Looking at a Hans Christian 43

[Luigi3188]

Hello,

Ok, the prevailing advice seems to be that if we decide to pursue this boat we should make our offer contingent on a survey and a sea trial. BTW the boat has been either in fresh water or indoor storage since 2000.

Cheechako, thanks for joining in. How long have you had your Hans? What do you think the pros and cons of her are?

Luigi

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Luigi3188

Hello,

Ok, the prevailing advice seems to be that if we decide to pursue this boat we should make our offer contingent on a survey and a sea trial. BTW the boat has been either in fresh water or indoor storage since 2000.

Cheechako, thanks for joining in. How long have you had your Hans? What do you think the pros and cons of her are?

Luigi

I no longer have the Hans..
pros: superb interior, built like a brick Sh*# house!
Cons: make sure yours has a good size engine, the 38 just had a 30hp Yanmar... even though it was the old school yanmar (rated at lower rpm) it didnt have the guts to push the boat through heavy chop even motorsailing to weather. The 38 should have had a Perkins 4-108, 50 hp or something like that.
Maintenance is the biggest Con... all that teak everywhere. If it's never been varnished, maybe not so bad... leave it!
It takes a lot to move them... especially to weather. Again.... unless you are on the down wind milk run, plan on it being a motorsailor and make sure it has a big enough engine. That's OK, who wants to sail to weather going 3.5 knots anyway!
The cool looking teak deck storage boxes tend to rot out as they are teak strips glued over oriental ply... which rots. No biggy, just toss them or sell them.
Decks have been mentioned, to some extent it's a matter of philosophy: does a wet core really cause problems? I doubt it unless the boat is built light in the first place. Boats in the 60's were built without deck core, and no... they werent necessarily built thicker than the deck skin on a boat like a Hans Christian. (or even as thick)You can feel the decks flex on those old boats when you walk on them. It doesnt seem to make the boat sink... you're just carrying around some wet balsa!
If you plan on going from NZ to cape horn and around, by all means make sure everything is new and perfect.
Frindes of mine had a Brewer landfall 43. They bought the boat with teak decks that were so bad they were bulging up in spots.... I mean like 3/8" up! They did NOTHING to their boat other than nav gear and eventually bought a new mainsail. They sailed the Caribe for 3 years and returned and sold the boat at the price they paid. No problem. It's not everybodies attitude, but sometimes I wonder why I tried to make everything perfect on my boats.

Finally, beware of what Brokers think a HC is worth. Mine was an excellent example with the teak decks removed and loaded. It sold for 33% less than most were listed for and took 1.5 years to do so.

[waywardsuun]

I have a HC43 ketch that I've been working on for a while in my yard. Remember, its a big boat everything takes more supplies than you would think to work on.

[Capt Phil]

Wow, Luigi... you aren't going to get much better advice than all the stuff you got here! All very valid from experienced cruisers/owners. My only comment other than agreeing with what has been said is that a good friend of mine owned and lived aboard one in San Diego where we were livng aboard and after spending more than a few $ on refit, he had a great looking, safe, comfortable offshore vessel capable of going anywhere. Teak deck was a bit problematic however. I checked out an HC 33 for him a few years ago and was surprised to find the teak deck was screwed from BELOW! As the owner tried to sand down the teak deck to get rid of the ridgeing, he hit the screw ends and had go over the entire deck with a small hole saw, grind down the screw tips from up top and plug the enire deck. He finally gave up and hired some guys to finish the job. But great boats, nonetheless. Phil