Okay, okay! Here's one for you trawler folks, an oldie but goodie.
And speaking of trawler styles, this really is one with that round
bilge hull. We put up a nice stern view here so's you can get
a good look at it. The draft is only 40" so there's
no excuse for running aground. This a 1976 model, with a pair
of 130 HP Perkins, that was only a two owner boat and very well
maintained. This one had a 7.5 Kw Onan (yeah, it still worked)
and airconditioning, plus custom refrigeration and freezer. Otherwise
equipage was about average. The one thing that really stood out
about this boat is the well above average maintenance.
And, strangest of coincidences, docked right next to our haul
out slip was another one that had not been so well maintained.
It still looked good on the exterior, but the engine room was
a wreck, and the interior not so hot either. See the part about
window leaks below.
Actually, our attitude toward Gulfstar has always been somewhat
on the negative side, and that has mainly been due to a serious
lack of consistency in their product line by this now nonexistant
builder. They built some very nice boats, and some rather lousy
boats, particularly the early motor sailors that developed humongous
blistering problems, among other things. In fact, a Gulfstar
44 was one of only three boat hulls we've ever seen permanently
damaged by blisters. And as near as we can tell, the Gulfstar
44 Motorsailor is basically the same boat with a mast and ballasted
keel, although with a slightly wider beam.
And guess what? Yep, this one had blisters too, but they'd all
been spot repaired some time ago and the repairs, appearing to
be rather poorly done, seemed to be holding.
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This is usually what happens when an owner tries to repair
blisters himself without knowing what he's doing. The material
used to patch the original blister also absorbed water,
expanded, cracked and itself blistered. |
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While not huge, the
salon is livable with a decent lower helm that takes up very
little space. The galley/dinette area below is disproportionately
large. |
As to hull construction, we were rather surprised
to find no significant design errors and no defects. There are lots
of bulkheads of good quality plywood - you know, the kind without
knots, voids, splinters and looking like it was purchased at a discount
store. We bashed around on the bottom and sides for a while and
this one feels amazingly solid. Folks tend to have the mistaken
notion that hulls were built a lot thicker back in the "good
ole days." Whenever that was, because it just aint so. We'd
like to show you some old Chris Crafts and Bertrams that would put
that notion to rest in a hurry. In any case, the thickness of the
hull surprised us. It surprised us even more that the advertised
weight is only 22,000 lbs. when you'd expect it to be up around
30,000.
With balsa cored decks, we went over this one with
a fine tooth comb, looking for any sign of water ingress into the
core. Not a trace. A two-owner boat, no one had ever drilled any
holes to let the water in. We were also surprised at the wide base
hand rail stanchions that were still as tight as the day they were
put on. Yep, we check the bottom sides and not a one of 'em had
been repaired or replaced: all original. That's why we love balsa.
The damn stuff works. 22 years and still in perfect condition and
the decks are as solid as can be.
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Here's yet another reason why shopping price can mean
that you pay less on the front end but more on the back
end. This owner had a very large custom refrigeration/freezer
installed. Only problem is that the installer did not insulated
it adequately and the condensation has rotted out his cabin
sole, one bulkhead and the drawer cabinets below it The
cost to repair this will be in the thousands and, of course,
it will never be done. Any refrigeration installer who knows
his business would not have made this mistake. |
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View from the aft engine
room door. Although it only allows access to one engine and
the generator, this is a whole lot better than what you get
with most boats. Its this kind of thoughtfulness that can
take some of the sting out of maintenance. |
On the down side, there were hundreds of gel coat
voids all over the decks and bridge. This pretty well tells the
story of why Gulfstars blister so bad: shoddy layup. Some of these
voids were on the magnitude of several inches and were broken and
exposed. Also shown in nearby photo is the amazing porosity of the
gelcoat. Nothing like exposure to sunlight for several decades to
show up bad spray jobs. When its too late to notice.
In addition to the strength of the hull, the deck
is glassed in place rather than being screwed. Thus, the owners
didn't get screwed either with lots of water leaks. There were no
leaks around any of the aluminum window frames, although all the
finish was gone off those frames and looked kinda shabby. On the
other hand, they did use some bad plastic port holes up forward
and aft that leak and wreck the teak/plywood paneling. All of the
ports in this one had been replaced, as well as the paneling.
The engine room is kinda tight because the placement
of the fuel tank gets in the way of the forward entry. There is
a small pit between the engines where you can almost stand up, the
keel is so deep, so once you get in there, its not so bad. It is
possible to crawl all the way around the engines. There is no decking
so you have crawl over the frames and stringers, but at least you
can get at stuff there. As you can see from the photo, this engine
room was very well maintained. With a rear entrance on the starboard
side, overall access is pretty good. Another plus is that its got
a fiberglass fuel tank that you don't have to worry about having
to replace.
We found both the struts and propeller shafts are
too small and you can bend both just by pushing on them. That makes
for fast bearing wear and damages engine mounts, and both are problems
existing on this on. You can get by with this set up with these
low power engines, but if you find one with Caterpillar 3208's,
you had better check this carefully.
The hardware, from on-deck to down in the bilges
is all good quality stuff, with the main exceptions of the window
frames and portholes. Pull them out and have them reanodized and
they'll do just fine. There's a gang of teak on the exterior for
you teak haters, from the pulpit and rails on back to the swim platform.
But there's no plywood junk to rot and fall apart.
A good sized bridge area and dual controls are
a real plus, along with an adequately sized aft deck which is covered
with a sunshade but not enclosed. Enclosed decks are just sweat
boxes in the south anyways. Its not hard to see why this boat has
always been popular with Bahamas cruisin crowd, as it is quite
easy to get around on. The lone exception is that you do have to
go out the side doors, yet it is the lack of the rear salon door
that makes the fairly small salon so much more useable. And its
got a huge dinette (too big, really) in a very good sized galley
down arrangement. Overall, we find very little to criticize about
the layout.
Getting into the aft cabin is a bit awkward through
a traditional fiddly with steep steps, but that's a small trade-off
for the rather large double berth stateroom with a quite small head
but good-sized stall shower. We'll take those trade-offs too, although
maybe mama might carp a bit. Heck, you're supposed to sleep back
there, right? Forget those boat ads with actors wearing tuxedos;
making up for the fancy dress ball should be done at home. And if
you live on a boat, you probably aren't going to many balls anyway.
Performance? Well, we did get her out into the
ocean but the wind was blowing from the west (offshore) for a week
and it was almost dead calm. With those round bilges she's going
to roll a bit, but that big keel dampens it out pretty good. Just
don't expect the same as you would from a hard chine boat. With
those tiny engines we'd have to say that she moves pretty good,
topping out at around 14 knots via GPS measurements if we can believe
that. In any case, she'll leave the wake behind up on a full plane
with no problem. With those engines and only a 300 gallon tank,
it certainly doesn't use much fuel.
Price wise, we thought this boat was a steal at
$85K. I mean, where can you get a big 43 footer like this for that
kind of money? For a lot of years us surveyors made fun of
Gulfstars, but if this boat is kept up as well as she has been,
she's easily good for another 20 years. For someone looking for
a project boat, we'd say this is a very good choice, and at this
age you can certainly find some clunkers out there. If you can find
a good one like this, so much the better. Its definitely a solid
boat worthy of consideration, no matter how many other crummy boats
Gulfstar built.
Now I'm going to shock myself and give this a full
four stars! You get an awful lot for your money with this one.
| These
are "reviews", not surveys, and bear no resemblance
to our survey reports.
We do not publish the results of the surveys that we perform.
Please note that the purpose of these reviews is educational,
to help you discern the differences in quality among boats
generally. They are not offered as a means to help you evaluate
any particular boat builder. We have no other reviews than
those posted. |
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