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1971 Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 Global Blue Water Capable Cruiser
Estimated price for orientation: 349 $
Category: Sailboats 28 feet
Class:
Description Year: 1971 Make: Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 Rigging: Ketch Keel: Full Length Shoal Draft Cruising Keel Model: Global Blue Water Capable Cruiser Trailer: Not Included Type: Cruiser Use: Salt Water Length (feet): 33 Engine Type: None Beam (feet): 10.2 For Sale By: Private Seller Hull Material: Solid Woven Roving Fiberglass
Some Older Sailboats are Worth Restoring. Others Aren't Worth the Trouble.These Offshore Cruisers built by Cheoy Lee have done circumnavigations and sailed safely to nearly every distant port of call in the world.The old photos of the boats under sail are sister-ship photos from the original Cheoy Lee Brochure as well as the white on black text image, which is also from the original brochures.A Cheoy Lee is a Globally Respected Blue Water Capable Vessel with Some of The Strongest Hulls and Best Cruising Characteristics of any Sailboats ever made. That is why still today a 40 year old Cheoy Lee in rough shape is still worth more today than a 1990s model of the cheap flimsy coastal cruisers in the same size.Navigational Instruments packageFull Length Keel and Protected Skeg Mounted Rudder (not spade rudder).Nice hatches with canvas coversWheel SteeringComfortable GalleyValuable Classic Sliding Brass Domed CompassNice Large WinchesRoller Furling Main SailLots of Miscellaneous Equipment and Sailing Gear
From the Factory These came with Fiberglass hull, deck and cabin trunk moulded to Lloyd's specifications 100A, hull thickness from 7/16" to 1", Engine: Palmer M60 or Atomic Four, Sitka Spruce Spars, Roller reefing main boom, Burma Teak Trim, laid strip teak deck.Length on Deck 33' Length Over All - 36' 5"w/pulpit
LWL - 26' 5.5"
Beam - 10' 2"
Draft - 3' 8"
Displacement - 10,482lbs
Ballast - 2500lbs Cast Iron
Sail Area - 522
Fuel - 20US Gal
Water - 35US Gal TERMS OF THE AUCTION - PLEASE READ
Please read the entire auction text and/or closely study the photos so that you can be a fully informed bidder. If it is possible for you, also please come and check out the boat in the real world. That is the best way to truly get an accurate idea of whether the boat will meet your needs and expectations. Please place bids based on what funds you have available on-hand or on credit cards etc. PAYMENT IS DUE IN FULL WITHIN 24 HOURS. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR SPOUSE OR BOAT PARTNER(S) BEFORE MAKING THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE A PURCHASE. YOUR BID IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT TO PURCHASE THIS CLASSIC VESSEL, SO DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS THE RIGHT CRUISING YACHT TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET. If you have questions to ask about the boat I will be happy to speak with you on the phone, or if you wish to schedule a boat tour before the auction closes, please give me a shout. William 970 319-4361The auction ends just after 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday night, so if you want to make sure you are the winner at the end of bidding, either get your best bid in early or set the alarm on your phone as a reminder and tune in for the final few minutes of bidding. Sometimes the final few minutes can determine who wins the auction.
This is a no reserve auction so that means the winner of the auction wins the boat, whether it goes for a fair price or a mere fraction of a fair price. Payment may be made in the form of bank to bank wire transfer or counter deposit at either Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Please consult your spouse and or boat partners etc. prior to committing to make the purchase. Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic project boat and only bid up to what you have on hand to spend. You are welcome to go inspect the boat prior to bidding, and I highly encourage that, as that is the only way to absolutely guarantee that the boat will meet your expectations. The Ebay system drop-down-menu only allows 3 days or 7 days for payment terms. Please ignore that. The actual auction terms are payment within 24 hours. Once the auction is over, if you are the high bidder and win the auction, please give me a call right away or first thing in the morning after to discuss the details of completing the transaction. William 970 319-4361Storage is paid current through the end of the auction, but storage after that becomes the responsibility of the new owner. Storage fees are around $200 per month when paid six months at a time. The boatyard will launch the boat for you or load it on a trailer if you prefer that option. The boatyard is planning some work in that part of the boatyard, so if you do have the ability to launch the boat quickly that would be their preference. Title is currently in the safe at the boatyard. Due to risks of people abandoning older boats and the complications of going through the whole legal process for the boatyard to get title, the title will be given to your by the boatyard at the time that the boat is either launched or loaded onto a trailer. Moving a large cruising boat is expensive if you have to hire a boat mover. Ofter $4 or more per mile, so the only affordable way to move the vessel by land, unless its only for a short distance of a couple hundred miles or so, would be to get a large dual axle flatbed trailer rated for 15,000lb or more and build a simple wooden or metal cradle to set the boat on the trailer and move it yourself with a heavy duty pick up truck or other capable towing vehicle.
These boats are very comfortable when sailing in rough waters. With bunk additions as designed by the company, they can sleep up to 9 people inside. The cockpit layout is very comfortable to host pot-luck parties on deck with your fellow cruisers in those exotic cruising harbors. Aesthetically, these are very glamorous vessels with the classic lines and the carved spruce masts and antique "expensive" style brass ports (windows).The ketch rig gives amazing possibilities for changing sail configurations and fine tune points of sail to get a very well balanced boat on long cruises. The roller furling main sail that rolls up on the boom was about 30 years ahead of its time. This one has wheel steering which many consider essential for long distance cruising as well as a fully protected rudder. This hull style is based upon a timeless Herreshoff design that was originally produced in wood during the classic era of trans-Atlantic wooden sailboat racing.
The Worldwide Owner's Association is very active and provides a place to buy and sell classic sailboats as well as all sorts of resources on restoring these amazing time-less yachts. Go to their site at cheoyleeassociation.com and go to page 2 and look at the list for Cheoy Lee Sail Models to see all the amazing boats produced over the decades by Cheoy Lee. Check out the Yachts for Sale section and you will find these and many similar models priced between $25K to $70K. You can also find sisterships as well as other Cheoy Lee models between 30 and 40 feet in length on Yachtworld and Sailboat Listings and see how they keep their value over the years when restored and well maintained.The Cheoy Lee Owner's Association site lists 36 other Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 owners all around the world with contact info, who can be a terrific resource and source of good cheer and tips and counsel in the process of you restoring this fine classic small ship. That part is a sub-link from the main page for the Offshore 33 from their Sail Models section on page 2.As you can see in the photos, this boat needs a lot of weekends of restoration by someone who doesn't mind getting covered in sawdust and who likes sanding and varnishing and cutting, shaping and re-building various pieces of wood that need to be repaired or replaced. Mostly what it needs is a lot of detail carpentry, sanding, varnishing, painting and a new motor installed and some new or used sails. Let me know if you need tips on buying a good set of used sails for around $300 or so per sail. All systems are un-testing and vessel is sold AS IS. If you are just doing inshore bay sailing you could mount an outboard motor bracket on the back (available here on Ebay for between $50 to $150) and put on a 9.9 or 15hp long shaft outboard motor. That would be good enough to get you in and out of harbors and sailing in protected waters, and just put up the sails the rest of the time. If you are planning to go international though, you will need to install a new motor. Woodwork needed is to carve a new boom for the main sail and a new bow-sprit and put on a new "used" stainless bow pulpit. I can tell you where to buy a good used bow pulpit off a similar boat for about $300.A little about us. We are the Founder's of the Academy of Cruising and the business Cruising Consultants Inc. Our passion is to assist folks who are making a transition from day sailing or coastal cruising to becoming full-time live-aboard world cruisers. We also assist new sailors who are just getting into the sport of sailing by advising them on how to develop their skills and how to make plans to pursue the dream of cruising and world traveling full-time. We have extensive contacts and resources for finding good world cruising boats at far below their fair market value, and occasionally we discover an amazing neglected vessel at a price that we know may enable a cruising family or a retired couple on fixed income the ability to pursue the dream of cruising without the sort of means and savings normally associated with pursuing this lifestyle. In those cases, like this boat, we work to try and find a new home for a good “below market value” boat, with people who will fully restore the vessel, and hopefully use it for the serious cruising that the boat was designed for. There are many aspects of life where experience really matters, but none so much as global cruising. When you are planning to take a small boat across vast oceans and visit foreign ports of call on your own terms you must truly learn to become Master's of your Own Destiny. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how talented you are at managing large organizations or companies with dozens of staff people. When you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the choices you have made, the choices you will make and your own internal skills and the undeniable truth of how well or poorly you have planned for your expedition, are the factors that will determine whether your experiences become a positive adventure or a frightening (or even life threatening) catastrophe. When you are looking at a boat parked peacefully at a dock or on jack stands at a boat yard, you will be tempted to judge it based on whether the lines are nice and whether it is pretty or ugly and whether it is new or old and well kept or run down. The ocean however, operates according to immutable laws of physics. The ocean does not care whether it sinks a pretty boat or keeps an ugly one floating. It does not care whether you are a skilled sailor with dozens of years experience under your shade hat or whether you are an amateur on your first weekend pleasure cruise. You will be served exactly the same conditions of wind and waves whether you were born wealthy or if you were raised in a cave by baboons. The only control you have over these situations is knowing when to sail and when not to sail, and you can prepare yourself so that when the wrong situation strikes, if it ever does, you are skilled and prepared to deal with it and have a vessel that is prepared to handle the same. For people who are wanting to go cruising full-time, or who want to go from being pleasure sailors to competent seamen and seawomen, choosing the right boat is the first and sometimes ultimately most important decision of their nautical lives. Of course you can always sell or trade a boat and then buy a different one, but still the choice of each boat will influence the experiences you have and it will determine in many ways the capabilities or limitations of what you can or can't do while you have that boat for your home—even if it is only home for a few weekends here and there. There are many nuances and subtleties to sailing, as well as to each individual vessel. A boat that may be just exactly perfect for one sailor or family of sailors, may be completely the wrong boat to suit another person's dreams. By nature, boats require a lot of maintenance and upgrades, and if you are someone who wants all the possible bells and whistles, boating can be a very expensive occupation. However, there are also ways to save a lot of money and still pursue the dream effectively and safely create a new floating paradise for yourself. But each person or each couple's needs are different. There is no such boat as a boat that is not a project boat. Long before we were married, when my wife was only 12 years old, and her father (a relatively wealthy man at the time) purchased a brand new Beneteau 46 for the family to live on for years, and to cruise the world on, the first thing he did to a brand new half million dollar boat was to spend another $27K on equipment upgrades, new electronics installations and custom modifications. The reason he did that is because no boat, no matter how shiny and brand new, is exactly right for everyone's individual tastes and needs, and no boat comes straight from the factory completely ready to do anything other than Wednesday afternoon beer can races. I often get asked by people who are shopping for a used boat to go cruising the world, “Is this boat ready to cross the Atlantic?” or “Does it need anything before it is 'Ready to Sail.” The very nature of that question is a showcase of their naivety. Even if the answer were “Yes, the boat is ready.” (which would be impossible to have any boat ready unless you have spent thousands of dollars on a cruising chandlery and provisioning service ahead of time) the greater question is “Are such novice sailors who need to ask such questions ready themselves?” Even if they had the absolutely perfect boat, prepared ahead of time by die-hard professionals to get it ready to cast off the lines and sail to points distant and exotic, would the sailors know where everything is at on the boat and how to operate those systems and how not to break them with ignorant mistakes or how to fix them once broken? And if they knew all those things, would the boat be equipped with the necessary repair tools and supplies as part of the process of getting it ready to sail? So all these are big questions, and the only easy answer is that any sailor must become intimately familiar with their vessel prior to making long voyages beyond sight of land. The easiest way to become familiar with a boat so that it is not a stranger but rather a trusted old friend is to do a lot of weekend coastal cruising with it, while you work all the bugs out. Also, the more projects and upgrades you do yourself the more familiar you will be with how they work, how to maintain them and how to fix them again if anything every goes wrong. To depend on the expertise of professionals left behind in a port in a distant country you cleared out of months ago is only to invite future disaster...and its also much harder on the wallet. So any time you can add to your own skills and knowledge of your own boat by doing your own work, or hiring a professional to help you do it yourself, you are preparing yourself for future success as a cruiser. Any boat, even a brand new boat, will have things about it that you want to change or upgrade or move or install prior to making long voyages. The better questions to ask are: “What is the proper amount of maintenance and upgrades that I will make to my vessel prior to setting sail? How many things need to be changed or fixed before I leave the continental US? How many projects will I work on, as little projects along the way, when I have a slow day at a boring anchorage and there are no cruiser parties to attend and no interesting conversations of the side channels of the VHF. How many projects are absolutely vital to get accomplished before I begin actively using the boat as a full time residence and a floating RV that can sail to any country with a coastline?” How many projects do I want to tackle myself if it means I can save literally tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price of a boat, and how much more ultimate value do I get for my money by buying a larger or more seaworthy boat with a few bigger projects to tackle, than if I buy a smaller or more flimsy boat that is cleaned up nicer and has fewer problems to address. (Remember the ultimate cosmic law of boating – even if you can't see any problems at all with a boat, and no projects needing doing, as soon as you own it and begin to sail it, you will start to find those quirks and bugs) So don't fool yourself into believing that you can simply buy a shiny new boat from a broker at full market value, or even by paying more than boat blue book value, to avoid ever having to make repairs or upgrades. Any experienced sailor or boating professional other than someone selling fancy new boats will admit to you that there is no such boat other than a “project boat.” The only question is “What are the projects and how much money will I save by doing them myself versus hiring someone else to complete them?” Every boat that I have ever bought or ever sold, which is now many dozens of them, had varying degrees of things needing to be improved about it. Even the brand new boats straight from the showroom floor or boat show sales dock will need bottom painting and new zincs and fuel cleansing treatments and oil changes and manifold and riser inspections within a matter or months of casual weekend use. The longer any boat sits without the proper level of loving regular maintenance the faster it will deteriorate, and tiny 15 minute projects will turn into hour-long projects and hour-long projects will turn into day-long or week-long projects due to continuing neglect. The quality of the build is also important. A cheap boat will have cheap boat problems, and it will have serious issues far faster and more frequently than a very well built boat from an esteemed yacht designer and builder even if the better boat looks worse initially. In many ways you are better off to buy an older and more well regarded vessel in worse “first impressions” condition than to buy a shiny and well kept cheaper new boat. In the long run the better boat will cause far fewer headaches once you have it restored fully and you are taking care of it yourself, whereas the cheap but glossy boat may still look new and shiny for years, but begin having serious and costly problems that cannot be seen even while it still looks great in Facebook boat pictures. Boating is like riding a horse or driving a high performance sports car. You always have to be involved in the life of your boat whether you use it frequently or not. But this is not a bad thing, because it is part of the pride of ownership, and the regular maintenance and upkeep and small projects is what enables you to avoid the big ones or to at least know which big ones you need to do sooner and which ones can wait till later. As you will guess by now, I'm a bit of a philosopher sailor when it comes to helping folks find just the right boat to serve their needs. I am currently writing a book on that very topic which will be called, “The Seven Questions of Cruising (or) the Seven Questions you should ask yourself before buying a Boat.” Here is a quick preview of the questions you should be trying to answer from the introduction to my new book.---
When you go to buy a boat, especially if it is your first boat, there are a lot of decisions to be made and hard choices to figure out. Before you begin searching for the correct vessel to serve your needs, you need to first ask yourself, (and your cruising partners/ spouse etc) some important questions which will help you immensely in the quest to find the perfect small ship to suit your needs. Question Number 1- Where do you want to sail to (now and also possibly in the future)? #2 – Who might be going with you and/or who might want to visit you and stay on the boat with you once you get to that exotic foreign port (if global cruising is your goal) or that incredible weekend getaway spot (if weekend cruising is your thing). #3 – How much do you want to spend on this adventure called boating/sailing/? Also, how much “can” you afford to spend if you happen to take a wrong turn with the adventure and “need” to spend more money to fix a problem or get yourself or your stalwart side-kick (your boat) out of trouble? #4 – How handy are you? (i.e. - Are you someone who naturally takes pride in your ability to figure it out yourself, or are you the person who would rather call an “expert” and pay them to solve whatever problem you are having? #5 – How much time do you have to save yourself money, because in sailing, as well as in life in general “time often equals money.” #6 – Are you a weekend warrior and/or charter sailor, or do you want to cruise full time? #7 – Do you care more about Getting There or more about “Being There” once you have arrived? If I had more time, I would go into deeper discussion of how each of these important questions affects your choice of boat and how you can use those questions to determine if this particular boat is the best one to suit your needs and dreams. However, this is already about the longest Ebay auction text in history, so if you want to discuss all that more fully and chat more about the particular little projects and tasks that need to be done to restore this boat to full world cruising status, then I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone for a few minutes. Feel free to give me a call at 970 319-4361. -William This boat is a boat that needs some basic skill level improvements and restorations, but nothing that can't be done by a person with average handy skills over the coarse of a few weekends while they are taking breaks in between weekend sailing trips. All that said, with a no reserve auction, the best thing about this boat is that you may be able to invest a few weekends of your own labor and some affordable materials into restoring it into the valuable and glamorous boat that it easily could become again, and yet you have an opportunity to purchase it at a mere fraction of its restored market value. To build this same boat today, the way it was constructed when it was new and using the same quality materials in today's product and labor costs would cost well over $150,000 to the boat builder, before even adding the sales broker's mark up. And so, a new boat built as well as this classic would typically cost about $250K or more after the marketing, distribution and brokers fees. So all that said, here is your opportunity to get a heck of a sturdy world cruising vessel for dimes on the dollar.Good luck bidding. I hope it goes to a good home. Call me if you want to arrange to go and see the boat in person or if you have any other questions about it. Remember, payment is due in full within 24 hours. Thanks, William 970 319-4361
Cheoy Lee Shipyard has been owned and operated by the same family for more than a century. As a building and a repair yard at Po Tung Point in Shanghai, Cheoy Lee began producing steam powered craft. After 1936, the business moved to what was then the British territory of Hong Kong.
By the mid 1950's, the shipyard diversified into the production of teak sailing and motor yachts and the success of the newly formed pleasure craft division was soon apparent. By the mid 1960's, a majority of the company's production was pleasure craft, with large numbers being exported to the United States.
During the 1960's, Cheoy Lee was one of the pioneers in the development, testing and use of fiberglass construction techniques and a forerunner in the use of GRP/Foam sandwich technology in the marine field.
In 1977, Cheoy Lee built a 130' motor sailer, the world's largest GRP vessel of the time.
Other than on a strictly custom basis, Cheoy Lee stopped building sailing yachts in 1990 to concentrate on large Motor Yachts.
To accommodate this expansion, the company moved to a new purpose-built, state-of-the-art shipyard facility in mainland China.
History of the Cheoy Lee Company
The Cheoy Lee Company has been a major builder of ships and all types of boats for over 100 years. With roots tracing back to 1870 in a building at a repair yard in Po Tung Point in Shanghai, Cheoy Lee Shipyards has had a colorful and successful history. Originally producing wooden commercial craft from a shipyard in Shanghai, Cheoy Lee moved operations to Hong Kong in 1936. Initially specializing in the production of powered cargo vessels to outrun the Japanese blockade, Cheoy Lee later diversified into the large scale production of teak sailing and motoryachts. Most of these were exported to the US. During the 50s trawlers were built for the United Nation Korean Reconstruction Agency. During the early 1960's, Cheoy Lee made steady progress in the development, testing and use of fiberglass and by the mid 1960's wood construction had been phased out. Cheoy Lee became one of the first shipyard users of fiberglass and in turn became one of the pioneers of GRP/foam sandwich technology in the marine field. According to David Toombs from Lion Yachts "over 4,500 Cheoy Lee yachts were delivered and he points out that it is interesting that usually no more than 50 or so are available at any given time on the market". He also points out that Cheoy Lee has stopped production for all designs under 50' due to worldwide demand for the larger motorsailers and motoryachts. For the record David claims to be the original Cheoy Lee Distributor dating from 1960 and made over 70 trips to Hong Kong spending over a year in the shipyard there monitoring all phases of construction. He goes on to say that in its over 110 years of family ownership Cheoy Lee has become a major factor in yacht building, fully Lloyds Approved, with a modern climate controlled facility. David probably knows more about Cheoy Lees than anyone else in North America. Today Cheoy Lee makes everything from ferries to tugboats and several models of large motor yachts up to 446 tons and 144' in length. The only sailboats currently produced, as far as I am aware of, are the 53, 63, and the 78' Motorsailors plus a 77' Pilothouse Cutter.
The following information submitted by Tom Gilson from Cheoy Lee North America 11/99 A few things you may want to know about the company. The company's main production facility is currently located on Lantau Island, which is also where Hong Kong's new airport recently opened. Cheoy Lee recently acquired a new shipyard facility on the Pearl River 60 miles from Hong Kong on mainland China. (The old facility will be closed in April of 2000 as Disney World moves in). This facility is reached via high speed ferry from Hong Kong, with customs and immigrations located next to the yard. The new shipyard is at the center of over 20 shipyards. Consequently, there is a huge pool of skilled labor in the area with an almost unlimited capacity to expand. A state-of-the-art facility is now in operation, including a 1,000 ton railway lift, a 150 ton travel lift, dedicated paint sheds and on-site dormitories that will house up to 400 yard employees. Capable of producing vessels in excess of 200 feet, the new yard promises to keep Cheoy Lee in the forefront of shipbuilding for generations to come.
The following was submitted by David Toombs 2014 of Lion Yachts. It all started in 1960 when I was in the market for a sailboat in the 35’ range. I had occasion to be in San Francisco and had heard of a 35’ all teak Arthur Robb designed sloop, the LION class, built by the then unknown CHEOY LEE SHIPYARD of Hong Kong, and which could be seen in Alameda. The price was right and the quality very high so I ordered one. On arrival and on closer inspection it seemed even better so I decided to establish a dealership, LION YACHTS. In the remaining 3 months of the year LION sold out CHEOY LEEs entire production of 25 units of the LION class for that year. All this before fiberglass. Subsequently we went on to encourage CHEOY LEE to build in the then new and unfamiliar material now called fiberglass, of which they were well aware as they had engaged in much experimentation and coordination with LLOYDS (Surveyors), to establish a moulding and materials Specification. As our business continued to prosper we developed more modern designs, the ROBB 35, the 41’ Reliant, and the many Bill Luders designs (LUDERS 36, the CLIPPER series 33,36,42,48’, OFFSHORE 47), the Ray Richards designs, and lastly the PEDRICK series, (36,38,41,43,47,55). At the peak of production CHEOY LEE became probably the world’s largest builder of sailing yachts, with worldwide distribution. Sailboat production at CHEOY LEE ended about 1990 when they elected to expand their very large motoryacht business, now 61’ to 200’, and to increase their ongoing commercial business in steel, aluminum, and fiberglass. Today CHEOY LEE hull numbers exceed 5,100, and employment is about 1,000. Since 1962 CHEOY LEE has been a fully LLOYDS APPROVED Shipyard, in all building materials, and in 2006 completed ISO 9001 Certification. Here are some of our more interesting Owners of Cheoy Lee’s: · The founder of SCHAEFER MARINE Fred Schaefer. · The then President of RAYTHEON MARINE · Jimmy Buffett, the entertainer. · The then Chairman of Admissions at the New York Yacht Club (and at one count 26 other members). · Several Commodores of recognized Yacht Clubs: Royal Bermuda, Seawhanaka, Indian Harbor, Stamford, Pequot. · Bill Luders himself (considered to be one of the top 3 NA’s of his day). · Herb Dow of DOW CHEMICAL · Al Merck of MERCK PHARMACEUTICALS. · Don McGraw of MCGRAW-HILL · Dave Cherubini of CHERUBINI, perhaps the most respected sailboat builder on the East Coast · The then owner of DODSONS SHIPYARD, Stonington, CT (refitters of many older CHEOY LEE’S). · One of the then Editors of PRACTICAL SAILOR · Bill Terry, noted African/Arabian explorer and friend and Agent of the Sultan of Oman · Everett Smith, of MAINE POINT, circumnavigator in his CL-41 (5 Years) · Retired Marine Construction engineer (Port of New Orleans) who cruised his CL-48 for over a decade throughout the Pacific. A perfectionist, his boat looked as new when I was last aboard in New Zealand Not to mention myself, the Owner of 6 CHEOY LEE SAILBOATS FROM 35-50’, All serving me well, and all Surveying normally. Today we Broker only used CHEOY LEE sailboats and only those in superior condition or realistic candidates for rehabilitation. After over 80 trips to Hong Kong and over a year in residence at the Yard no one else is as well qualified to assess, discuss, and Broker these fine yachts. LION YACHTS – Dave Toombs
The following was submitted by Wayne S.. sailing "Sumatra" a Frisco Flyer, thanks Wayne for the info, we all appreciate your imput, james...Hello, James--
May I pass along some information on Cheoy Lees? It may be commonly known; I really don't know. I have heard some of this from various sources, and all of it from a man who worked in the Cheoy Lee yard in 1963, overseeing the construction of a large yacht for a wealthy American buyer. Do you know anyone who could give us any further verification?
With some Cheoy Lees (the glass Frisco Flyers, for instance), the hulls would be built in one spot in Kowloon and then launched and towed to another location where they would be finished out with interior, deck, etc. (I doubt the same was true of the wood ones.) The reason: the boat shops where the glass hulls were built had to be dehumidified. When the boats were finished out, the work was done by families who made their living as boat builders, and if the boat was large enough the family might move aboard until the work was done. (Most certainly this was NOT done with the little Frisco Flyer hulls, which were built by a large number of men who would arrive at work in the morning and leave in the evening, at closing time.) There was no electricity as of 1963 in this second yard, and any milling of wood, joinery, etc. either had to be done somewhere else or done by hand on site.
Most of the hulls had intricate carvings of dragons in their interiors. The families which built the boats would make their dragon carvings different in large ways or small to indicate which family had built that boat.
Since then I have heard this last detail said about boats built in other Kowloon yards-- but I've only had some verification of it for the Cheoy Lee yard.
A famous cruising couple in the fifties and sixties was Al and Marjorie Patterson. Al Patterson died of cancer some years ago; Marjorie published a book, a great read, titled "Red Skies at Night," before her death a few years ago. The book includes a page or so on the Cheoy Lee yard, which was near a yacht club which they visited. (Not many details.)
Well... hope I am not boring you with things well known--Best-- Wayne Pics of Cheoy Lee Yard from old brochure
Teak log pile in Cheoy Lee yard,
one of these logs may be part of your boat... Couple of old yard pics submitted by Sunny Soquel
The Following submitted by John Spears aboard "Moon Beam" from the following: Advertisement in Sea Magazine - 1972 When knowledgeable sailors come aboard one of our Cheoy Lee yachts for the first time, they are invariably amazed at the lavish use of Burma teak, the unsparing attention to detail and the overall craftsmanship throughout.
But they are even more amazed when they ask the price, and find it to be unbelievably lower than expected.
Of course, there is really no inscrutable mystery behind our prices. Just some highly scrtutable Orientals.
Cheoy Lee’s 90-year-old 1500 man shipyard is located on the bustling Hong Kong waterfront, where it is possible to cut many costs in the construction of fine sailing yachts, without cutting corners in the overall quality.
The truth is, no one could sell these yachts at these low prices if they were built domestically.
(The man-hours on a Cheoy Lee yacht, for example, are about ten times greater than those spent on comparably-priced American Boats. And while the cost of Burma teak is highly reasonable to us, it would be highly unreasonable by the time it were shipped to the States for use on domestic boats.
Cheoy Lee passes these savings on to discriminating sailors in a truly extensive line of fine sailing yachts, all of moulded fiberglass and built exactingly to Lloyds 100A1 specifications.
The standard models of all Cheoy Lee yachts are loaded with unexpected standard features that spell the true difference between a "boat" and a "yacht".
Natural Burma teak (which needs little maintenance and is for all practical purposes immune to decay and worms; teak neither swells not shrinks to any appreciable degree and owners should enjoy the teak overlays and joiner work which requires very little care); hollow noiseless sitka spruce spars; Formica galleys; stainless steel or chromed bronze deck hardware; Wilcox Crittenden toilets; large seacocks on all thru-hull fittings; and deluxe instrument panels.
These are only a few of the standard features you’ll find on Cheoy Le yachts. And there are many custom features that can be added, again at prices far below what you might expect to pay.
Cheoy Lee Sailing Yachts. If they weren’t built in Hong Kong, we honestly could not afford to sell them at prices you could afford.
This pic looks like masts being worked on
Following email from Larry Kaplan Hi. I commissioned all the boats that came to San Francisco (new). The dealer was Raccoon Straits Yacht Sales. Offshore 27's ,31's,41's and the offshore 50. I had just graduated from college, and had been working on yachts while in school, was on the sailing team, etc. That was 1968. I (we) drove a La Paz 33(powerboat) to the freighter anchored in S.F. bay from which would be offloaded the Cheoy Lee or Cheoy Lees we were to take possession of and we'd either motor them or tow them to S.F. or Sausalito and begin whatever it took to get them ready for their owners. On many, the teak and holly cabin sole hatches were floating in two feet of fresh water (rain water)...the boats were lashed on deck of the freighter(s) for the trip to S.F. Sometimes, the boats would simply be covered...I mean COVERED with grease and tar because the freighter's crew would "LUBE" the ship's rigging on the trip, and in the sun the petroleum based goo would soften and plop from where it was meant to be, to the freighter's main deck, only to be intercepted by the cosmic forces that directed said "GOO" all over these absolutely gorgeous varnished little yachts. I pioneered the use of linear polyurethane on yachts in 1971...and do (now) custom fiberglass work and repair on yachts. In spite of what I know about the Offshore line that Cheoy Lee produced, I have a particularly special place in my brain for those boats. I happened upon your site ...I guess by serendipity.
larry kaplan
Description
| Year: | 1971 | Make: | Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 |
| Rigging: | Ketch | Keel: | Full Length Shoal Draft Cruising Keel |
| Model: | Global Blue Water Capable Cruiser | Trailer: | Not Included |
| Type: | Cruiser | Use: | Salt Water |
| Length (feet): | 33 | Engine Type: | None |
| Beam (feet): | 10.2 | For Sale By: | Private Seller |
| Hull Material: | Solid Woven Roving Fiberglass |
Some Older Sailboats are Worth Restoring. Others Aren't Worth the Trouble.These Offshore Cruisers built by Cheoy Lee have done circumnavigations and sailed safely to nearly every distant port of call in the world.The old photos of the boats under sail are sister-ship photos from the original Cheoy Lee Brochure as well as the white on black text image, which is also from the original brochures.A Cheoy Lee is a Globally Respected Blue Water Capable Vessel with Some of The Strongest Hulls and Best Cruising Characteristics of any Sailboats ever made. That is why still today a 40 year old Cheoy Lee in rough shape is still worth more today than a 1990s model of the cheap flimsy coastal cruisers in the same size.Navigational Instruments packageFull Length Keel and Protected Skeg Mounted Rudder (not spade rudder).Nice hatches with canvas coversWheel SteeringComfortable GalleyValuable Classic Sliding Brass Domed CompassNice Large WinchesRoller Furling Main SailLots of Miscellaneous Equipment and Sailing Gear
From the Factory These came with Fiberglass hull, deck and cabin trunk moulded to Lloyd's specifications 100A, hull thickness from 7/16" to 1", Engine: Palmer M60 or Atomic Four, Sitka Spruce Spars, Roller reefing main boom, Burma Teak Trim, laid strip teak deck.Length on Deck 33' Length Over All - 36' 5"w/pulpit
LWL - 26' 5.5"
Beam - 10' 2"
Draft - 3' 8"
Displacement - 10,482lbs
Ballast - 2500lbs Cast Iron
Sail Area - 522
Fuel - 20US Gal
Water - 35US Gal TERMS OF THE AUCTION - PLEASE READ
Please read the entire auction text and/or closely study the photos so that you can be a fully informed bidder. If it is possible for you, also please come and check out the boat in the real world. That is the best way to truly get an accurate idea of whether the boat will meet your needs and expectations. Please place bids based on what funds you have available on-hand or on credit cards etc. PAYMENT IS DUE IN FULL WITHIN 24 HOURS. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR SPOUSE OR BOAT PARTNER(S) BEFORE MAKING THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE A PURCHASE. YOUR BID IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT TO PURCHASE THIS CLASSIC VESSEL, SO DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS THE RIGHT CRUISING YACHT TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET. If you have questions to ask about the boat I will be happy to speak with you on the phone, or if you wish to schedule a boat tour before the auction closes, please give me a shout. William 970 319-4361The auction ends just after 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday night, so if you want to make sure you are the winner at the end of bidding, either get your best bid in early or set the alarm on your phone as a reminder and tune in for the final few minutes of bidding. Sometimes the final few minutes can determine who wins the auction.
This is a no reserve auction so that means the winner of the auction wins the boat, whether it goes for a fair price or a mere fraction of a fair price. Payment may be made in the form of bank to bank wire transfer or counter deposit at either Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Please consult your spouse and or boat partners etc. prior to committing to make the purchase. Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic project boat and only bid up to what you have on hand to spend. You are welcome to go inspect the boat prior to bidding, and I highly encourage that, as that is the only way to absolutely guarantee that the boat will meet your expectations. The Ebay system drop-down-menu only allows 3 days or 7 days for payment terms. Please ignore that. The actual auction terms are payment within 24 hours. Once the auction is over, if you are the high bidder and win the auction, please give me a call right away or first thing in the morning after to discuss the details of completing the transaction. William 970 319-4361Storage is paid current through the end of the auction, but storage after that becomes the responsibility of the new owner. Storage fees are around $200 per month when paid six months at a time. The boatyard will launch the boat for you or load it on a trailer if you prefer that option. The boatyard is planning some work in that part of the boatyard, so if you do have the ability to launch the boat quickly that would be their preference. Title is currently in the safe at the boatyard. Due to risks of people abandoning older boats and the complications of going through the whole legal process for the boatyard to get title, the title will be given to your by the boatyard at the time that the boat is either launched or loaded onto a trailer. Moving a large cruising boat is expensive if you have to hire a boat mover. Ofter $4 or more per mile, so the only affordable way to move the vessel by land, unless its only for a short distance of a couple hundred miles or so, would be to get a large dual axle flatbed trailer rated for 15,000lb or more and build a simple wooden or metal cradle to set the boat on the trailer and move it yourself with a heavy duty pick up truck or other capable towing vehicle.
These boats are very comfortable when sailing in rough waters. With bunk additions as designed by the company, they can sleep up to 9 people inside. The cockpit layout is very comfortable to host pot-luck parties on deck with your fellow cruisers in those exotic cruising harbors. Aesthetically, these are very glamorous vessels with the classic lines and the carved spruce masts and antique "expensive" style brass ports (windows).The ketch rig gives amazing possibilities for changing sail configurations and fine tune points of sail to get a very well balanced boat on long cruises. The roller furling main sail that rolls up on the boom was about 30 years ahead of its time. This one has wheel steering which many consider essential for long distance cruising as well as a fully protected rudder. This hull style is based upon a timeless Herreshoff design that was originally produced in wood during the classic era of trans-Atlantic wooden sailboat racing.
The Worldwide Owner's Association is very active and provides a place to buy and sell classic sailboats as well as all sorts of resources on restoring these amazing time-less yachts. Go to their site at cheoyleeassociation.com and go to page 2 and look at the list for Cheoy Lee Sail Models to see all the amazing boats produced over the decades by Cheoy Lee. Check out the Yachts for Sale section and you will find these and many similar models priced between $25K to $70K. You can also find sisterships as well as other Cheoy Lee models between 30 and 40 feet in length on Yachtworld and Sailboat Listings and see how they keep their value over the years when restored and well maintained.The Cheoy Lee Owner's Association site lists 36 other Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 owners all around the world with contact info, who can be a terrific resource and source of good cheer and tips and counsel in the process of you restoring this fine classic small ship. That part is a sub-link from the main page for the Offshore 33 from their Sail Models section on page 2.As you can see in the photos, this boat needs a lot of weekends of restoration by someone who doesn't mind getting covered in sawdust and who likes sanding and varnishing and cutting, shaping and re-building various pieces of wood that need to be repaired or replaced. Mostly what it needs is a lot of detail carpentry, sanding, varnishing, painting and a new motor installed and some new or used sails. Let me know if you need tips on buying a good set of used sails for around $300 or so per sail. All systems are un-testing and vessel is sold AS IS. If you are just doing inshore bay sailing you could mount an outboard motor bracket on the back (available here on Ebay for between $50 to $150) and put on a 9.9 or 15hp long shaft outboard motor. That would be good enough to get you in and out of harbors and sailing in protected waters, and just put up the sails the rest of the time. If you are planning to go international though, you will need to install a new motor. Woodwork needed is to carve a new boom for the main sail and a new bow-sprit and put on a new "used" stainless bow pulpit. I can tell you where to buy a good used bow pulpit off a similar boat for about $300.A little about us. We are the Founder's of the Academy of Cruising and the business Cruising Consultants Inc. Our passion is to assist folks who are making a transition from day sailing or coastal cruising to becoming full-time live-aboard world cruisers. We also assist new sailors who are just getting into the sport of sailing by advising them on how to develop their skills and how to make plans to pursue the dream of cruising and world traveling full-time. We have extensive contacts and resources for finding good world cruising boats at far below their fair market value, and occasionally we discover an amazing neglected vessel at a price that we know may enable a cruising family or a retired couple on fixed income the ability to pursue the dream of cruising without the sort of means and savings normally associated with pursuing this lifestyle. In those cases, like this boat, we work to try and find a new home for a good “below market value” boat, with people who will fully restore the vessel, and hopefully use it for the serious cruising that the boat was designed for. There are many aspects of life where experience really matters, but none so much as global cruising. When you are planning to take a small boat across vast oceans and visit foreign ports of call on your own terms you must truly learn to become Master's of your Own Destiny. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how talented you are at managing large organizations or companies with dozens of staff people. When you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the choices you have made, the choices you will make and your own internal skills and the undeniable truth of how well or poorly you have planned for your expedition, are the factors that will determine whether your experiences become a positive adventure or a frightening (or even life threatening) catastrophe. When you are looking at a boat parked peacefully at a dock or on jack stands at a boat yard, you will be tempted to judge it based on whether the lines are nice and whether it is pretty or ugly and whether it is new or old and well kept or run down. The ocean however, operates according to immutable laws of physics. The ocean does not care whether it sinks a pretty boat or keeps an ugly one floating. It does not care whether you are a skilled sailor with dozens of years experience under your shade hat or whether you are an amateur on your first weekend pleasure cruise. You will be served exactly the same conditions of wind and waves whether you were born wealthy or if you were raised in a cave by baboons. The only control you have over these situations is knowing when to sail and when not to sail, and you can prepare yourself so that when the wrong situation strikes, if it ever does, you are skilled and prepared to deal with it and have a vessel that is prepared to handle the same. For people who are wanting to go cruising full-time, or who want to go from being pleasure sailors to competent seamen and seawomen, choosing the right boat is the first and sometimes ultimately most important decision of their nautical lives. Of course you can always sell or trade a boat and then buy a different one, but still the choice of each boat will influence the experiences you have and it will determine in many ways the capabilities or limitations of what you can or can't do while you have that boat for your home—even if it is only home for a few weekends here and there. There are many nuances and subtleties to sailing, as well as to each individual vessel. A boat that may be just exactly perfect for one sailor or family of sailors, may be completely the wrong boat to suit another person's dreams. By nature, boats require a lot of maintenance and upgrades, and if you are someone who wants all the possible bells and whistles, boating can be a very expensive occupation. However, there are also ways to save a lot of money and still pursue the dream effectively and safely create a new floating paradise for yourself. But each person or each couple's needs are different. There is no such boat as a boat that is not a project boat. Long before we were married, when my wife was only 12 years old, and her father (a relatively wealthy man at the time) purchased a brand new Beneteau 46 for the family to live on for years, and to cruise the world on, the first thing he did to a brand new half million dollar boat was to spend another $27K on equipment upgrades, new electronics installations and custom modifications. The reason he did that is because no boat, no matter how shiny and brand new, is exactly right for everyone's individual tastes and needs, and no boat comes straight from the factory completely ready to do anything other than Wednesday afternoon beer can races. I often get asked by people who are shopping for a used boat to go cruising the world, “Is this boat ready to cross the Atlantic?” or “Does it need anything before it is 'Ready to Sail.” The very nature of that question is a showcase of their naivety. Even if the answer were “Yes, the boat is ready.” (which would be impossible to have any boat ready unless you have spent thousands of dollars on a cruising chandlery and provisioning service ahead of time) the greater question is “Are such novice sailors who need to ask such questions ready themselves?” Even if they had the absolutely perfect boat, prepared ahead of time by die-hard professionals to get it ready to cast off the lines and sail to points distant and exotic, would the sailors know where everything is at on the boat and how to operate those systems and how not to break them with ignorant mistakes or how to fix them once broken? And if they knew all those things, would the boat be equipped with the necessary repair tools and supplies as part of the process of getting it ready to sail? So all these are big questions, and the only easy answer is that any sailor must become intimately familiar with their vessel prior to making long voyages beyond sight of land. The easiest way to become familiar with a boat so that it is not a stranger but rather a trusted old friend is to do a lot of weekend coastal cruising with it, while you work all the bugs out. Also, the more projects and upgrades you do yourself the more familiar you will be with how they work, how to maintain them and how to fix them again if anything every goes wrong. To depend on the expertise of professionals left behind in a port in a distant country you cleared out of months ago is only to invite future disaster...and its also much harder on the wallet. So any time you can add to your own skills and knowledge of your own boat by doing your own work, or hiring a professional to help you do it yourself, you are preparing yourself for future success as a cruiser. Any boat, even a brand new boat, will have things about it that you want to change or upgrade or move or install prior to making long voyages. The better questions to ask are: “What is the proper amount of maintenance and upgrades that I will make to my vessel prior to setting sail? How many things need to be changed or fixed before I leave the continental US? How many projects will I work on, as little projects along the way, when I have a slow day at a boring anchorage and there are no cruiser parties to attend and no interesting conversations of the side channels of the VHF. How many projects are absolutely vital to get accomplished before I begin actively using the boat as a full time residence and a floating RV that can sail to any country with a coastline?” How many projects do I want to tackle myself if it means I can save literally tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price of a boat, and how much more ultimate value do I get for my money by buying a larger or more seaworthy boat with a few bigger projects to tackle, than if I buy a smaller or more flimsy boat that is cleaned up nicer and has fewer problems to address. (Remember the ultimate cosmic law of boating – even if you can't see any problems at all with a boat, and no projects needing doing, as soon as you own it and begin to sail it, you will start to find those quirks and bugs) So don't fool yourself into believing that you can simply buy a shiny new boat from a broker at full market value, or even by paying more than boat blue book value, to avoid ever having to make repairs or upgrades. Any experienced sailor or boating professional other than someone selling fancy new boats will admit to you that there is no such boat other than a “project boat.” The only question is “What are the projects and how much money will I save by doing them myself versus hiring someone else to complete them?” Every boat that I have ever bought or ever sold, which is now many dozens of them, had varying degrees of things needing to be improved about it. Even the brand new boats straight from the showroom floor or boat show sales dock will need bottom painting and new zincs and fuel cleansing treatments and oil changes and manifold and riser inspections within a matter or months of casual weekend use. The longer any boat sits without the proper level of loving regular maintenance the faster it will deteriorate, and tiny 15 minute projects will turn into hour-long projects and hour-long projects will turn into day-long or week-long projects due to continuing neglect. The quality of the build is also important. A cheap boat will have cheap boat problems, and it will have serious issues far faster and more frequently than a very well built boat from an esteemed yacht designer and builder even if the better boat looks worse initially. In many ways you are better off to buy an older and more well regarded vessel in worse “first impressions” condition than to buy a shiny and well kept cheaper new boat. In the long run the better boat will cause far fewer headaches once you have it restored fully and you are taking care of it yourself, whereas the cheap but glossy boat may still look new and shiny for years, but begin having serious and costly problems that cannot be seen even while it still looks great in Facebook boat pictures. Boating is like riding a horse or driving a high performance sports car. You always have to be involved in the life of your boat whether you use it frequently or not. But this is not a bad thing, because it is part of the pride of ownership, and the regular maintenance and upkeep and small projects is what enables you to avoid the big ones or to at least know which big ones you need to do sooner and which ones can wait till later. As you will guess by now, I'm a bit of a philosopher sailor when it comes to helping folks find just the right boat to serve their needs. I am currently writing a book on that very topic which will be called, “The Seven Questions of Cruising (or) the Seven Questions you should ask yourself before buying a Boat.” Here is a quick preview of the questions you should be trying to answer from the introduction to my new book.---
When you go to buy a boat, especially if it is your first boat, there are a lot of decisions to be made and hard choices to figure out. Before you begin searching for the correct vessel to serve your needs, you need to first ask yourself, (and your cruising partners/ spouse etc) some important questions which will help you immensely in the quest to find the perfect small ship to suit your needs. Question Number 1- Where do you want to sail to (now and also possibly in the future)? #2 – Who might be going with you and/or who might want to visit you and stay on the boat with you once you get to that exotic foreign port (if global cruising is your goal) or that incredible weekend getaway spot (if weekend cruising is your thing). #3 – How much do you want to spend on this adventure called boating/sailing/? Also, how much “can” you afford to spend if you happen to take a wrong turn with the adventure and “need” to spend more money to fix a problem or get yourself or your stalwart side-kick (your boat) out of trouble? #4 – How handy are you? (i.e. - Are you someone who naturally takes pride in your ability to figure it out yourself, or are you the person who would rather call an “expert” and pay them to solve whatever problem you are having? #5 – How much time do you have to save yourself money, because in sailing, as well as in life in general “time often equals money.” #6 – Are you a weekend warrior and/or charter sailor, or do you want to cruise full time? #7 – Do you care more about Getting There or more about “Being There” once you have arrived? If I had more time, I would go into deeper discussion of how each of these important questions affects your choice of boat and how you can use those questions to determine if this particular boat is the best one to suit your needs and dreams. However, this is already about the longest Ebay auction text in history, so if you want to discuss all that more fully and chat more about the particular little projects and tasks that need to be done to restore this boat to full world cruising status, then I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone for a few minutes. Feel free to give me a call at 970 319-4361. -William This boat is a boat that needs some basic skill level improvements and restorations, but nothing that can't be done by a person with average handy skills over the coarse of a few weekends while they are taking breaks in between weekend sailing trips. All that said, with a no reserve auction, the best thing about this boat is that you may be able to invest a few weekends of your own labor and some affordable materials into restoring it into the valuable and glamorous boat that it easily could become again, and yet you have an opportunity to purchase it at a mere fraction of its restored market value. To build this same boat today, the way it was constructed when it was new and using the same quality materials in today's product and labor costs would cost well over $150,000 to the boat builder, before even adding the sales broker's mark up. And so, a new boat built as well as this classic would typically cost about $250K or more after the marketing, distribution and brokers fees. So all that said, here is your opportunity to get a heck of a sturdy world cruising vessel for dimes on the dollar.Good luck bidding. I hope it goes to a good home. Call me if you want to arrange to go and see the boat in person or if you have any other questions about it. Remember, payment is due in full within 24 hours. Thanks, William 970 319-4361
From the Factory These came with Fiberglass hull, deck and cabin trunk moulded to Lloyd's specifications 100A, hull thickness from 7/16" to 1", Engine: Palmer M60 or Atomic Four, Sitka Spruce Spars, Roller reefing main boom, Burma Teak Trim, laid strip teak deck.Length on Deck 33' Length Over All - 36' 5"w/pulpit
LWL - 26' 5.5"
Beam - 10' 2"
Draft - 3' 8"
Displacement - 10,482lbs
Ballast - 2500lbs Cast Iron
Sail Area - 522
Fuel - 20US Gal
Water - 35US Gal TERMS OF THE AUCTION - PLEASE READ
Please read the entire auction text and/or closely study the photos so that you can be a fully informed bidder. If it is possible for you, also please come and check out the boat in the real world. That is the best way to truly get an accurate idea of whether the boat will meet your needs and expectations. Please place bids based on what funds you have available on-hand or on credit cards etc. PAYMENT IS DUE IN FULL WITHIN 24 HOURS. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR SPOUSE OR BOAT PARTNER(S) BEFORE MAKING THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE A PURCHASE. YOUR BID IS A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT TO PURCHASE THIS CLASSIC VESSEL, SO DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS THE RIGHT CRUISING YACHT TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET. If you have questions to ask about the boat I will be happy to speak with you on the phone, or if you wish to schedule a boat tour before the auction closes, please give me a shout. William 970 319-4361The auction ends just after 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday night, so if you want to make sure you are the winner at the end of bidding, either get your best bid in early or set the alarm on your phone as a reminder and tune in for the final few minutes of bidding. Sometimes the final few minutes can determine who wins the auction.
This is a no reserve auction so that means the winner of the auction wins the boat, whether it goes for a fair price or a mere fraction of a fair price. Payment may be made in the form of bank to bank wire transfer or counter deposit at either Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Please consult your spouse and or boat partners etc. prior to committing to make the purchase. Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic project boat and only bid up to what you have on hand to spend. You are welcome to go inspect the boat prior to bidding, and I highly encourage that, as that is the only way to absolutely guarantee that the boat will meet your expectations. The Ebay system drop-down-menu only allows 3 days or 7 days for payment terms. Please ignore that. The actual auction terms are payment within 24 hours. Once the auction is over, if you are the high bidder and win the auction, please give me a call right away or first thing in the morning after to discuss the details of completing the transaction. William 970 319-4361Storage is paid current through the end of the auction, but storage after that becomes the responsibility of the new owner. Storage fees are around $200 per month when paid six months at a time. The boatyard will launch the boat for you or load it on a trailer if you prefer that option. The boatyard is planning some work in that part of the boatyard, so if you do have the ability to launch the boat quickly that would be their preference. Title is currently in the safe at the boatyard. Due to risks of people abandoning older boats and the complications of going through the whole legal process for the boatyard to get title, the title will be given to your by the boatyard at the time that the boat is either launched or loaded onto a trailer. Moving a large cruising boat is expensive if you have to hire a boat mover. Ofter $4 or more per mile, so the only affordable way to move the vessel by land, unless its only for a short distance of a couple hundred miles or so, would be to get a large dual axle flatbed trailer rated for 15,000lb or more and build a simple wooden or metal cradle to set the boat on the trailer and move it yourself with a heavy duty pick up truck or other capable towing vehicle.
These boats are very comfortable when sailing in rough waters. With bunk additions as designed by the company, they can sleep up to 9 people inside. The cockpit layout is very comfortable to host pot-luck parties on deck with your fellow cruisers in those exotic cruising harbors. Aesthetically, these are very glamorous vessels with the classic lines and the carved spruce masts and antique "expensive" style brass ports (windows).The ketch rig gives amazing possibilities for changing sail configurations and fine tune points of sail to get a very well balanced boat on long cruises. The roller furling main sail that rolls up on the boom was about 30 years ahead of its time. This one has wheel steering which many consider essential for long distance cruising as well as a fully protected rudder. This hull style is based upon a timeless Herreshoff design that was originally produced in wood during the classic era of trans-Atlantic wooden sailboat racing.
The Worldwide Owner's Association is very active and provides a place to buy and sell classic sailboats as well as all sorts of resources on restoring these amazing time-less yachts. Go to their site at cheoyleeassociation.com and go to page 2 and look at the list for Cheoy Lee Sail Models to see all the amazing boats produced over the decades by Cheoy Lee. Check out the Yachts for Sale section and you will find these and many similar models priced between $25K to $70K. You can also find sisterships as well as other Cheoy Lee models between 30 and 40 feet in length on Yachtworld and Sailboat Listings and see how they keep their value over the years when restored and well maintained.The Cheoy Lee Owner's Association site lists 36 other Cheoy Lee Offshore 33 owners all around the world with contact info, who can be a terrific resource and source of good cheer and tips and counsel in the process of you restoring this fine classic small ship. That part is a sub-link from the main page for the Offshore 33 from their Sail Models section on page 2.As you can see in the photos, this boat needs a lot of weekends of restoration by someone who doesn't mind getting covered in sawdust and who likes sanding and varnishing and cutting, shaping and re-building various pieces of wood that need to be repaired or replaced. Mostly what it needs is a lot of detail carpentry, sanding, varnishing, painting and a new motor installed and some new or used sails. Let me know if you need tips on buying a good set of used sails for around $300 or so per sail. All systems are un-testing and vessel is sold AS IS. If you are just doing inshore bay sailing you could mount an outboard motor bracket on the back (available here on Ebay for between $50 to $150) and put on a 9.9 or 15hp long shaft outboard motor. That would be good enough to get you in and out of harbors and sailing in protected waters, and just put up the sails the rest of the time. If you are planning to go international though, you will need to install a new motor. Woodwork needed is to carve a new boom for the main sail and a new bow-sprit and put on a new "used" stainless bow pulpit. I can tell you where to buy a good used bow pulpit off a similar boat for about $300.A little about us. We are the Founder's of the Academy of Cruising and the business Cruising Consultants Inc. Our passion is to assist folks who are making a transition from day sailing or coastal cruising to becoming full-time live-aboard world cruisers. We also assist new sailors who are just getting into the sport of sailing by advising them on how to develop their skills and how to make plans to pursue the dream of cruising and world traveling full-time. We have extensive contacts and resources for finding good world cruising boats at far below their fair market value, and occasionally we discover an amazing neglected vessel at a price that we know may enable a cruising family or a retired couple on fixed income the ability to pursue the dream of cruising without the sort of means and savings normally associated with pursuing this lifestyle. In those cases, like this boat, we work to try and find a new home for a good “below market value” boat, with people who will fully restore the vessel, and hopefully use it for the serious cruising that the boat was designed for. There are many aspects of life where experience really matters, but none so much as global cruising. When you are planning to take a small boat across vast oceans and visit foreign ports of call on your own terms you must truly learn to become Master's of your Own Destiny. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how talented you are at managing large organizations or companies with dozens of staff people. When you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, the choices you have made, the choices you will make and your own internal skills and the undeniable truth of how well or poorly you have planned for your expedition, are the factors that will determine whether your experiences become a positive adventure or a frightening (or even life threatening) catastrophe. When you are looking at a boat parked peacefully at a dock or on jack stands at a boat yard, you will be tempted to judge it based on whether the lines are nice and whether it is pretty or ugly and whether it is new or old and well kept or run down. The ocean however, operates according to immutable laws of physics. The ocean does not care whether it sinks a pretty boat or keeps an ugly one floating. It does not care whether you are a skilled sailor with dozens of years experience under your shade hat or whether you are an amateur on your first weekend pleasure cruise. You will be served exactly the same conditions of wind and waves whether you were born wealthy or if you were raised in a cave by baboons. The only control you have over these situations is knowing when to sail and when not to sail, and you can prepare yourself so that when the wrong situation strikes, if it ever does, you are skilled and prepared to deal with it and have a vessel that is prepared to handle the same. For people who are wanting to go cruising full-time, or who want to go from being pleasure sailors to competent seamen and seawomen, choosing the right boat is the first and sometimes ultimately most important decision of their nautical lives. Of course you can always sell or trade a boat and then buy a different one, but still the choice of each boat will influence the experiences you have and it will determine in many ways the capabilities or limitations of what you can or can't do while you have that boat for your home—even if it is only home for a few weekends here and there. There are many nuances and subtleties to sailing, as well as to each individual vessel. A boat that may be just exactly perfect for one sailor or family of sailors, may be completely the wrong boat to suit another person's dreams. By nature, boats require a lot of maintenance and upgrades, and if you are someone who wants all the possible bells and whistles, boating can be a very expensive occupation. However, there are also ways to save a lot of money and still pursue the dream effectively and safely create a new floating paradise for yourself. But each person or each couple's needs are different. There is no such boat as a boat that is not a project boat. Long before we were married, when my wife was only 12 years old, and her father (a relatively wealthy man at the time) purchased a brand new Beneteau 46 for the family to live on for years, and to cruise the world on, the first thing he did to a brand new half million dollar boat was to spend another $27K on equipment upgrades, new electronics installations and custom modifications. The reason he did that is because no boat, no matter how shiny and brand new, is exactly right for everyone's individual tastes and needs, and no boat comes straight from the factory completely ready to do anything other than Wednesday afternoon beer can races. I often get asked by people who are shopping for a used boat to go cruising the world, “Is this boat ready to cross the Atlantic?” or “Does it need anything before it is 'Ready to Sail.” The very nature of that question is a showcase of their naivety. Even if the answer were “Yes, the boat is ready.” (which would be impossible to have any boat ready unless you have spent thousands of dollars on a cruising chandlery and provisioning service ahead of time) the greater question is “Are such novice sailors who need to ask such questions ready themselves?” Even if they had the absolutely perfect boat, prepared ahead of time by die-hard professionals to get it ready to cast off the lines and sail to points distant and exotic, would the sailors know where everything is at on the boat and how to operate those systems and how not to break them with ignorant mistakes or how to fix them once broken? And if they knew all those things, would the boat be equipped with the necessary repair tools and supplies as part of the process of getting it ready to sail? So all these are big questions, and the only easy answer is that any sailor must become intimately familiar with their vessel prior to making long voyages beyond sight of land. The easiest way to become familiar with a boat so that it is not a stranger but rather a trusted old friend is to do a lot of weekend coastal cruising with it, while you work all the bugs out. Also, the more projects and upgrades you do yourself the more familiar you will be with how they work, how to maintain them and how to fix them again if anything every goes wrong. To depend on the expertise of professionals left behind in a port in a distant country you cleared out of months ago is only to invite future disaster...and its also much harder on the wallet. So any time you can add to your own skills and knowledge of your own boat by doing your own work, or hiring a professional to help you do it yourself, you are preparing yourself for future success as a cruiser. Any boat, even a brand new boat, will have things about it that you want to change or upgrade or move or install prior to making long voyages. The better questions to ask are: “What is the proper amount of maintenance and upgrades that I will make to my vessel prior to setting sail? How many things need to be changed or fixed before I leave the continental US? How many projects will I work on, as little projects along the way, when I have a slow day at a boring anchorage and there are no cruiser parties to attend and no interesting conversations of the side channels of the VHF. How many projects are absolutely vital to get accomplished before I begin actively using the boat as a full time residence and a floating RV that can sail to any country with a coastline?” How many projects do I want to tackle myself if it means I can save literally tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price of a boat, and how much more ultimate value do I get for my money by buying a larger or more seaworthy boat with a few bigger projects to tackle, than if I buy a smaller or more flimsy boat that is cleaned up nicer and has fewer problems to address. (Remember the ultimate cosmic law of boating – even if you can't see any problems at all with a boat, and no projects needing doing, as soon as you own it and begin to sail it, you will start to find those quirks and bugs) So don't fool yourself into believing that you can simply buy a shiny new boat from a broker at full market value, or even by paying more than boat blue book value, to avoid ever having to make repairs or upgrades. Any experienced sailor or boating professional other than someone selling fancy new boats will admit to you that there is no such boat other than a “project boat.” The only question is “What are the projects and how much money will I save by doing them myself versus hiring someone else to complete them?” Every boat that I have ever bought or ever sold, which is now many dozens of them, had varying degrees of things needing to be improved about it. Even the brand new boats straight from the showroom floor or boat show sales dock will need bottom painting and new zincs and fuel cleansing treatments and oil changes and manifold and riser inspections within a matter or months of casual weekend use. The longer any boat sits without the proper level of loving regular maintenance the faster it will deteriorate, and tiny 15 minute projects will turn into hour-long projects and hour-long projects will turn into day-long or week-long projects due to continuing neglect. The quality of the build is also important. A cheap boat will have cheap boat problems, and it will have serious issues far faster and more frequently than a very well built boat from an esteemed yacht designer and builder even if the better boat looks worse initially. In many ways you are better off to buy an older and more well regarded vessel in worse “first impressions” condition than to buy a shiny and well kept cheaper new boat. In the long run the better boat will cause far fewer headaches once you have it restored fully and you are taking care of it yourself, whereas the cheap but glossy boat may still look new and shiny for years, but begin having serious and costly problems that cannot be seen even while it still looks great in Facebook boat pictures. Boating is like riding a horse or driving a high performance sports car. You always have to be involved in the life of your boat whether you use it frequently or not. But this is not a bad thing, because it is part of the pride of ownership, and the regular maintenance and upkeep and small projects is what enables you to avoid the big ones or to at least know which big ones you need to do sooner and which ones can wait till later. As you will guess by now, I'm a bit of a philosopher sailor when it comes to helping folks find just the right boat to serve their needs. I am currently writing a book on that very topic which will be called, “The Seven Questions of Cruising (or) the Seven Questions you should ask yourself before buying a Boat.” Here is a quick preview of the questions you should be trying to answer from the introduction to my new book.---
When you go to buy a boat, especially if it is your first boat, there are a lot of decisions to be made and hard choices to figure out. Before you begin searching for the correct vessel to serve your needs, you need to first ask yourself, (and your cruising partners/ spouse etc) some important questions which will help you immensely in the quest to find the perfect small ship to suit your needs. Question Number 1- Where do you want to sail to (now and also possibly in the future)? #2 – Who might be going with you and/or who might want to visit you and stay on the boat with you once you get to that exotic foreign port (if global cruising is your goal) or that incredible weekend getaway spot (if weekend cruising is your thing). #3 – How much do you want to spend on this adventure called boating/sailing/? Also, how much “can” you afford to spend if you happen to take a wrong turn with the adventure and “need” to spend more money to fix a problem or get yourself or your stalwart side-kick (your boat) out of trouble? #4 – How handy are you? (i.e. - Are you someone who naturally takes pride in your ability to figure it out yourself, or are you the person who would rather call an “expert” and pay them to solve whatever problem you are having? #5 – How much time do you have to save yourself money, because in sailing, as well as in life in general “time often equals money.” #6 – Are you a weekend warrior and/or charter sailor, or do you want to cruise full time? #7 – Do you care more about Getting There or more about “Being There” once you have arrived? If I had more time, I would go into deeper discussion of how each of these important questions affects your choice of boat and how you can use those questions to determine if this particular boat is the best one to suit your needs and dreams. However, this is already about the longest Ebay auction text in history, so if you want to discuss all that more fully and chat more about the particular little projects and tasks that need to be done to restore this boat to full world cruising status, then I'll be happy to talk with you on the phone for a few minutes. Feel free to give me a call at 970 319-4361. -William This boat is a boat that needs some basic skill level improvements and restorations, but nothing that can't be done by a person with average handy skills over the coarse of a few weekends while they are taking breaks in between weekend sailing trips. All that said, with a no reserve auction, the best thing about this boat is that you may be able to invest a few weekends of your own labor and some affordable materials into restoring it into the valuable and glamorous boat that it easily could become again, and yet you have an opportunity to purchase it at a mere fraction of its restored market value. To build this same boat today, the way it was constructed when it was new and using the same quality materials in today's product and labor costs would cost well over $150,000 to the boat builder, before even adding the sales broker's mark up. And so, a new boat built as well as this classic would typically cost about $250K or more after the marketing, distribution and brokers fees. So all that said, here is your opportunity to get a heck of a sturdy world cruising vessel for dimes on the dollar.Good luck bidding. I hope it goes to a good home. Call me if you want to arrange to go and see the boat in person or if you have any other questions about it. Remember, payment is due in full within 24 hours. Thanks, William 970 319-4361
| Cheoy Lee Shipyard has been owned and operated by the same family for more than a century. As a building and a repair yard at Po Tung Point in Shanghai, Cheoy Lee began producing steam powered craft. After 1936, the business moved to what was then the British territory of Hong Kong. By the mid 1950's, the shipyard diversified into the production of teak sailing and motor yachts and the success of the newly formed pleasure craft division was soon apparent. By the mid 1960's, a majority of the company's production was pleasure craft, with large numbers being exported to the United States. During the 1960's, Cheoy Lee was one of the pioneers in the development, testing and use of fiberglass construction techniques and a forerunner in the use of GRP/Foam sandwich technology in the marine field. In 1977, Cheoy Lee built a 130' motor sailer, the world's largest GRP vessel of the time. Other than on a strictly custom basis, Cheoy Lee stopped building sailing yachts in 1990 to concentrate on large Motor Yachts. To accommodate this expansion, the company moved to a new purpose-built, state-of-the-art shipyard facility in mainland China. History of the Cheoy Lee Company
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