Talk me out of a Tayana 52

[Brenden72]

Does anyone know if the Tayana 52 has a bolt on keel..or is it a complete one piece mould..? Kind regards...Brenn.

[Muaddib1116]

I would be shocked if it was not bolt on. Bob Perry did not shy away from external lead keels.

[jbalduck]

Originally Posted by Katapult Mike

Carl, much wisdom in your post, I especially agree with the two snips above. This is central to my thinking on my search.

Can you expand on the importance of a fresh water toilet? What is wrong with sea water for this purpose?

I changed out all my heads with freshwater on my Tayana 52. The stink from standing water did me in. Now the boat has no smell.

[jbalduck]

Originally Posted by Brenden72

Does anyone know if the Tayana 52 has a bolt on keel..or is it a complete one piece mould..? Kind regards...Brenn.

No bolts, complete one piece keel. At least mine is lol.

[lifeofreilly57]

I have a Cheoy Lee 47 Pedrick, It came with teak decks which were getting thin and maintenance hungry. My sons, wife and I removed the teak decks and I re-glasses the entire deck with a layer of glass and resin. The boys removed 3000 screws when they were 8 and 10, they were on a mission. Of course the teak decks and they're condition were figured into the purchase price.
I had the boat three years before replacing the teak decks, I fond they were too much maintenance and were quite hot in the sun, requiring buckets of sea water through the day to cool them.
Its a bit of work to replace them, but well worth it, a properly done new deck will last for at least a decade before needing touch up, if painted light gray they're not hot in the tropical sun either.
All told it cost about $2000.00 in materials and about 200 hours of labor, but has saved me endless hours of maintenance and actually increased the boats value. Just make sure to figure that into the offer.
How ambitious are you feeling? Teak sure looks nice, until you have to spend endless hours maintaining it. Unless your low for hobbies and need to kill time.

[Green Pearl]

I sailed on Northstar in 2022, Fiji to New Zealand. What a great boat. 39 knots coming into NZ, 4 meter seas. Currently being refitted I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHPxUdOvDyI

Originally Posted by Stevew

Won't try to talk you out of a T52, having owned a 1988 CC model since 2009. We have tens of thousands of miles under her keel and she has always taken better care of us than we could of her at times. We left from the east coast in the Caribbean 1500 in 2009 and have sailed her to Fiji so far and almost everywhere in between. We love her. Don't know what your cruising plans are, but that will have a large impact on how well you and your vessel will get along. We have lived aboard almost full time, since 2009, until Covid separated us for a over a year now and probably won't get back to her till next May it seems. But, she is in a cyclone pit with some good folks tending to her in Fiji.

The previous owner had North Star painted Flag Blue with teak decks and very well maintained and equipped. We decided to spend a year aboard in the Caribbean before making any major changes which was an excellent idea it turned out. After a year we were in Cartagena, CO and had some major work done there and were very happy with the outcome. We removed the teak decks which were starting to get a little thin in some areas. We were surprised to find molded in non-skid fiberglass decks below the teak. Anyway, we filled the 10,000 screw holes in the decks and had 2 spots on the side decks of wet coring where we had to remove the fiberglass top deck, remove the wet core and refiberglass the areas. A large area around the windless also was repaired as well. We then put three layers of glass and then gelcoated the entire top deck with non-skid. We also had a hardtop fabricated and replaced the dodger bimini canvas top with a new full cockpit enclosure attached to the hardtop. We then had the entire hull awlgripped Cloud White and also the usual bottom job.

This is an example of what I meant above about how you do you intend to use the boat. The previous owner was perfectly happy with our boat Flag Blue, and she was beautiful, but he wasn't in the tropics during the summer. During the summer his sailing grounds tended to be Maine and similar locations. One summer near the equator living aboard full time convinced us that was a bad idea. One day I shot my transom exterior and it was 130F and the teak deck was about the same on a 90F day with full sun. Now, my deck temp is whatever the air temp is in full sun. It dropped the temps inside by 20F. It actually meant that after the paint change you had to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube again instead of having to be careful not to have it just run out on the counter from the heat. Sleeping was improved 150%. We had 2 weeks in August in Bonaire where we thought we would drown in our sweat at night, zero wind. The hardtop also gave us much cooler and needed shelter from the sun, but also added a lot of safety to our vessel. When we had the SS fabricated we put a 1"SS safety rail up both sides of the hard top which has proven much safer for getting in and out of the cockpit in a gale and huge seas, providing lots of strong handholds and clipping locations.

I can safely handle her singlehanded with out concern although it is usually the wife and I. We do have all roller furling sails that can be handled from the cockpit. The main is in-boom roller furling. The boat came with the Hood in-mast system but was replaced with the in-boom system before we got her. We only have one electric winch for raising, lowering and reefing the main which is a full batten main.

Finally, she sails like a dream, is fast and seakindly and takes good care of her crew. Our previous boat was a Hunter 42. A good boat, but not nearly as good as the Tayana in big rough weather. We spent 2 days hove to in 40-50 knot winds with 5+ meter seas on a 1600m passage from New Zealand to Fiji and had relatively good comfort and the boat pretty much tended herself. Something I would not have wanted to do in the Hunter for sure. Although, the Hunter was a perfectly good boat for us sailing around Florida and the Bahamas for 10 years prior buying North Star.

Gone on long enough, but you get the idea. I'm also on the Tayana users group which is great, but not a lot for the T52. There is now also a T-52 FB owners group if you are interested. BTW, in almost every anchorage someone will stop by just tell you have a beautiful boat, which is alway nice.

Any specific questions ask away. I'm just here in Florida wasting good cruising time while Covid eats up our cruising years.