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Easterly 30 Keeler


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What do you guys know about the Easterly 30 Keeler?

 

Goal is coastal cruising, i.e. Hauraki gulf, sail to Bay of Islands and further up, longer term goal sailing around NZ.

 

I was looking at H28, but the Easterly 30 definitely has more room, a lot wider.

 

I'm interested in how it sails. What would be typical speeds if trimmed well and with favourable winds?

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 as I understand it Easterly 30s are great boats, stiff and while theres more to it than just that, you could make worse choices. I maybe wrong (again) but I think a few have gone farther afield quite successfully

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I'd definitely go for the easterly over an H28. They are a better sail boat, both are pretty slow by today's standards but capable sea boats.

They are getting old now so make sure you get a good marine surveyor and listen to what he says carefully.

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My dad built the original chined version of this. To my knowledge only 2 of them were ever built (Searcher and Mischief) before the plans were drawn up for a round bilge production variant. Both launched in the late '60s. They rated 1/2 ton and performed quite well, but they very quickly got outdated by the Cavs, Lidgards and many other 1/2 ton designs through the '70s. Searcher went to Noumea in 71 and placed quite well amongst a pretty competitive fleet of 1 tonners.

From my memory, the Cavs were just a click faster, being a larger boat but the racing was always close.

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About 10 years ago there was an article in Boating NZ about affordable boats you could sail to Fiji.  The Easterly got an OK review, but the Davidson 31 and Cav 32 were rated slightly better.

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I did a lot of sailing on Easterly 30s in the late 70s.  Fine cruising and sea boats except for the limitation of their age today.  They felt similar to a Cav 32 at sea.  They were slow, even by the standards of the day, but they felt bullet-proof.

 

The late Tony Corbett (ex BBYC commodore) soloed Karona back from Mooloolaba after racing there circa 1981 (or was it '83?).

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