My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

My friend Andre and I went to see a used Capri 13 sailboat yesterday in Santa Barbara. Since the 14 footer at the harbor was a bust, we went into this with a little hesitation. People will say anything on cragislist to get people interested in their piles of junk. This boat however, was actually as described.

When we got to this boat it looked like it had been sitting there for at least a few months. The grass under was dead and most of the snails in the neighborhood had made it home. All the equipment though needed for this to sail was there and it includes 2 sails that are in similar and fair condition. At an asking price of $300, it seem like a good deal. Since it didn’t come with a trailer we had to figure out how to get it to Andre’s house 10 miles away.

After some price negotiations we were loading this thing on top of Andre’s Jeep a few hours later. This thing weighs about 200 lbs and it was pretty hairly driving down the street with it. We opted to not take the freeway just in case we had any trouble. Luckily it made we without any problems. We got the seller to come down a few bucks on the price and walk away with a new-used boat for $260. We still need to get the pink slip from her and to try and get it registered so the transaction is not totally complete. Once we got back, we eagerly rigged the boat up on Andre’s lawn and it indeed had all the parts and was ready to go. It looked great and fast just sitting on dry land.

Andre lives just about a block from the beach near Summerland, CA. Once we knew it was all there, he was itching to get it in the water. I was hesitant because I knew what a nightmare it was going to be dragging this thing down to the beach without bare hands plus it was pushing well past 5 PM. On top of that, I haven’t sailed a boat this size and type for over 10 years. In high school I had sailed Laser sailboats on a lake during the summer but most of that knowledge and experience was buried deep inside my brain somewhere. Andre did eventually got me to haul it down to the beach with him and we took her out for a little maiden voyage. That will be another post later as it was quite an adventure in itself.

I will get him to send me some better photos he took of the boat rigged in his yard for the next post. Stay tuned.

I have posted some photos of another O’Day 22 owners boat on this blog awhile back. The owner Art has sent me an updated photo of his boat fittingly named “Tomato Sloop”.

Art’s boat looks great and hopefully one day mine will too

Andre went to go see this boat in Santa Barbara for sale today. It is a Catalina Capri 14 without a trailer. For $200 it sounds like an awesome deal. Andre just doesn’t know where he could store it. I offered to donate my utility trailer to haul it around if he buys it. For one think Marlene wants me to get rid of it anyways and this is would be a perfect trailer for a little boat like this. He sent me a couple of photos he took while he was checking it out from his camera phone…

In the water with the rig down.

Everything that comes with the boat inside the cockpit.

Looks like its in fairly good condition from what I can tell. Should be a pretty good buy as long as he can find a place to store it….

The America’s Cup arrives at New York City today for a few weeks of exhibition along side a number of other items including a BMW-Oracle Racing Yacht. It will be on display starting June 15th thru July 3rd 2006. I wish I could go check it out so for those of you who are in the area, don’t forget to swing by and check it out.

This company in the UK makes three different sizes of sailing trimarans from 16 ft, 21 ft and 24 ft. As you may know about trimarans that they are design to plane over water under sail power and they often can sail faster than the true wind speed on a beam reach. I was fascinated by them but knew that most of them are expensive and one of the more popular brands is a home built kit.

This company makes a real capable 21 footer that can reach 20 knots under wind power. It also takes a similar outboard like the my 6 HP Tohatsu and can cruise up to 10 knots under it. Unfortunately it is not easy to get a hold of one if you are in the US. They go for about 10 to 15k pounds in the UK which is about $25,000. I wonder if there are comparable trimaran makers in the US. I bet there is a market for these things since small catamaran sailing seems to be so popular.