1983 Hunter 25 / Cherubini / Owners Questions...

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Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
Hello All...
I just identified a 1983 H25 that I am negotiating to purchase. I love the lines of these Cherubini designed sailboats and it appears that although neglected over the years, she will clean up nicely.

The present owner does not fully understand what he has. He advertised it as a 1985 H23! I doubt he even knows it is a Cherubini! Nonetheless, he knows it is time to pass it along and I am anxious to have at her.

I would love to learn more about the sailing characteristics of the H25 from any of you more seasoned and experienced H25 owners out there.

I also look forward to being an active contributor to this forum as I undertake my new project.

Best,
JB
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,523
Hunter 27_75-84 Sandusky Harbor Marina, Ohio
Congratulations! The h25 is a great boat. Since I have a '77 h27, I'll wait for the h25 owers to answer your question.

In the meantime, under the "Boat Info" tab above, the "Hunter Boat Info" menu will take you to a page where you can select the h25. Then check the Owner reviews for more background and evaluations.
 
Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
Thanks Dave...

Thank you for the reply, Dave.

I did go through all the owner reviews posted and thank you for the suggestion. I secured my purchase today and take delivery of a really nice 1983 Hunter 25 on Saturday morning.

I am very excited. The boat has been neglected somewhat, but I will have her purtied up in no time. I am amazed at the original condition and cannot wait to get my hands on her to begin my restoration.

I know I will have questions along the way and trust that some other H25 owners will be lurking the boards with some advice and guidance as you have shown.
 
Jun 5, 2010
1,107
Hunter 25 Burlington NJ
JB, congrats on the purchase. You have a nice boat (indeed the last of them!) and will find it lovely to sail. The H25s tend to heel over a lot-- this is from being an early-70's hull shape. The later ones are a little more topheavy than the earlier ones and with a bimini top, dodger, gear on deck, etc., this tendency will be increased. Keep as much weight centered fore-and-aft and as low as you can.

The outboard will be a 20-25" shaft only. I am remounting my OB bracket to be lower, but that's only for structural integrity-- the shaft length can't be less than 20" no matter what. A 7.5 will be fine. I would suggest 8 or 9.9 at least. If it is not much more in weight a 15 would be great.

As far as its being an old boat, there are a few things you MUST see to ASAP. Check for a wet deck, especially under the spar, and if it is wet, drain, dehumidify, and drill and fill with epoxy. I added a G-10 plate under my mast step to spread the load a little more, but G-10 is a pain to work with and you might not ever need this.

Also, check for wet bilge and get it dry before seeing to wet bulkhead damage. This can be mended or patched with good plywood properly treated and adhered to the old with epoxy. Same goes for the cabin sole.

As to old rigging, the first thing is to check that it is secure at the hull ends. If the boat is equipped with a headstay furler this becomes even more important. People have pulled up decks trying to tension ill-fitting furler gear.

Most importantly, do not attempt to chintz by using cheap materials or slap-happy methods. You have got a nice older boat. Now treat it like it deserves to be treated (which is probably not how it's been treated recently by POs). With a little love and labor any nice old boat can be a sheer joy to sail-- and then all those people will be asking you what it is, how you got it, and how old it is, all out of admiration and envy as they go back to their 'new' Macgregor 26s.

Lastly these message boards are an excellent source for getting a clue. Most of us truly care about these boats and will lend you the shirts off our backs to get you to sail one again. Have a great time of it and we'll all look forward to seeing your progress.
 
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Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
Thank you Mr. Cherubini...I take it you must be related to the designer in some fashion...?

You are so right about the Outboard shaft length. I had to transport her this morning on very flat, glassy conditions. I had a friend on board. If either of us left the cockpit, the outboard would cavitate out of the water. When in the slip I inspected the outboard braket. I really do not think it can be positioned any better than it is so I am resolved that the best would be to get a longer shaft outboard.

I spent most of this weekend scrubbing the boat. The interior is in nice condition and every square inch has been cleaned and the teak had one good layer of furniture oil. Some good Teak oil will follow later this week.

I got to the exterior today. I am including a photo of the condition I found the boat...there were 3 rusty bikes, rusted lobster traps, all sorts of crap both above and below...what a mess. However, today after about 8 hours of scrubbing, she looks great. She will need the non-skid painted, a really good compound and wax on the topsides, and the teak handrails, trim and hatchboard trim cleaned, and either varnished or oiled. The standing rigging will need attention, and I plan to remove the mast and attend to some of the rigging issues. Sails are good and will get a good cleaning. Running rigging will be changed out.

I also have some electrical issues to resolve in the salon. It appears that what few items need 12v power, seem to be wired right to the battery. A bus bar and some cleaning up that system are in order.

It is interesting that there are no through hull fittings on this boat. The porta potti is just that! The galley sink drains right out the hull! Very simple stuff! I did not have time to inspect but there seems to be a fresh water tank behind the galley and under the starboard locker...I am going to inspect that further to see what I have.

All in all, I am very pleased with her! I cannot wait to get her squared away and out sailing.

Thank you all for the great comments...and other H25 owners...please do not be shy!

Below are two photos of how she looked Friday right before I closed the deal. The others are from today about three hours ago. I took a bunch of other interior and exterior shots that I will upload to a file...so feel free to have a look!
 

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Jun 21, 2007
2,105
Hunter Cherubini 36_80-82 Sausalito / San Francisco Bay
Judging by the size of what looks to be two good quality stereo speakers, seems that you also acquired a floating concert hall in the bargain. Where's the subwoofer mounted? Watch out for harmonic standing wave distortion causing delamination of various critical construction elements.

Obviously just kidding. :dance: She's a very nice looking boat already and you certainly seem to be on top of its clean-up and restoration.

If you don't have a copy of the Cherubini Hunters Owners Manual, try the URL below for a pdf version. The file was uploaded to an internet file sharing site several years ago by forum member Paul F. The site isn't intuitive to use. Upon landing on the page, you should see a seconds count-down occuring in a circle. When it reaches zero, you will see a red "DOWNLOAD FILE NOW" appear just above the circle. Click on that and direct where to save on your computer. I didn't get any McAffee virus warnings. This manual covers all the Cherubini Hunters from 22ft up to 37ft. Towards the end of the pdf file are drawings of each boat, along with specs, wiring and plumbing diagrams.

http://www.4shared.com/get/lwr2ZxK7/h22_37_Manual.html

And from Hunter Marine's website, this url will get you a pdf of the original sales brochure for the Hunter Cherubini 25.

http://huntermarine.com/Models/HunterPreviousModels/25_1982.pdf
 
Jun 2, 2004
5,802
Hunter 37-cutter, '79 41 23' 30"N 82 33' 20"W--------Huron, OH
Lucky guy JB, a "new" Cherubini and in San Diego. And yes, Mr. Cherubini, or JC2 as we know him around here, is related. He is the son of the architect of our boats. He has great stories about those days in the 70's and early 80's. One being that his father did not like to work on interior design. So that JC2 actually did some of the interiors. I don't recall which ones. And since he has been restoring an H25, DianaofBurlington, as long as I can remember who knows the boat better?
 
Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
H25 Concert Hall....

Concert Hall for certain rardiH36...actually the PO pulled the stereo so I have no idea yet if the speakers work or not. I will say that I am very disappointed with the mounting of the speakers on the interior. They are clean but the guy sawed 6" holes into that beautiful teak! That is just wrong on a lot of levels!

Ed...wow...thank you for the locations of the manual downloads! I had just this morning emailed a fellow forum person that I had located from a post 5 years ago, Don Boddeman who was said to have one. You have made it much easier.

Thank again to all.
 
Jun 21, 2007
2,105
Hunter Cherubini 36_80-82 Sausalito / San Francisco Bay
I am very disappointed with the mounting of the speakers on the interior. They are clean but the guy sawed 6" holes into that beautiful teak! That is just wrong on a lot of levels!
JB: The irreversible modification of the teak panels did catch my attention when I saw your pictures, but I decided not to make a "that's a bummer" comment with my previous post.

I was lucky with my 1980 H36. Previous PO's did very little modification to the interior wood work. And I have for the most part continued with the tradition. Nothing was ever mounted on the teak veneer panels that separate my main salon area from the forward compartments (head, closet and v-berth). The only violation is a couple of very small holes and an outline on the compression post teak facade where a clock used to be. I have a couple of small artworks that I would dearly like to mount on the teak panel. But I have resisted the urge because once drilled a mounting hole in wood can never be completely hidden.

re the link to the owner's manual. Actually I discovered that the h22_37 Manual.pdf doesn't include all of it. If you let me know your eMail address, I can forward the other two sections in pdf format. You should use the "send a private message" (to rardiH36) feature of this website to convey your eMail address to avoid posting your info on a public website. I will need your eMail address because each attachment is in the 2-3 mb range, which I believe exceeds the max allowed for correspondences via the website. So I'll have to send to your eMail address directly.
 
Jun 2, 2004
5,802
Hunter 37-cutter, '79 41 23' 30"N 82 33' 20"W--------Huron, OH
JB, thanks for giving me the "link" credit when actually it was Rardi. But I would have included them had he not. :)
 
Jun 21, 2007
2,105
Hunter Cherubini 36_80-82 Sausalito / San Francisco Bay
... then all those people will be asking you what it is, how you got it, and how old it is, all out of admiration and envy ....
JC:

The above item from your earlier post on this thread would be true for a Cherubini H27 that I saw on San Francisco Bay a couple of months ago. I wasn't quite close enough to scrutinize in detail, but the hull, deck and teak all were clean, white and bright in the sunshine and the well trimmed wrinkle-free sails were obviously recently purchased. 30 years after manufacture, she appeared showroom new. The lines of the boat were beautiful. Pressing aggressively into the wind, she didn't appear at all to be as small as 27 ft and was just as much a pleasure to look at as were the larger yachts also on the bay that afternoon. (These are objective viewpoints. As a Cherubini Hunter owner, I have no biases.)
 
Jun 5, 2010
1,107
Hunter 25 Burlington NJ
JB, that boat looks really great. Now to see to the stuff you can't see-- rigging, delaminations, wet bilges and electrical snaggles.

I would not worry about the 12vdc-- it's very easy to redo and to mount a nice panel. The best are from Blue Sea, also the most expensive. Before Boater's World went under I got two UP panels for WAY less than what WM wanted for the same thing. I made the whole shelf area over the q-berth into the electrical panel, including a small BS 115vac panel for the charger and outlets. I like working with 12vdc, it's easy and fun. For the 115vac I used an extension cord (I kid you not) and heat-shrunk marine connectors to it to hook up three duplex outlets. Where the PO had hacked-in a double-gang outlet under the galley (he had 10 duplexes if you can believe that) I cut an opening for a bookcase in the head end of the starboard salon berth. I probably have way too much electrical stuff on this boat, but it's not stuff that all has to be running at once. My two main batteries (under the salon berths) are fused at 30a each and I will never need a fraction of that. I have a separate battery for the engine starter under the cockpit as well. Right now I am debating where to locate the hourmeters.

With your concert-hall speakers you could make very nice panels of either teak plywood or just plain teak, cover the holes, trim round the edges and then mount nicer (smaller, modern) speakers in those panels. They'll look like they've always supposed to look like that. I built in speaker boxes at the forward end of the two fiddle-rail shelves over the bunks but have not fitted (nor selected) speakers yet so they are just varnished mahogany boxes. Oh yes, all my wood is mahogany, in and out, for I hate teak. Right now I am having trouble deciding if I want to try to stain the original 1974 fiddle rails to look redder, or just leave them teakish and varnish them, or else replace them with proper fiddle rails ala the Cherubini 44s (and every other boat we ever built, especially my dad's old 31-ft yawl which is the direct ancestor to the tons of Honduras mahogany seen on C44s -- and which had the same layout as the H25, from which I got the idea when my dad and Warren H were planning the H25, re: what Ed said... but I digress).

I installed even more thru-hulls than the boat originally had, for the pump-out for the 9-gallon holding tank, the inlet for the toilet, the galley sink drain, and the head sink drain as well as the speed and depth transducers, all but the galley one in the aftermost compartment under the v-berth. Where your port-side bin/locker is I have a sink and a lift-up cabinet next to it. My head door hinges too-- because I added a vertical post under the mast step on the forward side of the bulkhead. The thru-hulls I use are ONLY ever Forespar Marelon. I can't say enough good about them. The ones I got are the 'OEM' model (I have connections ;) ) but the triangular-flange aftermarket ones are just fine as well. Moving that sink drain from the side of the hull to under the cabinet was one of the first things I did. You will find it does not drain on anything close to a starboard tack. Mine is almost vertical (all sink drains should be vertical first and then lead towards the centerline!).

I don't own a digital camera so I never have pics but I promise as soon as I get the cabin sole down and the Formica on the counter tops I will take some interior shots and post them here. I have been enjoying varnishing trim and painting bulkheads all summer but would much rather be sailing!!!
 
Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
JC2 & Your H25

JC2...thanks for the comments and suggestions. You are correct about the things "unseen"...but I am still pretty happy. I painted my non-skid this week and compounded and buffed the hull and topsides. She is coming along. My vessel is extremely simple. There are no thru-hull penetrations with the exception of the drain for the galley sink. There is a small electrical panel situated on the port side low and near the steps with a battery in the settee storage right behind it. I am looking forward to enhancing this set-up a bit and would really enoy seeing what you have done with your H25.

It would be great to see images of the mods you have done on your H25. Perhaps you might consider buying one of the disposable digital cameras at Walmart...you can shoot the photos and they will put the images in jpeg format for you on a disk that you can upload here on the forum.

One of the things that I plan on doing is taking many photos along the way and sharing them here so that others will have a frame of reference for future restorations and modifications.

I also like your suggestion about my concert hall speaker system....my...my list keeps getting longer...but that's ok, I am enjoying the process and am having a blast improving the boat.

Best,
JB
 
Jun 2, 2004
5,802
Hunter 37-cutter, '79 41 23' 30"N 82 33' 20"W--------Huron, OH
JB, you do know about the "Owner's Mods" forum under the "Boat Info" tab? :
http://hunter.sailboatowners.com/index.php?option=com_kb&Itemid=267&cat_id=13&page=model&mn=25 . Unfortunately some of the pictures were lost when the site conversion was done a couple of years ago. So you could add your projects there for posterity. Notice under the H37C there are over eighty projects/documents recorded. And several for the other Cherubinis. But almost nothing for the the H25. Looking forward to seeing your work.
 
Jun 5, 2010
1,107
Hunter 25 Burlington NJ
JB-- thanks for the good comments. I do have access to digital cameras but am hurrying to get the boat prettied back up again before she sits for any pictures! I just did the Formica for the galley sink today as well as paint. Yesterday I removed the hardware on the transom in preparation to fair the hull for painting. I am readjusting the motor mount so as to be stronger. The PO or the factory mounted the bracket so low it leans atop the cockpit through-hulls and then the mount on it is all the way up at the top. I will mount the whole bracket 2" higher and slide the engine-mount part 2" down, gaining more bolt holes. I also intend to put a cleat on each side of it for tying the dinghy when rowing up (my ladder goes on the transom). I also have a split backstay and do not need the on-center chainplate any more.

I would be interested to hear how other people may have eliminated the fish-eye port and starboard running lights in the hull. Whilst 'cute' and very 'period' these are very ineffective anywhere but in a calm harbor and I will be fitting a pulpit bi-color light. The one thing I did not want is a tri-color on the masthead. Murphy's Law concludes that the more bulbs that are out of reach (even if they're LED) the more likely I will have to fix them. I have only an anchor light up there.

Given this nice weather we've been having I may be working on paint, epoxy, glue and fiberglass through Thanksgiving, which can only bode well for my spring sprint towards the water. (Hmm- something about the term 'spring sprint' reminds me of the descriptions of the final, easier ascent after the Hillary Step when climbing Everest... an analogy not entirely odd here!)
 
Jun 2, 2009
27
1983 Hunter 25 Cherubini - 1975 Yamaha 25 MII 25 San Diego
JC 2 ....you are as busy as I am!

Your list is as long as mine...I just completed re-painting my non-skid this week and it really turned out nice...very pleased. While at it, got to paint a couple of the cockpit storage shelving areas.

I got my new outboard (see shaft length post) and am in the process of purtying her up and tuning before mounting.

I too, will be posting photos of the progress.

My H25 is starting to really take shape...
 
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