheaper maintenance and anodes. The important thing though, is that he sails superbly.

 

[RupertW]

GK24 - perfect in every way apart from the way it shrank when I was about thirty. Still have one.

Sun Odyssey 42.2 - has no "row away" factor but love it and will probably keep it for a long time but...
- Even a double-reefed main will cause it round up uncontrollably about 30 knots of wind, so have had to get used to foresail downwind sailing - at least it isn't a roller
- Anchor locker has room for 100m plus of chain with room to spare but somehow makes a narrow pyramid everytime so electric winch and manual poker
- Too much of the boat is inaccessible as glued not screwed so current minor water tank leak very hard to trace
- Most annoyingly the "moulded in one piece" aft heads and shower isn't quite lined up (unless the boat is tilted well to port) so the lovely sump sits nearby an unmoving puddle of water - still trying to think of an elegant solution

 

[prv]

Anchor arrangements are less than ideal -

• The roller is really narrow so a normal shackle won't fit through, neither will a strong-enough swivel.
• The geometry is such that the anchor tends to thump the furler drum as it comes on board
• As built, no good position for a windlass. The previous owner has had one fitted into one of the lid panels, and bolted it closed, but it's a) structurally weak b) impedes access to the locker c) has no space for a chain stopper or other means of securing the chain. I use a chain hook on a short snubber, but there's no good lead from the bow rollers to a cleat (it would chafe badly on the cheek of the roller assembly) so I had to make the snubber with a kind of bridle on the inboard end to go between both cleats. All a big faff.
• Bow is too fine (and/or other weights too far forward) to carry decent ground tackle. With 60m of 8mm chain (substantial but not excessive for a 34-footer) the bow was submerged below the boot top at the mooring, and submarining through waves at sea.

I blame it on the Swedish habit of tying bows to a rock with a stern anchor - in contrast to the mediocre bow anchor arrangements, the stern has a nifty dedicated chain locker and a large plinth for a windlass which was a factory option.

Heads outlet seacock below the boards in the bottom of the cockpit locker is another design fault, when there's a locker space in the heads compartment that it easily could have been put in. When the boat was new it had a gravity holding tank, and the seacock would have been used to choose between flushing straight to sea or holding in the tank, so in some waters it would have needed to be accessed daily - unpack the whole locker! We removed the old leaking tank and haven't replaced it (need the locker space more) so I only need to wiggle the valve occasionally to prevent it seizing, and know that I could turn it off if required. But I still wish it was in the locker.

Putting the fresh water and shower drain pumps in the cockpit locker was lazy, when the same heads locker has loads of space that's not particularly convenient for stowage. The cockpit locker is small because of the aft cabin, we need every cubic foot. Fitting the shore power consumer unit in there was annoying for the same reason, plus it got wet and beaten-up. I've moved all these things to more sensible locations.

Fitting an engine with all the service points on the starboard side in an engine bay with excellent access from the port side (and none at all to starboard) was a bit silly. I've fitted remotes and extensions to most bits now.

Probably more, but the only one that really bothers me is the anchor stuff.

Pete

 

[laika]

My biggest bugbear? Why did Mr. Westerly design boats with no apparent thought as to how people would subsequently take them apart? It seems that any minor job has a string of dependencies (i.e. to remove X you need to remove Y, but to remove Y you need to remove Z...) which ultimately seem to lead to you dismantling half the boat...Are upmarket swedish boats any better in that respect?

 

[michael_w]

I used to own an X 302. Her faults included:
Poor cockpit ergonomics, you could see the jib luff sat in two places. One site induced pins and needles on both legs, the other was reminiscent of a visit to the Headmaster's study.
The mainsheet fouled the primary winches when reaching.
The head seacocks were so close together, the poo used to "recycle".
The engine dipstick had to replaced by touch alone.
The only way to remove the table was to take the mast out...

Main fault on the current boat is the idiosyncratic wiring.

 

[Quandary]

My niggles (Finngulf 33)
The slim hull with galley/chart table means that space around the saloon table is tight, balanced by virtually no wake and great windward performance
The holding tank vent has a circuitous route to the multi outlet manifold at the stern leaving it prone to blockage if the tank is left overfilled, balanced by having only one hull outlet for three vents and two cockpit drains.
The deck level snap shackle of the under deck furlex fouls the gennaker sprit ring when turning if the halyard has been eased (as it should be) The anchor fairlead looks delicate too, all a consequence of a pointy hull shape.
The keel stepped mast needs a decent crane and operator to step or drop but again this is balanced by a performance and strength advantage.
All the internal linings even the individual teak slats which line all the hull sides are fixed with exposed screws there must be several thousand, the balance here is that they are all countersunk neatly and nowhere is difficult to access.
I suppose it is human nature to look for a positive outcome from these niggles.

 

[Skylark]

A saildrive is an abomination. Great piece of design ruined by lack of it being engineered within the hull. Despite the requirement for fairly frequent change routine, there's no easy way to do it without an almost complete engine removal. Ridiculous, imho.

 

[JumbleDuck]

My biggest bugbear? Why did Mr. Westerly design boats with no apparent thought as to how people would subsequently take them apart? It seems that any minor job has a string of dependencies (i.e. to remove X you need to remove Y, but to remove Y you need to remove Z...) which ultimately seem to lead to you dismantling half the boat...Are upmarket swedish boats any better in that respect?

Thanks for an unhappy memory.

The stanchion bases on by 21' Westerly were held down by screws into a plate with captive nuts. The plates were glassed into the deck moulding before it was bonded to the hull, and the central stanchion plate was directly above the main bulkhead in the sandwich. I was hit by another boat on the stanchion, snapping off two of the screws just below deck level. The only way of getting access would have been to remove at least some of the main bulkhead. Grrrr.

 

[mlines]

Any boat that describes engine access as "easy".

Both my boats have been described in boat test videos and sales talk as having "easy access to all engine components"

Unless you suffer from some fairly severe body deformities this is blatantly not true. Every time I have worked on my boat I have ended up bleeding.

Boat designers should be forced to attempt routine maintenance on any boats they design.

 

[prv]

Any boat that describes engine access as "easy".

I did a delivery trip on a Halberg-Rassy 36 about ten years ago. That could have legitimately made the claim. Open a pair of large double doors in the passage to the aft cabin and you have a huge opening into a cavernous well-lit space, with the engine sitting almost embarrassed in the middle of it. All the service points were on the side of the engine that faced the door (reputedly when they updated the design for the new 36 they chose an engine with the service points on the other side - so they mirror-imaged the whole internal layout rather than have them facing away from the door). Although if you'd needed to get at the other side of the engine there was probably room to step over it and squat on the far side.

All this space was intended for fitting blue-water upgrades like watermakers, generators, inverters, etc, which the owner of this boat didn't have. But how nice, when you came to add bulky new toys or stow lots of spares, to have all that space to put them in.

Pete