349 $
Description
| Year: | 1971 | Make: | Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 |
| Rigging: | Ketch | Keel: | Full Length Shoal Draft Cruising Keel |
| Model: | Global Blue Water Capable Cruiser | Trailer: | Not Included |
| Type: | Cruiser | Use: | Salt Water |
| Length (feet): | 33 | Engine Type: | None |
| Beam (feet): | 10.2 | For Sale By: | Private Seller |
| Hull Material: | Solid Woven Roving Fiberglass |
Some Older Sailboats are Worth Restoring. Others Aren't Worth the Trouble.These Offshore Cruisers built by Cheoy Lee have done circumnavigations and sailed safely to nearly every distant port of call in the world.The old photos of the boats under sail are sister-ship photos from the original Cheoy Lee Brochure as well as the white on black text image, which is also from the original brochures.A Cheoy Lee is a Globally Respected Blue Water Capable Vessel with Some of The Strongest Hulls and Best Cruising Characteristics of any Sailboats ever made. That is why still today a 40 year old Cheoy Lee in rough shape is still worth more today than a 1990s model of the cheap flimsy coastal cruisers in the same size.Navigational Instruments packageFull Length Keel and Protected Skeg Mounted Rudder (not spade rudder).Nice hatches with canvas coversWheel SteeringComfortable GalleyValuable Classic Sliding Brass Domed CompassNice Large WinchesRoller Furling Main SailLots of Miscellaneous Equipment and Sailing Gear
From the Factory These came with Fiberglass hull, deck and cabin trunk moulded to Lloyd's specifications 100A, hull thickness from 7/16" to 1", Engine: Palmer M60 or Atomic Four, Sitka Spruce Spars, Roller reefing main boom, Burma Teak Trim, laid strip teak deck.Length on Deck 33' Length Over All - 36' 5"w/pulpit
LWL - 26' 5.5"
Beam - 10' 2"
Draft - 3' 8"
Displacement - 10,482lbs
Ballast - 2500lbs Cast Iron
Sail Area - 522
Fuel - 20US Gal
Water - 35US Gal TERMS OF THE AUCTION - PLEASE READ
Please read the entire auction text and/or closely study the photos so that you can be a fully informed bidder. If it is possible for you, also please come and check out the boat in the real world. That is the best way to truly get an accurate idea of whether the boat will meet your needs and expectations. Please place bids based on what funds you have available on-hand or on credit cards etc. PAYMENT IS DUE IN FULL WITHIN 24 HOURS. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR SPOUSE OR BOAT PARTNER(S) BEFORE MAKING THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE A PURCHASE. YOUR BID IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT TO PURCHASE THIS CLASSIC VESSEL, SO DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS THE RIGHT CRUISING YACHT TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET. If you have questions to ask about the boat I will be happy to speak with you on the phone, or if you wish to schedule a boat tour before the auction closes, please give me a shout. William 970 319-4361The auction ends just after 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday night, so if you want to make sure you are the winner at the end of bidding, either get your best bid in early or set the alarm on your phone as a reminder and tune in for the final few minutes of bidding. Sometimes the final few minutes can determine who wins the auction.
This is a no reserve auction so that means the winner of the auction wins the boat, whether it goes for a fair price or a mere fraction of a fair price. Payment may be made in the form of bank to bank wire transfer or counter deposit at either Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Please consult your spouse and or boat partners etc. prior to committing to make the purchase. Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic project boat and only bid up to what you have on hand to spend. You are welcome to go inspect the boat prior to bidding, and I highly encourage that, as that is the only way to absolutely guarantee that the boat will meet your expectations. The Ebay system drop-down-menu only allows 3 days or 7 days for payment terms. Please ignore that. The actual auction terms are payment within 24 hours. Once the auction is over, if you are the high bidder and win the auction, please give me a call right away or first thing in the morning after to discuss the details of completing the transaction. William 970 319-4361Storage is paid current through the end of the auction, but storage after that becomes the responsibility of the new owner. Storage fees are around $200 per month when paid six months at a time. The boatyard will launch the boat for you or load it on a trailer if you prefer that option. The boatyard is planning some work in that part of the boatyard, so if you do have the ability to launch the boat quickly that would be their preference. Title is currently in the safe at the boatyard. Due to risks of people abandoning older boats and the complications of going through the whole legal process for the boatyard to get title, the title will be given to your by the boatyard at the time that the boat is either launched or loaded onto a trailer. Moving a large cruising boat is expensive if you have to hire a boat mover. Ofter $4 or more per mile, so the only affordable way to move the vessel by land, unless its only for a short distance of a couple hundred miles or so, would be to get a large dual axle flatbed trailer rated for 15,000lb or more and build a simple wooden or metal cradle to set the boat on the trailer and move it yourself with a heavy duty pick up truck or other capable towing vehicle.
These boats are very comfortable when sailing in rough waters. With bunk additions as designed by the company, they can sleep up to 9 people inside. The cockpit layout is very comfortable to host pot-luck parties on deck with your fellow cruisers in those exotic cruising harbors. Aesthetically, these are very glamorous vessels with the classic lines and the carved spruce masts and antique "expensive" style brass ports (windows).The ketch rig gives amazing possibilities for changing sail configurations and fine tune points of sail to get a very well balanced boat on long cruises. The roller furling main sail that rolls up on the boom was about 30 years ahead of its time. This one has wheel steering which many consider essential for long distance cruising as well as a fully protected rudder. This hull style is based upon a timeless Herreshoff design that was originally produced in wood during the classic era of trans-Atlantic wooden sailboat racing.
The Worldwide Owner's Association is very active and provides a place to buy and sell classic sailboats as well as all sorts of resources on restoring these amazing time-less yachts. Go to their site at cheoyleeassociation.com and go to page 2 and look at the list for Cheoy Lee Sail Models to see all the amazing boats produced over the decades by Cheoy Lee. Check out the Yachts for Sale section and you will find these and many similar models priced between $25K to $70K. You can also find sisterships as well as other Cheoy Lee models between 30 and 40 feet in length on Yachtworld and Sailboat Listings and see how they keep their value over the years when restored and well maintained.The Cheoy Lee Owner's Association site lists 36 other Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 owners all around the world with contact info, who can be a terrific resource and source of good cheer and tips and counsel in the process of you restoring this fine classic small ship. That part is a sub-link from the main page for the Offshore 33 from their Sail Models section on page 2.As you can see in the photos, this boat needs a lot of weekends of restoration by someone who doesn't mind getting covered in sawdust and who likes sanding and varnishing and cutting, shaping and re-building various pieces of wood that need to be repaired or replaced. Mostly what it needs is a lot of detail carpentry, sanding, varnishing, painting and a new motor installed and some new or used sails. Let me know if you need tips on buying a good set of used sails for around $300 or so per sail. All systems are un-testing and vessel is sold AS IS. If you are just doing inshore bay sailing you could mount an outboard motor bracket on the back (available here on Ebay for between $50 to $150) and put on a 9.9 or 15hp long shaft outboard motor. That would be good enough to get you in and out of harbors and sailing in protected waters, and just put up the sails the rest of the time. If you are planning to go international though, you will need to install a new motor. Woodwork needed is to carve a new boom for the main sail and a new bow-sprit and put on a new "used" stainless bow pulpit. I can tell you where to buy a good used bow pulpit off a similar boat for about $300.A little about us. We are the Founder's of the Academy of Cruising and the business Cruising Consultants Inc. Our passion is to assist folks who are making a transition from day sailing or coastal cruising to becoming full-time live-aboard world cruisers. We also assist new sailors who are just getting into the sport of sailing by advising them on how to develop their skills and how to make plans to pursue the dream of cruising and world traveling full-time. We have extensive contacts and resources for finding good world cruising boats at far below their fair market value, and occasionally we discover an amazing neglected vessel at a price that we know may enable a cruising family or a retired couple on fixed income the ability to pursue the dream of cruising without the sort of means and savings normally associated with pursuing this lifestyle. In those cases, like this boat, we work to try and find a new home for a good “below market value” boat, with people who will fully restore the vessel, and hopefully use it for the serious cruising that the boat was designed for. There are many aspects of life where experience really matters, but none so much as global cruising. When you are planning to take a small boat across vast oceans and visit foreign ports of call on your own terms you must truly learn to become Master's of your Own Destiny. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how talented you are at managing large organizations or companies with dozens of staff people. When you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the choices you have made, the choices you will make and your own internal skills and the undeniable truth of how well or poorly you have planned for your expedition, are the factors that will determine whether your experiences become a positive adventure or a frightening (or even life threatening) catastrophe. When you are looking at a boat parked peacefully at a dock or on jack stands at a boat yard, you will be tempted to judge it based on whether the lines are nice and whether it is pretty or ugly and whether it is new or old and well kept or run down. The ocean however, operates according to immutable laws of physics. The ocean does not care whether it sinks a pretty boat or keeps an ugly one floating. It does not care whether you are a skilled sailor with dozens of years experience under your shade hat or whether you are an amateur on your first weekend pleasure cruise. You will be served exactly the same conditions of wind and waves whether you were born wealthy or if you were raised in a cave by baboons. The only control you have over these situations is knowing when to sail and when not to sail, and you can prepare yourself so that when the wrong situation strikes, if it ever does, you are skilled and prepared to deal with it and have a vessel that is prepared to handle the same. For people who are wanting to go cruising full-time, or who want to go from being pleasure sailors to competent seamen and seawomen, choosing the right boat is the first and sometimes ultimately most important decision of their nautical lives. Of course you can always sell or trade a boat and then buy a different one, but still the choice of each boat will influence the experiences you have and it will determine in many ways the capabilities or limitations of what you can or can't do while you have that boat for your home—even if it is only home for a few weekends here and there. There are many nuances and subtleties to sailing, as well as to each individual vessel. A boat that may be just exactly perfect for one sailor or family of sailors, may be completely the wrong boat to suit another person's dreams. By nature, boats require a lot of maintenance and upgrades, and if you are someone who wants all the possible bells and whistles, boating can be a very expensive occupation. However, there are also ways to save a lot of money and still pursue the dream effectively and safely create a new floating paradise for yourself. But each person or each couple's needs are different. There is no such boat as a boat that is not a project boat. Long before we were married, when my wife was only 12 years old, and her father (a relatively wealthy man at the time) purchased a brand new Beneteau 46 for the family to live on for years, and to cruise the world on, the first thing he did to a brand new half million dollar boat was to spend another $27K on equipment upgrades, new electronics installations and custom modifications. The reason he did that is because no boat, no matter how shiny and brand new, is exactly right for everyone's individual tastes and needs, and no boat comes straight from the factory completely ready to do anything other than Wednesday afternoon beer can races. I often get asked by people who are shopping for a used boat to go cruising the world, “Is this boat ready to cross the Atlantic?” or “Does it need anything before it is 'Ready to Sail.” The very nature of that question is a showcase of their naivety. Even if the answer were “Yes, the boat is ready.” (which would be impossible to have any boat ready unless you have spent thousands of dollars on a cruising chandlery and provisioning service ahead of time) the greater question is “Are such novice sailors who need to ask such questions ready themselves?” Even if they had the absolutely perfect boat, prepared ahead of time by die-hard professionals to get it ready to cast off the lines and sail to points distant and exotic, would the sailors know where everything is at on the boat and how to operate those systems and how not to break them with ignorant mistakes or how to fix them once broken? And if they knew all those things, would the boat be equipped with the necessary repair tools and supplies as part of the process of getting it ready to sail? So all these are big questions, and the only easy answer is that any sailor must become intimately familiar with their vessel prior to making long voyages beyond sight of land. The easiest way to become familiar with a boat so that it is not a stranger but rather a trusted old friend is to do a lot of weekend coastal cruising with it, while you work all the bugs out. Also, the more projects and upgrades you do yourself the more familiar you will be with how they work, how to maintain them and how to fix them again if anything every goes wrong. To depend on the expertise of professionals left behind in a port in a distant country you cleared out of months ago is only to invite future disaster...and its also much harder on the wallet. So any time you can add to your own skills and knowledge of your own boat by doing your own work, or hiring a professional to help you do it yourself, you are preparing yourself for future success as a cruiser. Any boat, even a brand new boat, will have things about it that you want to change or upgrade or move or install prior to making long voyages. The better questions to ask are: “What is the proper amount of maintenance and upgrades that I will make to my vessel prior to setting sail? How many things need to be changed or fixed before I leave the continental US? How many projects will I work on, as little projects along the way, when I have a slow day at a boring anchorage and there are no cruiser parties to attend and no interesting conversations of the side channels of the VHF. How many projects are absolutely vital to get accomplished before I begin actively using the boat as a full time residence and a floating RV that can sail to any country with a coastline?” How many projects do I want to tackle myself if it means I can save literally tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price of a boat, and how much more ultimate value do I get for my money by buying a larger or more seaworthy boat with a few bigger projects to tackle, than if I buy a smaller or more flimsy boat that is cleaned up nicer and has fewer problems to address. (Remember the ultimate cosmic law of boating – even if you can't see any problems at all with a boat, and no projects needing doing, as soon as you own it and begin to sail it, you will start to find those quirks and bugs) So don't fool yourself into believing that you can simply buy a shiny new boat from a broker at full market value, or even by paying more than boat blue book value, to avoid ever having to make repairs or upgrades. Any experienced sailor or boating professional other than someone selling fancy new boats will admit to you that there is no such boat other than a “project boat.” The only question is “What are the projects and how much money will I save by doing them myself versus hiring someone else to complete them?” Every boat that I have ever bought or ever sold, which is now many dozens of them, had varying degrees of things needing to be improved about it. Even the brand new boats straight from the showroom floor or boat show sales dock will need bottom painting and new zincs and fuel cleansing treatments and oil changes and manifold and riser inspections within a matter or months of casual weekend use. The longer any boat sits without the proper level of loving regular maintenance the faster it will deteriorate, and tiny 15 minute projects will turn into hour-long projects and hour-long projects will turn into day-long or week-long projects due to continuing neglect. The quality of the build is also important. A cheap boat will have cheap boat problems, and it will have serious issues far faster and more frequently than a very well built boat from an esteemed yacht designer and builder even if the better boat looks worse initially. In many ways you are better off to buy an older and more well regarded vessel in worse “first impressions” condition than to buy a shiny and well kept cheaper new boat. In the long run the better boat will cause far fewer headaches once you have it restored fully and you are taking care of it yourself, whereas the cheap but glossy boat may still look new and shiny for years, but begin having serious and costly problems that cannot be seen even while it still looks great in Facebook boat pictures. Boating is like riding a horse or driving a high performance sports car. You always have to be involved in the life of your boat whether you use it frequently or not. But this is not a bad thing, because it is part of the pride of ownership, and the regular maintenance and upkeep and small projects is what enables you to avoid the big ones or to at least know which big ones you need to do sooner and which ones can wait till later. As you will guess by now, I'm a bit of a philosopher sailor when it comes to helping folks find just the right boat to serve their needs. I am currently writing a book on that very topic which will be called, “The Seven Questions of Cruising (or) the Seven Questions you should ask yourself before buying a Boat.” Here is a quick preview of the questions you should be trying to answer from the introduction to my new book.---
When you go to buy a boat, especially if it is your first boat, there are a lot of decisions to be made and hard choices to figure out. Before you begin searching for the correct vessel to serve your needs, you need to first ask yourself, (and your cruising partners/ spouse etc) some important questions which will help you immensely in the quest to find the perfect small ship to suit your needs. Question Number 1- Where do you want to sail to (now and also possibly in the future)? #2 – Who might be going with you and/or who might want to visit you and stay on the boat with you once you get to that exotic foreign port (if global cruising is your goal) or that incredible weekend getaway spot (if weekend cruising is your thing). #3 – How much do you want to spend on this adventure called boating/sailing/? Also, how much “can” you afford to spend if you happen to take a wrong turn with the adventure and “need” to spend more money to fix a problem or get yourself or your stalwart side-kick (your boat) out of trouble? #4 – How handy are you? (i.e. - Are you someone who naturally takes pride in your ability to figure it out yourself, or are you the person who would rather call an “expert” and pay them to solve whatever problem you are having? #5 – How much time do you have to save yourself money, because in sailing, as well as in life in general “time often equals money.” #6 – Are you a weekend warrior and/or charter sailor, or do you want to cruise full time? #7 – Do you care more about Getting There or more about “Being There” once you have arrived? If I had more time, I would go into deeper discussion of how each of these important questions affects your choice of boat and how you can use those questions to determine if this particular boat is the best one to suit your needs and dreams. However, this is already about the longest Ebay auction text in history, so if you want to discuss all that more fully and chat more about the particular little projects and tasks that need to be done to restore this boat to full world cruising status, then I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone for a few minutes. Feel free to give me a call at 970 319-4361. -William This boat is a boat that needs some basic skill level improvements and restorations, but nothing that can't be done by a person with average handy skills over the coarse of a few weekends while they are taking breaks in between weekend sailing trips. All that said, with a no reserve auction, the best thing about this boat is that you may be able to invest a few weekends of your own labor and some affordable materials into restoring it into the valuable and glamorous boat that it easily could become again, and yet you have an opportunity to purchase it at a mere fraction of its restored market value. To build this same boat today, the way it was constructed when it was new and using the same quality materials in today's product and labor costs would cost well over $150,000 to the boat builder, before even adding the sales broker's mark up. And so, a new boat built as well as this classic would typically cost about $250K or more after the marketing, distribution and brokers fees. So all that said, here is your opportunity to get a heck of a sturdy world cruising vessel for dimes on the dollar.Good luck bidding. I hope it goes to a good home. Call me if you want to arrange to go and see the boat in person or if you have any other questions about it. Remember, payment is due in full within 24 hours. Thanks, William 970 319-4361
From the Factory These came with Fiberglass hull, deck and cabin trunk moulded to Lloyd's specifications 100A, hull thickness from 7/16" to 1", Engine: Palmer M60 or Atomic Four, Sitka Spruce Spars, Roller reefing main boom, Burma Teak Trim, laid strip teak deck.Length on Deck 33' Length Over All - 36' 5"w/pulpit
LWL - 26' 5.5"
Beam - 10' 2"
Draft - 3' 8"
Displacement - 10,482lbs
Ballast - 2500lbs Cast Iron
Sail Area - 522
Fuel - 20US Gal
Water - 35US Gal TERMS OF THE AUCTION - PLEASE READ
Please read the entire auction text and/or closely study the photos so that you can be a fully informed bidder. If it is possible for you, also please come and check out the boat in the real world. That is the best way to truly get an accurate idea of whether the boat will meet your needs and expectations. Please place bids based on what funds you have available on-hand or on credit cards etc. PAYMENT IS DUE IN FULL WITHIN 24 HOURS. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR SPOUSE OR BOAT PARTNER(S) BEFORE MAKING THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE A PURCHASE. YOUR BID IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT TO PURCHASE THIS CLASSIC VESSEL, SO DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS THE RIGHT CRUISING YACHT TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET. If you have questions to ask about the boat I will be happy to speak with you on the phone, or if you wish to schedule a boat tour before the auction closes, please give me a shout. William 970 319-4361The auction ends just after 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday night, so if you want to make sure you are the winner at the end of bidding, either get your best bid in early or set the alarm on your phone as a reminder and tune in for the final few minutes of bidding. Sometimes the final few minutes can determine who wins the auction.
This is a no reserve auction so that means the winner of the auction wins the boat, whether it goes for a fair price or a mere fraction of a fair price. Payment may be made in the form of bank to bank wire transfer or counter deposit at either Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Please consult your spouse and or boat partners etc. prior to committing to make the purchase. Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic project boat and only bid up to what you have on hand to spend. You are welcome to go inspect the boat prior to bidding, and I highly encourage that, as that is the only way to absolutely guarantee that the boat will meet your expectations. The Ebay system drop-down-menu only allows 3 days or 7 days for payment terms. Please ignore that. The actual auction terms are payment within 24 hours. Once the auction is over, if you are the high bidder and win the auction, please give me a call right away or first thing in the morning after to discuss the details of completing the transaction. William 970 319-4361Storage is paid current through the end of the auction, but storage after that becomes the responsibility of the new owner. Storage fees are around $200 per month when paid six months at a time. The boatyard will launch the boat for you or load it on a trailer if you prefer that option. The boatyard is planning some work in that part of the boatyard, so if you do have the ability to launch the boat quickly that would be their preference. Title is currently in the safe at the boatyard. Due to risks of people abandoning older boats and the complications of going through the whole legal process for the boatyard to get title, the title will be given to your by the boatyard at the time that the boat is either launched or loaded onto a trailer. Moving a large cruising boat is expensive if you have to hire a boat mover. Ofter $4 or more per mile, so the only affordable way to move the vessel by land, unless its only for a short distance of a couple hundred miles or so, would be to get a large dual axle flatbed trailer rated for 15,000lb or more and build a simple wooden or metal cradle to set the boat on the trailer and move it yourself with a heavy duty pick up truck or other capable towing vehicle.
These boats are very comfortable when sailing in rough waters. With bunk additions as designed by the company, they can sleep up to 9 people inside. The cockpit layout is very comfortable to host pot-luck parties on deck with your fellow cruisers in those exotic cruising harbors. Aesthetically, these are very glamorous vessels with the classic lines and the carved spruce masts and antique "expensive" style brass ports (windows).The ketch rig gives amazing possibilities for changing sail configurations and fine tune points of sail to get a very well balanced boat on long cruises. The roller furling main sail that rolls up on the boom was about 30 years ahead of its time. This one has wheel steering which many consider essential for long distance cruising as well as a fully protected rudder. This hull style is based upon a timeless Herreshoff design that was originally produced in wood during the classic era of trans-Atlantic wooden sailboat racing.
The Worldwide Owner's Association is very active and provides a place to buy and sell classic sailboats as well as all sorts of resources on restoring these amazing time-less yachts. Go to their site at cheoyleeassociation.com and go to page 2 and look at the list for Cheoy Lee Sail Models to see all the amazing boats produced over the decades by Cheoy Lee. Check out the Yachts for Sale section and you will find these and many similar models priced between $25K to $70K. You can also find sisterships as well as other Cheoy Lee models between 30 and 40 feet in length on Yachtworld and Sailboat Listings and see how they keep their value over the years when restored and well maintained.The Cheoy Lee Owner's Association site lists 36 other Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 owners all around the world with contact info, who can be a terrific resource and source of good cheer and tips and counsel in the process of you restoring this fine classic small ship. That part is a sub-link from the main page for the Offshore 33 from their Sail Models section on page 2.As you can see in the photos, this boat needs a lot of weekends of restoration by someone who doesn't mind getting covered in sawdust and who likes sanding and varnishing and cutting, shaping and re-building various pieces of wood that need to be repaired or replaced. Mostly what it needs is a lot of detail carpentry, sanding, varnishing, painting and a new motor installed and some new or used sails. Let me know if you need tips on buying a good set of used sails for around $300 or so per sail. All systems are un-testing and vessel is sold AS IS. If you are just doing inshore bay sailing you could mount an outboard motor bracket on the back (available here on Ebay for between $50 to $150) and put on a 9.9 or 15hp long shaft outboard motor. That would be good enough to get you in and out of harbors and sailing in protected waters, and just put up the sails the rest of the time. If you are planning to go international though, you will need to install a new motor. Woodwork needed is to carve a new boom for the main sail and a new bow-sprit and put on a new "used" stainless bow pulpit. I can tell you where to buy a good used bow pulpit off a similar boat for about $300.A little about us. We are the Founder's of the Academy of Cruising and the business Cruising Consultants Inc. Our passion is to assist folks who are making a transition from day sailing or coastal cruising to becoming full-time live-aboard world cruisers. We also assist new sailors who are just getting into the sport of sailing by advising them on how to develop their skills and how to make plans to pursue the dream of cruising and world traveling full-time. We have extensive contacts and resources for finding good world cruising boats at far below their fair market value, and occasionally we discover an amazing neglected vessel at a price that we know may enable a cruising family or a retired couple on fixed income the ability to pursue the dream of cruising without the sort of means and savings normally associated with pursuing this lifestyle. In those cases, like this boat, we work to try and find a new home for a good “below market value” boat, with people who will fully restore the vessel, and hopefully use it for the serious cruising that the boat was designed for. There are many aspects of life where experience really matters, but none so much as global cruising. When you are planning to take a small boat across vast oceans and visit foreign ports of call on your own terms you must truly learn to become Master's of your Own Destiny. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how talented you are at managing large organizations or companies with dozens of staff people. When you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the choices you have made, the choices you will make and your own internal skills and the undeniable truth of how well or poorly you have planned for your expedition, are the factors that will determine whether your experiences become a positive adventure or a frightening (or even life threatening) catastrophe. When you are looking at a boat parked peacefully at a dock or on jack stands at a boat yard, you will be tempted to judge it based on whether the lines are nice and whether it is pretty or ugly and whether it is new or old and well kept or run down. The ocean however, operates according to immutable laws of physics. The ocean does not care whether it sinks a pretty boat or keeps an ugly one floating. It does not care whether you are a skilled sailor with dozens of years experience under your shade hat or whether you are an amateur on your first weekend pleasure cruise. You will be served exactly the same conditions of wind and waves whether you were born wealthy or if you were raised in a cave by baboons. The only control you have over these situations is knowing when to sail and when not to sail, and you can prepare yourself so that when the wrong situation strikes, if it ever does, you are skilled and prepared to deal with it and have a vessel that is prepared to handle the same. For people who are wanting to go cruising full-time, or who want to go from being pleasure sailors to competent seamen and seawomen, choosing the right boat is the first and sometimes ultimately most important decision of their nautical lives. Of course you can always sell or trade a boat and then buy a different one, but still the choice of each boat will influence the experiences you have and it will determine in many ways the capabilities or limitations of what you can or can't do while you have that boat for your home—even if it is only home for a few weekends here and there. There are many nuances and subtleties to sailing, as well as to each individual vessel. A boat that may be just exactly perfect for one sailor or family of sailors, may be completely the wrong boat to suit another person's dreams. By nature, boats require a lot of maintenance and upgrades, and if you are someone who wants all the possible bells and whistles, boating can be a very expensive occupation. However, there are also ways to save a lot of money and still pursue the dream effectively and safely create a new floating paradise for yourself. But each person or each couple's needs are different. There is no such boat as a boat that is not a project boat. Long before we were married, when my wife was only 12 years old, and her father (a relatively wealthy man at the time) purchased a brand new Beneteau 46 for the family to live on for years, and to cruise the world on, the first thing he did to a brand new half million dollar boat was to spend another $27K on equipment upgrades, new electronics installations and custom modifications. The reason he did that is because no boat, no matter how shiny and brand new, is exactly right for everyone's individual tastes and needs, and no boat comes straight from the factory completely ready to do anything other than Wednesday afternoon beer can races. I often get asked by people who are shopping for a used boat to go cruising the world, “Is this boat ready to cross the Atlantic?” or “Does it need anything before it is 'Ready to Sail.” The very nature of that question is a showcase of their naivety. Even if the answer were “Yes, the boat is ready.” (which would be impossible to have any boat ready unless you have spent thousands of dollars on a cruising chandlery and provisioning service ahead of time) the greater question is “Are such novice sailors who need to ask such questions ready themselves?” Even if they had the absolutely perfect boat, prepared ahead of time by die-hard professionals to get it ready to cast off the lines and sail to points distant and exotic, would the sailors know where everything is at on the boat and how to operate those systems and how not to break them with ignorant mistakes or how to fix them once broken? And if they knew all those things, would the boat be equipped with the necessary repair tools and supplies as part of the process of getting it ready to sail? So all these are big questions, and the only easy answer is that any sailor must become intimately familiar with their vessel prior to making long voyages beyond sight of land. The easiest way to become familiar with a boat so that it is not a stranger but rather a trusted old friend is to do a lot of weekend coastal cruising with it, while you work all the bugs out. Also, the more projects and upgrades you do yourself the more familiar you will be with how they work, how to maintain them and how to fix them again if anything every goes wrong. To depend on the expertise of professionals left behind in a port in a distant country you cleared out of months ago is only to invite future disaster...and its also much harder on the wallet. So any time you can add to your own skills and knowledge of your own boat by doing your own work, or hiring a professional to help you do it yourself, you are preparing yourself for future success as a cruiser. Any boat, even a brand new boat, will have things about it that you want to change or upgrade or move or install prior to making long voyages. The better questions to ask are: “What is the proper amount of maintenance and upgrades that I will make to my vessel prior to setting sail? How many things need to be changed or fixed before I leave the continental US? How many projects will I work on, as little projects along the way, when I have a slow day at a boring anchorage and there are no cruiser parties to attend and no interesting conversations of the side channels of the VHF. How many projects are absolutely vital to get accomplished before I begin actively using the boat as a full time residence and a floating RV that can sail to any country with a coastline?” How many projects do I want to tackle myself if it means I can save literally tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price of a boat, and how much more ultimate value do I get for my money by buying a larger or more seaworthy boat with a few bigger projects to tackle, than if I buy a smaller or more flimsy boat that is cleaned up nicer and has fewer problems to address. (Remember the ultimate cosmic law of boating – even if you can't see any problems at all with a boat, and no projects needing doing, as soon as you own it and begin to sail it, you will start to find those quirks and bugs) So don't fool yourself into believing that you can simply buy a shiny new boat from a broker at full market value, or even by paying more than boat blue book value, to avoid ever having to make repairs or upgrades. Any experienced sailor or boating professional other than someone selling fancy new boats will admit to you that there is no such boat other than a “project boat.” The only question is “What are the projects and how much money will I save by doing them myself versus hiring someone else to complete them?” Every boat that I have ever bought or ever sold, which is now many dozens of them, had varying degrees of things needing to be improved about it. Even the brand new boats straight from the showroom floor or boat show sales dock will need bottom painting and new zincs and fuel cleansing treatments and oil changes and manifold and riser inspections within a matter or months of casual weekend use. The longer any boat sits without the proper level of loving regular maintenance the faster it will deteriorate, and tiny 15 minute projects will turn into hour-long projects and hour-long projects will turn into day-long or week-long projects due to continuing neglect. The quality of the build is also important. A cheap boat will have cheap boat problems, and it will have serious issues far faster and more frequently than a very well built boat from an esteemed yacht designer and builder even if the better boat looks worse initially. In many ways you are better off to buy an older and more well regarded vessel in worse “first impressions” condition than to buy a shiny and well kept cheaper new boat. In the long run the better boat will cause far fewer headaches once you have it restored fully and you are taking care of it yourself, whereas the cheap but glossy boat may still look new and shiny for years, but begin having serious and costly problems that cannot be seen even while it still looks great in Facebook boat pictures. Boating is like riding a horse or driving a high performance sports car. You always have to be involved in the life of your boat whether you use it frequently or not. But this is not a bad thing, because it is part of the pride of ownership, and the regular maintenance and upkeep and small projects is what enables you to avoid the big ones or to at least know which big ones you need to do sooner and which ones can wait till later. As you will guess by now, I'm a bit of a philosopher sailor when it comes to helping folks find just the right boat to serve their needs. I am currently writing a book on that very topic which will be called, “The Seven Questions of Cruising (or) the Seven Questions you should ask yourself before buying a Boat.” Here is a quick preview of the questions you should be trying to answer from the introduction to my new book.---
When you go to buy a boat, especially if it is your first boat, there are a lot of decisions to be made and hard choices to figure out. Before you begin searching for the correct vessel to serve your needs, you need to first ask yourself, (and your cruising partners/ spouse etc) some important questions which will help you immensely in the quest to find the perfect small ship to suit your needs. Question Number 1- Where do you want to sail to (now and also possibly in the future)? #2 – Who might be going with you and/or who might want to visit you and stay on the boat with you once you get to that exotic foreign port (if global cruising is your goal) or that incredible weekend getaway spot (if weekend cruising is your thing). #3 – How much do you want to spend on this adventure called boating/sailing/? Also, how much “can” you afford to spend if you happen to take a wrong turn with the adventure and “need” to spend more money to fix a problem or get yourself or your stalwart side-kick (your boat) out of trouble? #4 – How handy are you? (i.e. - Are you someone who naturally takes pride in your ability to figure it out yourself, or are you the person who would rather call an “expert” and pay them to solve whatever problem you are having? #5 – How much time do you have to save yourself money, because in sailing, as well as in life in general “time often equals money.” #6 – Are you a weekend warrior and/or charter sailor, or do you want to cruise full time? #7 – Do you care more about Getting There or more about “Being There” once you have arrived? If I had more time, I would go into deeper discussion of how each of these important questions affects your choice of boat and how you can use those questions to determine if this particular boat is the best one to suit your needs and dreams. However, this is already about the longest Ebay auction text in history, so if you want to discuss all that more fully and chat more about the particular little projects and tasks that need to be done to restore this boat to full world cruising status, then I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone for a few minutes. Feel free to give me a call at 970 319-4361. -William This boat is a boat that needs some basic skill level improvements and restorations, but nothing that can't be done by a person with average handy skills over the coarse of a few weekends while they are taking breaks in between weekend sailing trips. All that said, with a no reserve auction, the best thing about this boat is that you may be able to invest a few weekends of your own labor and some affordable materials into restoring it into the valuable and glamorous boat that it easily could become again, and yet you have an opportunity to purchase it at a mere fraction of its restored market value. To build this same boat today, the way it was constructed when it was new and using the same quality materials in today's product and labor costs would cost well over $150,000 to the boat builder, before even adding the sales broker's mark up. And so, a new boat built as well as this classic would typically cost about $250K or more after the marketing, distribution and brokers fees. So all that said, here is your opportunity to get a heck of a sturdy world cruising vessel for dimes on the dollar.Good luck bidding. I hope it goes to a good home. Call me if you want to arrange to go and see the boat in person or if you have any other questions about it. Remember, payment is due in full within 24 hours. Thanks, William 970 319-4361
| Cheoy Lee Shipyard has been owned and operated by the same family for more than a century. As a building and a repair yard at Po Tung Point in Shanghai, Cheoy Lee began producing steam powered craft. After 1936, the business moved to what was then the British territory of Hong Kong. By the mid 1950's, the shipyard diversified into the production of teak sailing and motor yachts and the success of the newly formed pleasure craft division was soon apparent. By the mid 1960's, a majority of the company's production was pleasure craft, with large numbers being exported to the United States. During the 1960's, Cheoy Lee was one of the pioneers in the development, testing and use of fiberglass construction techniques and a forerunner in the use of GRP/Foam sandwich technology in the marine field. In 1977, Cheoy Lee built a 130' motor sailer, the world's largest GRP vessel of the time. Other than on a strictly custom basis, Cheoy Lee stopped building sailing yachts in 1990 to concentrate on large Motor Yachts. To accommodate this expansion, the company moved to a new purpose-built, state-of-the-art shipyard facility in mainland China. History of the Cheoy Lee Company
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