The Hunter 37 cutter

So I mentioned in a previous post that in our search for a newer, larger boat, we thought it made sense to minimize the uncertainty inherent in used boat purchase by sticking close to a model and design that we are familiar with: the John Cherubini designed late 70s/early 80s Hunters. I also lamented that few were for sail in the Pacific Northwest market. Well, a couple weeks ago, a 37 foot cutter of that provenance came on the market, and so when Mandy and I were on our way back to Port Hadlock on Monday, we swung up through Anacortes to take a look at it.

I had high hopes. Thirty-seven feet seems just enough larger to accomodate our needs without being too expensive to maintain or too difficult to maneuver. The 37 cutters also occupy a special place in the Cherubini lore, being reputed as some of the finest sailing, most livable boats produced by the Hunter/Cherubini matchup. They are the among the few Hunter models that have been broadly accepted as long-distance, blue-water boats, and the owners almost universally seem to love them.

We didn't love it. I really wanted to; this particular vessel was priced a little higher than what we want to spend, but there are others for sale across the country in our range and assuming the design basics were all right, we might have picked up one of them just as easily. This one was in fine shape, recently re-powered, and no doubt worth the asking price. But too many of the features that we really like about our current Cherubini Hunter were missing or terribly flawed on this model.

One of my biggest personal complaints about our current boat is the size of the head/shower. I literally don't fit well enough to take a shower... can't wash my feet! It is unavoidable on the 33, there just isn't enough room. But the shower compartment on the 37 is even smaller! The head is located forward, too, which I find a fatal drawback in many American built cruisers. There is just too much motion up there in rough seas for a safe and tidy completion of necessary bodily functions.

The mast is keel-stepped, as opposed to our current deck-stepped model. That may make it stronger, but it also makes it more susceptible to leaks, which this one had, even though it was a very well-maintained boat.

The internal stowage was also lacking. We have come to rely on the relatively large spaces under our settees and under and atop the pilot berth on our current boat for storage and when packed correctly, everything we need fits in just right. On the 37, and on other models in that range we've looked at, there is greatly increased tankage, and typically the tanks are located under the settees. On the 37, this isn't even replaced by space under the v-berth (where our water tank is located) because that's where the holding tank is at. Notwithstanding the queasy thought of sleeping on top of the sewage, that just doesn't leave a lot of room. Presumably the cockpit locker and lazarette are much larger (the salesman didn't seem too interested in actually selling the boat; he didn't bother to unlock any of those hatches so we could take a look, and didn't seem to know or care much about the boat itself) but those spaces are inaccessible much of the time and unsuitable for many of the items we currently stow in the cabin. The quarterberth is not much larger than ours, and the space beneath it is taken up by the fuel tank.

The galley layout was not particularly appealing; the chain locker was tiny; the nav desk was small; engine access was poor; there was very little hanging locker space; there were no good candidate areas for creating a work space. These are all areas in which, despite moving up to a physically larger boat, we felt we would actually be taking a step back from what we have now, or at least not gaining in the particular requirements that we feel are not already being met.

This was a real let-down, because there are some other very positive qualities. The size of the fleet and the iconic nature makes the 37 cutters generally quite well documented and easily supported... the community on hunterowners.com is very active and helpful. Problems with the model and their solutions have been thoroughly discussed and explored. The build quality is something we can judge from our own boat, produced in the same shop in the same era. The sailing performance is supposed to be excellent, which is important to us as we prefer to sail, in situations where others are often forced to motor. And the Hunter name, much reviled in sailing circles, tends to push the price down despite the respected designer.

I suppose I was hoping that we could short-circuit the hard job of doing legwork and research to find a replacement boat by leveraging what we already know, in the same way that a lot of folks will stick with a brand as they are up-sizing. In this case, though, it doesn't look like that trick is going to work, and I feel like I am back at square one.

It's a given that all boats represent a compromise of some sort between price, livability, and performance. I don't think the particular combination that I am looking for is out of reach. There are any number of newer designs that have exactly what I want, which are priced in the same range that Hunters traditionally have been. In thirty years, they'll be exactly what I am looking for. But it seems that thirty years ago, no one was putting together those particular combinations of features.

At this point, I really don't know what to look at. There is very little in the Pacific Northwest in our price and size range and we don't have much of a travel budget to be out looking at other options. It looks like we probably will not be putting Insegrevious on the market this year after all, without a clear idea of what we might be looking at for a replacement. It's a bit of a let down, but I guess I am getting used to not having any really solid plans for the future by now, so perhaps not as much of a let down as it might otherwise have been.