On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:53:15 +0000, Iain Hibbert
wrote:

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 04:56:46 -0500, rhys wrote:
By contrast, my 34' 1973 GRP cruiser-racer is 4.5 tonnes.

cruiser racer..

Of course, a 31' foot cruiser in steel is pretty rare in itself.

I'll excuse you because you are on the other side of the atlantic, but its
a common enough size here. In fact I bought it on your side and got a good
deal because presumably nobody wanted such a small boat, heh.

You rarely see it here, admittedly, although a local couple and their
kids circumnavigated a few years back in a steel, junk-rigged 30
footer called "Lorcha".


Out of curiosity, what are your interior hull coatings and how have
they held up and/or been maintained? I am always interested in hearing
how various coatings fair with heavy usage.

Inside is still pretty good, I believe it was sandblasted and sprayed
with coal tar epoxy inside when new. I had to deal with a few crusty
bits under the floorboards last year (very difficult to get to) and it
didnt look as if any maintenance had been done before down there. In a
couple of high usage areas (bottom of cockpit locker, and anchor locker)
I have had to cut and weld, but the worst continual rust problems I get are
on the inside edge of the inwardly leaning 4" high toe rail where the deck
is only about 8" wide behind the cockpit coaming and you can't even see
any rust without a small mirror never mind cleaning it off, poor design.

That's sometimes the problem with steel. Designer assume you've got
ordinary seamen available to chip and paint constantly.

That looks like Fenit, Co. Kerry, facing the Dingle Peninsula. I know
the area well, but as a cyclist, not a sailor. There's at least four
bike shops in Tralee, and all seem to be owned by (if I recall) a
family called Cable.

Is that dockage pretty rough? It looks a bit exposed.

R.