Hey Henk... About Your 43
- Thread starter Rick D
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Just being nosy. Rick D.
That's a fun question, Rick. The only problem is:
how do I keep the answer short enough to be of some interest...... Fortunately, I had no input on the design. When we bought Rivendel II from a Los Angeles broker in the Spring of 1991 I did not have enough offshore sailing experience to have made many sensible choices. Moreover, offshore sailing was not at the top of our list; scuba-diving was! Nelleke and I were completely fed up with the "cattle-boat" approach to scuba diving where you get 30-45 minutes to make your dive and be back on board again. In the Bahamas we had seen sailboats choose their own dive sites and the freedom of that kind of life appealed to us, especially since we had been fortunate enough to spend 2 summers sailing on the Chesapeake on Bob Buchanan's Hunter Legend 30.5 "Windtryst" and loved the peace and beauty of being under sail rather than spending time on noisy, smelly scuba dive vessels. The biggest sailboat broker on the Northern Chesapeake, Tidewater in Havre de Grace happened to represent both Catalina and Hunter and we soon spent hours running in and out of a Hunter 43 and a Catalina 42 sitting right next to each other. I don't want to start a war here, so let me simply say that the Hunter Legend 43 won (as it should have since the price was about US $ 25,000 higher then). We never were able to figure out, however, how we could keep living in Utah and sail on the East Coast and, thus, started looking around on the West Coast. When we found a new Legend 43 being offered at an attractive price with full warranty from Hunter Marine, apparently after indeed having been shown at the Los Angeles boatshow, we had not the foggiest idea that she would turn out to be hull #1 as quite a few 43s had already been sailing around since 1990 or so. Only much later did we hear her interesting story from a Hunter technician. I hope it is factually correct, as I never have tried to verify it. With the introduction of the Legend 43 Hunter tried to get firm footing in the US bareboat charter market, as new US laws suddenly made it difficult for foreign vessels to maintain their marketshare. Apparently, Legend 43 hull #1 was originally constructed as a demo vessel for The Moorings (and even sported a hidden 3rd head plus wash basin in the navstation, which could be turned into a captain's cabin). When the Moorings (who obviously DO like to have a say in the design of their charter vessels)demanded a long list of changes Hunter started cranking out a special version of the 43. I think this version was officially marketed as the "433" by The Moorings. At the same time, Hunter must have decided to "factory refurbish" hull #1 to its original design specifications before sending her to the Los Angeles boatshow. Even after I discovered Rivendel's unusual past, I never felt bad about it because I reasoned that Hunter marine must have paid a lot of attention to hull #1, knowing full well that The Moorings would leave no stone unturned in their inspections. Perhaps the fact that Rivendel II's hull has never shown any tendency to blister in spite of her many years in the tropics might still be connected with that. Even several years after purchasing hull #1 I imagined noticing that Hunter Marine was still paying special attention to some of the design problems on our vessel, e.g. the less than ideal anchor well arrangement. On the other hand, that is what excellent service is all about, of course. Have fun! Flying Dutchman
how do I keep the answer short enough to be of some interest...... Fortunately, I had no input on the design. When we bought Rivendel II from a Los Angeles broker in the Spring of 1991 I did not have enough offshore sailing experience to have made many sensible choices. Moreover, offshore sailing was not at the top of our list; scuba-diving was! Nelleke and I were completely fed up with the "cattle-boat" approach to scuba diving where you get 30-45 minutes to make your dive and be back on board again. In the Bahamas we had seen sailboats choose their own dive sites and the freedom of that kind of life appealed to us, especially since we had been fortunate enough to spend 2 summers sailing on the Chesapeake on Bob Buchanan's Hunter Legend 30.5 "Windtryst" and loved the peace and beauty of being under sail rather than spending time on noisy, smelly scuba dive vessels. The biggest sailboat broker on the Northern Chesapeake, Tidewater in Havre de Grace happened to represent both Catalina and Hunter and we soon spent hours running in and out of a Hunter 43 and a Catalina 42 sitting right next to each other. I don't want to start a war here, so let me simply say that the Hunter Legend 43 won (as it should have since the price was about US $ 25,000 higher then). We never were able to figure out, however, how we could keep living in Utah and sail on the East Coast and, thus, started looking around on the West Coast. When we found a new Legend 43 being offered at an attractive price with full warranty from Hunter Marine, apparently after indeed having been shown at the Los Angeles boatshow, we had not the foggiest idea that she would turn out to be hull #1 as quite a few 43s had already been sailing around since 1990 or so. Only much later did we hear her interesting story from a Hunter technician. I hope it is factually correct, as I never have tried to verify it. With the introduction of the Legend 43 Hunter tried to get firm footing in the US bareboat charter market, as new US laws suddenly made it difficult for foreign vessels to maintain their marketshare. Apparently, Legend 43 hull #1 was originally constructed as a demo vessel for The Moorings (and even sported a hidden 3rd head plus wash basin in the navstation, which could be turned into a captain's cabin). When the Moorings (who obviously DO like to have a say in the design of their charter vessels)demanded a long list of changes Hunter started cranking out a special version of the 43. I think this version was officially marketed as the "433" by The Moorings. At the same time, Hunter must have decided to "factory refurbish" hull #1 to its original design specifications before sending her to the Los Angeles boatshow. Even after I discovered Rivendel's unusual past, I never felt bad about it because I reasoned that Hunter marine must have paid a lot of attention to hull #1, knowing full well that The Moorings would leave no stone unturned in their inspections. Perhaps the fact that Rivendel II's hull has never shown any tendency to blister in spite of her many years in the tropics might still be connected with that. Even several years after purchasing hull #1 I imagined noticing that Hunter Marine was still paying special attention to some of the design problems on our vessel, e.g. the less than ideal anchor well arrangement. On the other hand, that is what excellent service is all about, of course. Have fun! Flying Dutchman
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