I built an 18' Hartley about 30 years ago, sailed a fair amount in the
middle 10 years, it's been on the hard for the last ~10 years (kids in
college). Building is reasonably straight forwards, but be aware that it is
traditional ply on frame construction with laminated chines (assuming the
plans have not been updated for stitch or glue or the like). Lots of
sawing, beveling, notching etc. It was the first boat I built and it came
out reasonably well, a bit of unfairness in the chines and some less than
perfect joints here and there, but the boat has held up well and I never had
any structural problems. Mine is 3/8 marine fir, as I recall, the plans
called for 5/16 and I could not find any in the mid-West where I was living
at the time. Wood mast, built per plans, is pretty heavy.

I built the long cabin version, not sure I would recommend it now. The
cabin is roomier, but it forces the crew aft a bit and the transom can drag
a bit with more than two aboard and all in the cockpit - this is seems to be
a common problem in smaller cabin boats. I carried some ballast forwards of
the CB trunk to compensate, but usually sailed with 1 or 2 and ended moving
the ballast back a bit.

The 18 is fast in the right conditions. Mine carried a standard main and a
genoa, I bought surplus sails from a couple of different designs so they
were a bit different sized than std, but close. I reefed the main once the
wind got up over ~18 knots or so and gusting higher and I was going to
windward. I did most of my sailing in Puget Sound which is semi-protected
but can still generate sizable waves (4 - 5') in higher winds. Going to
windward in more than 20+ knots was tough. Reefed with genoa she would be a
bit overpowered and you had luff the main to keep her on her feet in the
gusts and then she lacked the power to push thru the waves. Sailed with the
main only she really lacked the power to make much progress thru the waves.
She would have been better with the small jib and a reefed main in those
conditions, but single handed, I did not like going forwards in rougher
conditions (the genny was roller furling so I could get it in/out from the
cockpit). Mind you, I usually did not see many other 25' footers out in
these conditions.... One day in just right conditions I "almost" kept up
with an Olson 30 to windward in the bay (lost a ~hundred yards in a mile or
so), but she went by me pretty quick once we got out where the waves were
bigger (and, as always in situations like this, we "weren't racing" - I
suppose the Olson could have been sailed better, but I didn't see any
evidence of them being sloppy or slow).

I had her more than rail down a couple times but never capsized her, tho I
am sure they will. Being fairly wide and shallow, she liked to be kept on
feet. She'd plane off the wind in the right conditions, but those were the
days when getting to windward was a real struggle.

Overall, quite a nice boat for light to moderate winds in semi protected
water. The keel version is probably more weatherly, but not as trailerable.
As long as she was sailed relatively flat, she had a fairly balanced helm,
weather helm would get pretty strong once you let her heel close to rail
down.

I trailer sailed her some, but mostly kept her in the water. She's a big
18 footer, and as I recall, the boat and trailer weighed something like
2500 - 2800 pounds. I towed her with a 6 cylinder Falcon wagon, a V8 '64
Dodge, a V6 Voyager mini-van and once, with a V8 Grand Monaco (spelling?).
All would tow her OK, but only the Monaco was big enough to not feel
dominated by the boat. Time to launch and retrieve was probably 1/2 hour
each way once you had done it a couple of time.

Steve

"Mik" wrote in message
news:EH9Xg.123058$5R2.37735@pd7urf3no...
Hi folks,

I've been researching a good DIY trailer sailer, and while I have found
a lot of good designs, I keep coming back to the old Hartley 16 or 18'.
Does anyone here have any feedback regarding the building or
sailability of this design?

Thanks,

Mike