Can you Tell What Boat This Is?

Discussions about Cape Dory, Intrepid and Robinhood sailboats and how we use them. Got questions? Have answers? Provide them here.

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bhartley
Posts: 449
Joined: Aug 23rd, '05, 09:26
Location: Sea Sprite #527 "Ariel"
CD25D #184 "Pyxis"

CDSOA Member #785

Sprites

Post by bhartley »

Ariel is a 1973 Wickford built boat. From the photos, the boat you are looking at is a Wickford hull (the stern deck on a Ryder hull is radically different). They did not have encapsulated keels. No big deal. Again, I would really recommend the vast information available over on the Sea Sprite forum.

Image

Based on the information you provided, this boat has been totally rebuilt/restored (at full yard rates by professionals). If you wanted to buy a Sea Sprite and you weren't a DIY'er, she is a good candidate. Everything that can go wrong (pretty much) has been replaced.

A boat is a hole in the water you pour money in to. Think of the money you are saving!

Come on over the the SS forum....

Bly
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Sea Hunt
Posts: 1310
Joined: Jan 29th, '06, 23:14
Location: Former caretaker of 1977 Cape Dory Typhoon Weekender (Hull #1400) "S/V Tadpole"

Post by Sea Hunt »

Hello Bly:

I just spent about 60 minutes on the Sea Sprite website and forum discussion section. I honestly felt like I was cheating on my girlfriend :!: :(

Anyway, from what I can gather there is more confusion on that website about Wickford Shipyard and/or CE Ryder. Apparently, from what I can understand there was not a lot of consistently in production design. CE Ryder did some prep work on hulls and sent some to Wickford and vice versa. After an hour I had to stop searching. I got a headache :(

They also had many different opinions about hull identification numbers as they pertained to the SS 23 series. Apparently both CE Ryder and Wickford Shipyard used the same hull numbers for their respective mfg. :!: :!: Now that's not too confusing.

I also tried to research the issue of the hull separation at the keel on a bolted on keel. There seemed to be one guy (Robert Granier) who knows a lot about SS 23s. He suggested in a post that this is probably not a big issue. I, nevertheless, remain troubled by this issue.

While the Sea Sprite site appears to be nice, I must candidly state it is not close to the quality of this site - especially in format, ease of access to issues, maneuvering within the site, etc. I am not sure who handles this kind of stuff for the CDSOA board, but they sure know what they are doing :!:

At the risk of wearing thin my welcome, I will try to keep the board posted on developments with this SS 23. I may make an offer but I am just afraid of buying a lemon and winding up not being able to make lemonade.

I really do not want to risk throwing away $5,000 - $6,000 on a risky venture. A Cape Dory seems a much, much more solid investment.

Fair winds,
Fair winds,

Robert

Sea Hunt a/k/a "The Tadpole Sailor"
CDSOA #1097
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