Connie, But I'll bet you made a few marks on the NE38. And a free summer of sailing. Not many can say that. Bill Riker M15 - #184 Storm Petrel -----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats-bounces+wriker=mindspring.com@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces+wriker=mindspring.com@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of chbenneck@juno.com Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 8:22 PM To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: M_Boats: Working, working, cruising, cruising - long Hi Jerry, Thanks for the compliment. I think we all learn the hard way. In '84 I was on a business trip to Germany; bought the German "Die YACHT" magazine. I found an ad for the big brother of our Tripp-Lentsch 29 - a Northeast 38, (another Bill Tripp design done at about the same time as the Bermuda 40 that Hinkley built) that a sailing club in Hamburg wanted to sell. My son and I went and had a very brief external look of a big boat in a shelter. I made a ridiculous offer. It was accepted. So for 50,000 DM, in those days at the then current exchange rate $15,000, I became the owner of a 38 foot boat. Newly overhauled Volvo diesel engine New stainless steel fuel tank 10 bags of sails - all checked out and repaired by a sail maker. pots and pans utensils engine spare parts: shrouds; wheel steering cables; fittings tools inflatable dinghy (that had a leak) full instrumentation - radio, depth sounder, log We picked up the boat the following summer in Hamburg, and took it on a 5 week cruise through the Danish islands, to find out what sort of problems I had acquired................. The intent was, find out the problems; decide on what needed fixing; and the following year go back to Hamburg, pick up the repaired boat and then sail the boat back to the USA. However, after sailing it for five weeks my Admirable and I came to a conclusion: It obviously had a lot more cabin space - but for us two, totally unnecessary. It had two pull out berths in the main cabin plus two outboard berths, but what do you do with them? Use them to throw a hat on them or a chart? Yes, it had a three burner stove with oven, and you could stand in front of it and work in the galley. On the T-L 29 you had to rest one knee on the Stbd berth or on the P berth to cook or wash dishes. So, after our Denmark cruise, when we were home again contemplating our navels, we came to the conclusion that the 38' was just too big for us. The crew was out of the house............. If I dropped the main and it didn't hit the boom crutch, there was no way the Admirable could pick up the boom - about a 17' long solid spruce roller furling boom - and drop it in the boom crutch. Too heavy. So while a long slog to windward in a 38' was a much softer and easier ride for the crew, the weight of the ship became a big minus point. We weren't getting younger: and our children, the former crew, were off doing their own things............. So, though we had a great sail for five weeks, we decided to sell it again and stick with our T-L 29. The moral of the story - don't be over boated - even if it is cheap and it is hard to resist! Smaller is definitely better................ Connie _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats