1984 Endeavour 38
Name: Bob & Marylou Tressler bobbolink@aol.com
Boat Name: Carousel
Year: 1984
Size: 38' sloop
Date Purchased: 1994Previous Owner History:
Bought original--did little to enhance boat--neglected and unused for 2yrs prior to our purchase.Your Sailing Experience:
18yrs: 1st boat Kells 23, then O'Day 25, Catalina 30. Bought E38 strictly for cruising. Also own J22 for flat out racing.Boat Review:
We absolutly love this boat! Plan on keeping her into retirement. Most modern boats don't have as much interior volume. Not as pretty either. COuld use more water and fuel capacity for distance cruising. 27hp Yanmar just adequate. We added Navico undre deck autopilot, Autohelm Radar, Garmin GPS tied to laptop navigation system, Delta anchor package, Simpson Lawrence windlass, killer sterio, and various other goodies. When we got her, the wood around the port shower was rotten. Removed it, re-bedded port, replaced wood with white formica. Made sense for shower, looks like it belongs there. Floor in forpeak was soft and discolored. Replaced last winter, now I feel I should do the whole boat. Procrastinating on that one. She moves and tracks well on a reach, points so-so. Overall we are very happy with her.Given how heavy she is she just pounds straight through the waves giving a fairly steady ride. I have had a cup of coffee sitting next to me at the helm throught 8 footers with out spilling a drop. But she will give you a wet ride since she is so stable, her bow will go into the waves a flick off the crest and send it pouring back, so a dodger is a must. She has a wide transom so sometimes if the waves are pretty substantial she can be uncomfortable on a run or broad reach with big waves. But I have heard this about other smaller transomed boats as well.
The center comes with a 40 hp Yanmar, the aft cockpit has a 30 hp Yanmar. She will motor very well reaching hull speed at quite a low RPM, so you have plenty in reserve when you are battling wind and wave. (the rule of thumb is 1.5 hp per 1,000 pounds, so at 18,000 she would need at least 27 hp. So the Aft cockpit qualifies and the Center cockpit is more than adequately powered.) On my cruises the wind has tended to be on the nose, as it is for most cruisers, so motoring is a big deal. The only problem of motoring is that the wide transom tends to get smoked up, typical for Yanmar engines and you need to keep up on scrubbing it to keep it clean.
The other great advantage of the Center Cockpit is that she is so easy to sail single-handed.
The mainsheet is directly behind the helmsperson, the two primarys are on either side of the helmsperson on top of the coaming within easy reach (My two primarys are electric which greatly adds to her single-handed ability).
The only disadvantages of the center cockpit is the low coamings are not the best for back support, but I purchased a product called Sport-a-Seat that works great giving back support (www.sportaseat.com). The boat when I got her five years ago was in super condition with the exception of the exterior woodwork that had peeling varnish. I redid the wood with Sikkens Cetol Marine coating and it looks great. But there is alot of wood on her, betweeen the handrails and trim piece along the cabin house and especially along the large toe rail. With all the wood refinished she really does shine but be aware of the larger maintenance this causes.
The interior layout has a lot of pluses, great aft stateroom, great aft head, great galley with huge fridge, standard forward stateroom, standard forward head, very nice nav station. The disadvantage is a slightly small saloon with a very awkward circular table/seating arrangement for dining. Overall I am very happy with the boat and know other Endeavour owners with a 33 footer, and aft cockpit 38 that are also very happy with their boats.