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Hello,
First off, I'm having a great time reading all about DE's and everything everyone has posted on this site and all I can say is, wow, you all are doing a great job and as a new DE38 owner, it's really helping me out. Thanks!!!
As for me, I just purchased a 1975 DE38 Cutter, off Ebay, "sight unseen." I can't recommend this course of action for the faint of heart and it took an amazing amount of faith to press the buy button, but I figured how bad could it really be. The pictures looked ok-ish, the description seemed good and it was a donated boat being sold by a good cause organization, so I thought, nothing ventured - nothing gained. And to my surprise, it wasn't full of hobos or raccoon and after emptying my wallet of that annoying cash, she was mine. Yes, she needs lots of work ( what neglected boat doesn't) but seems solid and I'm excited to get going on her.
First job - Replace the blown up Pathfinder diesel ( knew that from the description). This job is in the works with the purchase of a used Perkins 4-108 which I hope to be installing in a few weeks.
Second Job - Pull the mast and fix the compression post. The sole wood under the post is rotted out and some of the outside of the post is looking pretty cruddy too, so the plan is to pull it and see what I have to work with. I'm not sure how I'm going to fix it yet, but I have seen some ideas off this site and other DE's, so once I get it out, I'm hoping for an epiphany
Anyway, overall, I'm very happy with the boat and I'm just blown away by her looks and size. My last boat was a Bruce Roberts 37 ( which I sailed from Baltimore to the Keys ) and I thought that boat had deck space. Geez, the DE38 is huge!!! …maybe I’ll just put a couch on the deck and drink beer instead of doing real work for the summer.
Thank you again for all the great content on this site and I hope to hear from you all in the future.
Mike – S/V Boat Nectar ( formerly known as Bliss )
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Mike,
Great to have you join all us other DE suckers (ummm I mean owners 🙂 lol..
They are great boats and given the age you are in good company with those of us that are also refurbishing our boats. Though I haven't done many write ups in the last few years, we have completed a lot of projects on our DE38 Valkyr. This month alone so far we have glued down 325 watts of solar to the newly built and painted custom hard dodger (custom just means I did it. Got what I paid for but it works 🙂 🙂 lol.. We have also pulled out the vinyl headliner on the port and starboard aft cabin faces, inside, behind the galley and chart table, and replaced it with wood panels with integrated teak shelves. I also have almost finished fabricating a new monitor mount for the computer at the chart table that a 24 inch monitor is hung one that articulates such that it will fold up out of the way in the overhead, swing aft to just inside the companionway so that you can use it as a chart plotter from the helm, swing around to use for movies in the salon, or just use it in front of the chart table. The new computer that runs it is a small tower that is bolted to the bulkhead under and starboard of the chart table foot well. The new custom built i7 computer draws 17 watts and monitor draws 21 watts when in use.
That's this month.. we have been working on her for 3 years now and I can't even remember all the stuff that we have done. I think its a lifestyle. One day in the near future I am going to start turning all the photos of these projects into articles to publish on the site. I hope that as you refurbish your boat that you will take a few pictures and write up your projects also. That is how we have built such a great resource here on the website for all the owners. I know that a lot of people will be really interested in your repair the mast step/compression post project.
Right now there are two or three other owners doing minor to complete rebuilds of their boats. I'm sure as you post your projects on here that they will show up to comment or share their experiences with similar projects to what your working on.
Scott
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Thanks Scott for the comments and it sounds like you have lots of experience with working on these boats. And I'm sure I'll be asking you for suggestions down the road. Also, you have yourself a nice computer setup!
Like several other DE owners, I plan to document all the work I'm doing too since their info is really helping me out already and I'd like to return the favor - and maybe I can help others out too.
http://www.boatnectar.com will be up and running soon. I'm working on getting it setup now ( just bought the domain and hosting a few days ago ) so it will be a little bit before it's live.
Stay in touch
Mike
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