Chrysler Sailors Forum

For all you David Letterman fans, I had my own , play at home version of his famous segment "will it float?' If any of you had any doubts about these boats and how rugged they are, here is my story.... boat has been sitting outside for almost 8 years inits shipping cradle in the northeast, was just hauled , cradle and all about 60 miles , right off the truck it was put in the harness of the travel lift and thrown in the water.... BTW, I have three thu hulls, the rudder, the depth and knotmeter..all OEM and would you believe it....IT FLOATS and I go below check everywhere and not a drop, not a drop! I had to get out of a very tight slip singlehanded with a lot of snobs looking at this old boat and freaking out that I might dare touch their precious boat but with the fixed fin keel of the C-26 she spun around on a dime like a dingy , just like my highly manuverable J-24 from the old days!.. I motored her to my slip , about a 40 minute sail, with a steady chop in the bay...solid as a rock. Not a drop in the bilge... not a drop on the topsides... I have a VERY long list of work for this Fall but I wanted to get her in the water fo r the remainder of the season ( and I guess she was eager too after almost a deacade!)

The good points.... the yard was VERY impressed with her hull, smooth and solid. Even the OEM cradle was built like a tank...for all the commotion of the haulers the cradle was more study than their trailers and the yard was astonished that when the off loaded the cradle it was solid, with no flex at all...we are talking about almost 30 year old timbers here itneh the northeast winter no less!

The bad; That rudder is a problem and I need a rudder blade and I have the Ida bearings to put in when she comes out in the Fall but with no leaks I might not bother with new thru-hulls for the rudder. she needs cosmetics and TLC type stuff .

So there is another Chrysler in the water these days!

Curious...has anyone thoguth of the value of thsi boat as a hstoric vessel... mine is ALL OEM, and at teh yard, they saw Chrylser, surprised they made sailboats and asked me about the historic value of it and if I was restoring it and going to keep it all original....hmmmm.... I wasnot going to do that but now it got me thinking...Chrylser as a car compamny will likely no longer exist in a few years and our boats are a very important part of American boat building....anyone bother thinking of the future value of keeping their boat all original ( I still have the original Chrysler 15 "sailor" outboard that Iwas going to get rid of but I might keep it now.)

Allright, Good to have another Chrysler on board. There may be hope for my 26 yet, hope to get it in next week. As for the 15 HP sailer, I would keep it. I have one, an I may be using it. Have a good time sailing.

thanks...

I may have to dust off that really old chrysler 15 OB...my brand new suzuki 4 stroke 9.9 HP is so damn heavy (weighs more than a 40HP 2 stroke!!!) that I now see that the wood onteh OB bracket is actually flexing...not good...I wired teh OB tothe stanchion for safety and hope the whole business holds on for a month or two more 'till Ihaul out again in fall and deal with all these growing issues.