PT 38 Sedan

HiJust wanted to introduce myself, as a fairly new member and with my first post.
My name is Mike Barge and am the proud owner of a 1985 PT 38 Sedan,
named Rochepoint. Would love to hear from others with vessel built by Cheer Men
in Taiwan or designed by John Noreck. If you are interested in more information
regarding Rochepoint or our boating please visit www.rochepoint.ca


Thanks to everyone for a Great Site and all the information!


Cheers Mike
Sidney, British Columbia
Canada

Welcome aboard Mike. That is a great looking vessel you have there. This is a very friendy board on our good days, but sometimes our manners get sticky . I suspect if you would reintroduce yourself up in general discussions you would attract more attention. A lot of the guys don't scroll this far down on a regular basis. Have you had Rochepoint long and what does the name mean?Steve

Thanks for the response. We have owner Rochepoint for a little over 12 years now and enjoy her very much. The name was given to her by her previous owner who lived on Rochepoint Drive. Other than that it is a lighthouse in Ireland called Roche's Point. Your boat is also a great looking vessel, the 80's were good years. Actually the website has had a fair amount of hits since the post went up, so someone looking.Cheers Mike


-- Edited by rochepoint on Saturday 4th of July 2009 10:03:27 PM

Hi Mike, I just joined TF and saw your post. I have a 1986 PT 41 Europa and always interested in other PTs. Its hard to find info on these boats. How do you like yours?Mike Martin

Hi Mike
We love our boat, it has been great. I thought the we hard to find but our yacht club of 300 members has 5 PT's in it. One 41 aft cabin, three 38 aft cabins and our 38 sedan. The gentlemen who owns the 41 was actually at the yard twice while his was being built way back when. They all like there boats. Hope you enjoy yours!

Mike, In the 17 months I've owned Cantina ( 41 PT europa sedan ), I haven't come across another. I know these trawlers were not made for long, but I'm beginning to wonder if I have the only one! There seems to be alot of 38s both tri-cabin & sedans and a few 41" tri-cabins, but no 41 sedans. I'll continue my search. Thanks for your response.*Mike

Another Cheer Men owner here...since March this year.* My first boat and my first post.***

In my case it's a 1987 PT42, with cockpit.* One of the main reasons I chose this particular boat, besides the very good condition, was that it is very dog friendly as far as access to all decks and the dinghy.* It sounds a bit silly, but you don't know how important that is until you have a 100lb mutt that insists on being wherever you are.*

The boat was repowered with John Deere engines in 1996.* Those still have slightly less than 1000 hours (and you could almost eat your dinner off them).* Since purchase I have upgraded the electronics and changed out some of the pointy end bits (new remotely controlled up/down windlass to save the marriage, etc).

Now, all we need* is to go some where!!!* Our plans (mostly the wife's) for free time and long trips don't seem to be working out.* Sigh...always next year and we do get to enjoy the boat and the passing traffic at our end-of-dock slip.

Anyway, thought I'd say HI.* I've been lurking and soaking up some of the very useful expertise here.* Thanks.

Richard* ** **

Hi Richard

Beautiful boat, hope you enjoy her as much as we enjoy ours!
Maybe we will cross paths one day as we are both in the PNW.
Ever up Sidney way just send me an email, maybe we can get together.

Richard I notice you don't have the "cheer men" plaques like Mike does.* Yours looks a lot like (soon to be) our PT 35 Sundeck which we are told was either built by "Taiwan Overseas Yachts" or Kha something, I can't rememner right now!* Ours also is in really great shape for the age and appears to be really well made.* Have you made any interesting discoveries about the boat since you have had her?

Hi Jennifer,

Yeah, no badges, name plates at all on the exterior.* There are some Cheer Men plaques in various work spaces.* I no longer have the one in the photo below as the holding tank was known to be leaking even before the survey and was replaced with a plastic unit.* I have a very nice polished danforth style anchor with "Cheer Men Marine" cast into the shank.* It came as the spare anchor stored under the bed.* The boat still has a number of original "PT-42" labeled accoutrements including the mattress cover and some dinnerware.

Interesting discoveries?* Not really.* The electronics were old and I knew I was going to be updating those.* I do know my way around the various wireways in the boat very well as I have pulled a LOT of cables from one place to the next over the last few months.* I think I have finished that part.* I hope so!* The windlass changeout was more by choice than absolute necessity.* Oh...I did have some fiberglass cracking and rot in the bowsprit, right where it overhangs the bow, discovered when I was changing out the various tackle bits.* Fortunately , that whole bow "plate" came off allowing me to take it back to my workshop where I dug out the worst, thoroughly dried the rest and epoxy filled the voids.

No other unpleasant "surprises" so far (cross fingers, touch wood, etc, etc).

Richard

thanks Richard, now I have some more ideas for places to look for clues on which yard built the boat.* It seems they are all of the same design (by John Noreck), even if built by different yards.** I guess that was normal for this era in Taiwan??

Ours includes a set of "PT 35" dinnerware, only slightly yellowed with age!

I'd love to hear what electronics you went with or see photos.**Our boat also has never had any of the electronics updated and only about half of*them*are working.**We are thinking of using a laptop for our chartplotter for now as we figure out what we want for*a permanent set up.*

Pineapple Girl wrote:

It seems they are all of the same design (by John Noreck), even if built by different yards.** I guess that was normal for this era in Taiwan??

Click to expand...

It was typical in the Taiwan boat building industry for hulls and sometimes primary structures to be constructed in the "main" yard and then the uncompleted boats were farmed out to smaller, family-owned yards for completion.* Sometimes this included doing everything but the basic hull, sometimes this involved just installing all the finish details and hardware.* This is the main reason why the build quality within a particular brand or model can be so variable--- it all depended on the way the family yard did the completion work.* Practices varied from yard to yard.

*

So Brand X, Model Y, hull number 123 might have marine plywood as stiffeners inside the fiberglass cabin sides while Brand X, Model Y, hull number 124 might have pieces of packing crates and pallets inside the cabin walls as stiffeners.* Functionally they may be the same, but if years later a window starts leaking and the moisture gets down inside the wall, guess which stiffening wood will hold out the longest.* Perhaps long enough for you to discover the problem and effect a repair before things start rotting away.

*

Not all Taiwan builders did this, and I believe the practice largely died out in more recent years.* But in the 70s and 80s this was a common construction process for many of the Taiwan builders.

*

I don't know if the family yards doing the completion work ever put their names on the boat in any way.



-- Edited by Marin on Monday 30th of August 2010 01:15:42 PM

Pineapple Girl wrote:I'd love to hear what electronics you went with or see photos.**Our boat also has never had any of the electronics updated and only about half of*them*are working.**We are thinking of using a laptop for our chartplotter for now as we figure out what we want for*a permanent set up.

Click to expand...

I went with a Furuno Navnet VX2 system.* 10.4" chartplotters (C-map) for both helms, Furuno radome, Furuno fishfinder, etc.* The boat came with an AutoHelm (Raymarine) autopilot and we managed to get that (including the heading sensor), and the Furuno system talking to each other via NMEA.* One of the few other things I kept was a functioning DataMarine depthsounder (with repeater) as a back-up.

The photos are of the old and new lower helm and my "nifty" new swing out upper helm.

Our latest "upgrade" is a 2½" memory foam topper for the main bed (from Costco).* The current mattress, by itself, just wasn't quite cutting it for these spoiled old bones.* I still have to cut it to the rounded shape and try it out...but I think it's going to be a big improvement.


-- Edited by Tonic on Tuesday 31st of August 2010 02:01:07 AM

-- Edited by Tonic on Tuesday 31st of August 2010 02:04:20 AM

Nice - very nice.

Tonic wrote:

*my "nifty" new swing out upper helm.

Click to expand...

that is Baaaaaad!!!!** My husband is going to want to copy your ideas!

Our boat "appears" to have a nice aftermarket mattress in the aft cabin.* We shall find out this weekend how comfy it really is!* I hope your topper helps--how can it not?

Pineapple Girl wrote:
Our boat "appears" to have a nice aftermarket mattress in the aft cabin.* We shall find out this weekend how comfy it really is!* I hope your topper helps--how can it not?

Click to expand...

Well turns out the nice "looking" mattress is pretty much hard as a rock. Like I wake up throughout the night with numb body parts and have to roll over.* So a memory foam topper is pretty high on the list!* At least the mattress has good "support".

Pineapple Girl wrote:Pineapple Girl wrote:
"Well turns out the nice "looking" mattress is pretty much hard as a rock. Like I wake up throughout the night with numb body parts and have to roll over."

Click to expand...

Jennifer:
That's a very common problem on most boats, mine included.
I had hip pointers most mornings until I had a custom innerspring matress made.
(Very expensive though)


*

Just got back from a week in the San Juans (our first real "voyage").* The memory foam topper made all the difference and I highly recommend it.* The bed is now very comfortable.* No more tossing and turning all night.* I think it was $139 for the Queen size at Costco.* Pretty cheap for a "boat upgrade" considering how much time you spend in that area.

I made a paper template of one of the rounded corners and used that to mark the foam (after giving it a day to fully decompress). * I then cut to shape with an ordinary pair of household scissors.** The edges are a bit rough but once the bottom sheet is fitted over both the topper and the mattress you would never know.* Larger scissors or shears would have made the job easier.*

Waking up to this after a good nights sleep ain't too bad either (from "our" mooring buoy at Jones Island).

-- Edited by Tonic on Tuesday 14th of September 2010 04:34:44 AM