Messages

I bought a C34 in Huntington, NY this past December and shipped it to NB, Canada. I used

Irwin Palmer - Accredited Marine Surveyor 2001
Palmer Yacht Surveys, LLC
28 Catherwood Crescent
Melville, New York 11747-1508
631-427-6913 -O
ipalmer28@optonline.net
Specialty: Yachts, Small Craft

I took a chance and had him do the survey, then based on a positive survey, booked my trip to NY. Irwin met me at the boat and went over the survey (for no additional cost). I figured being out the cost of the survey was actually cheaper then being out the cost of the trip.

I called irwin yesterday and discovered that he's deceased.

I am also a relative newbie to boat ownership, and i am sure that others with a lot more experience will weigh in.  Anyway here is my opinion

Radar - if you already have a chartplotter that can display the radar image, the actual array rums about 1-2k.  If you don't have a chartplotter, i would invest in that before radar.  That would cost 5-800 plus installation if you hire it out.  I had a local electronocs co replace 2 transducers, change my binnacle guard, build a mounting bracket, install a NMEA2000 network, all for abput 1k.  Hopefully you would not need all of that. If you need to buy a chartplotter, I would wait until November to buy it.  I bought a Garmin 741xs for about S700 last wimter.  List is $1100, best sale in summer is about $900. If you already have a radar compatible chartplotter, installing the radar is just mounting the array and running the wire to the back of the chartplotter.  Degree of difficulty based on where you want to mount it. You can mount on a pole off your pushpit, or on the front of the mast.  I have no experience there, so i will defer to others.

Sail - If i were to replace any sail, i would find a local sail loft. I am luckynto have one in town.  The manager would ask ypu queagions about hpw and where you sail and design it exactly for your needs.  Regarding loose-footed- I have no 8dea.  I will let someone else com,ent.

That is my 2 cents. I just did all of this this spring and would be happy to tell you anything else abput my experiences.  Feel free to pm me with your phone #.

Thanks, I will be replacing the chart plotter so I'll make sure find one that will display radar for future compatibility.

We just added radar to our C387 (I am a former C34 owner) and it was approximately $1800 between the Raymarine radome, the cables, and the mount.  We did the installation ourselves.  Whether or not you need to unstep depends on where you mount the radome.  You can install it on a pole off the stern or you can install it on the mast.  If on the mast, the mast is going to need to come down for the installation.  The cable from the radome runs down the inside of the mast and feeds into the boat through the channel in the compression post.  As far as I know, there is no way to do that without taking the mast down.  It also would be very difficult to install the mount (ours is riveted) and the radome with the mast up. 

As to the sail, you can install a loose-footed mainsail on a C34.  I had issues with the outhaul on our boat so I don't know how worthwhile it would have been to have had a loose-footed mainsail. 

For sail lofts, I agree with the comment about using someone local so long as you have some degree of confidence in them and they are competitive in price.  It is a pain and expensive to have to ship a sail back to a loft if there is an issue.  But we have used non-local lofts for our sails and have had good results as well.     

I assume you used a pole mount?

Greetings,

I'm in the process of negotiating the purchase of a 2003 MK II and I've been reviewing _ALL_ the articles on this forum to avoid asking any unnecessary questions.  There are 2 issues I'm researching now, and I'm hoping for some advice.

1) No Radar
This boat has no radar installed.  I don't think I'll need radar right away but I'm looking for a rough estimate of the cost to add it, I know it will be dependent on the particular unit but is it fair to say that installing radar will cost at least $3,000.00? More, less??  Will I need to step the mast for this to be done?

2) Main sail needs to be replaced
Are there preferred or recommended lofts to purchase from?  Catalina direct, etc?  The foot of my main sail is attached to the boom, can I go with a loose footed sail instead?

Thanks