Sailordave wrote:Bluenose wrote:Is this the boat that you saw?
If so, I can go on endlessly about them as my last boat was a Bluenose Sloop.
Cheers, Bill
YEP! That's the one. The yard removed the teak slats on the aft deck and it had a round porthole in the cuddy I believe, but that's it. They did a GREAT job on it. Sanded the hull bare and in doing so found to hole saw sized patches on the keel. Turns out there were a couple doz. crumpled beer cans in the hollow section of the keel! They removed them and patched it up.
Sailor Dave,
Well I don't know how much info you are really looking for or if you are seriously looking or just enamored. But I will share a few thoughts. First off, here is a link to an old Sailnet forum thread that I started to get info and advice about the Bluenose Sloop before I launched mine.
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/buying-bo ... nyone.html
I was specifically looking for a response from Jeff_H and he jumped in with both feet. Much of what he says about the Bluenose, and many other open raceboat of similar design is very true. But within that context, I think it is a great little boat.
The Bluenose I had was my first real boat and my reintroduction to sailing after a 20 year sabbatical. I daysailed her without an engine in the San Juan Islands for four years and loved every minute of it. Even knowing that Bolero was on the way, it was hard to sell her.
Okay, specifics. With a displacement of 2050 lbs and 900 lbs of ballast they are quite stiff for their size and carry a large sail plan. The working sail area is around 225 sq ft and with a genoa 250 sq ft. This results in a healthy sail area to displacement ratio of 22 and 26. They sail very well in light winds and with a draft of a little more than 3 1/2 ft they can sail in thin water.
I always felt that the Bluenose was an overgrown dinghy. They turn on a dime and are small enough to fend off a mistake, well a small mistake anyway.
The down side is also that they are an overgrown dinghy. Their era means that 24 ft on deck only gives you 16 ft on the waterline. She would hobby horse in chop and they have a pretty flat section forward of the keel that pounded. And even though they are stiff for their size mine was easily overpowered in the dense, gusty winds during fall sailing.
They have a minuscule cuddy cabin and a huge cockpit with inadequate drains so they are mostly daysailors or racers. That said, the friend who bought mine has already spent several weekends camping aboard. So anything is possible.
Above all else, the Bluenose Sloop is a sailors sailboat. I also think they are stunning boats but the sailing is far more beautiful than than her looks.
That concludes my highly predujiced view of the Bluenose Sloop. Fell free to ask if you have any questions.
Cheers, Bill
Edit: In case my marketing wasn't enticing enough, here is the Bluenose Sloop brochure from McVay.
