Boat Search 2012: Do you C&C what I C&C?

Try saying “C&C” three times fast. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, reducing the letters to babbling gibberish. If it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, it’s still less of a mouthful than “Cuthbertson and Cassian,” the two Canadian co-creators of the company.

C&C yacht owners have a certain reputation for fanaticism about the brand that would probably allow the company to get away with calling itself whatever it wanted. That reputation was slightly intimidating when we first took a look at one last year. An older 38 (which is still on the market… at almost the same price), the owner was enthusiastic to the point that we thought he might change his mind about the sale right in the middle of the showing. Whether it was the low expectations we held for the interior space of what was primarily reputed to be a racing sailboat or the infectious zeal of the owner, we came away pleasantly surprised.

Our budget has gone up since then and the age range has gone down a bit, but we were more prepared to look at C&Cs again after we sold our boat and started the final push to find a replacement.

The big concern we had originally was the deep draft. We want something that sails well on the wind, sure, but does it really have to be that well? Seven feet of keel gets you to the point where certain popular anchorages start to become dicey and distance from shore in others becomes extreme. But we have managed to talk ourselves out of that objection for now. Also, one of the candidate C&Cs on our list is the Landfall 38; not a proper racer at all, but a dedicated cruiser, it primarily came in shoal draft version that drew 4’11”.

The other big strike you hear about C&Cs is the cored hull. Not many other popular brands have this feature, which provides additional strength and stiffness without adding weight, a fine thing in a performance sailboat. One reason hardly anyone else does it is that it is difficult to do well and the consequences can be traumatic. Many sailors are familiar with the perils of rotten coring in decks; imagine the same situation below the waterline and you have some idea why folks get a little hinky when the subject comes up. I’ve never seen this fact remarked upon in the sailing press, however, without the attached caveat “…but I’ve never seen one with problems.” Apparently C&C did it right. That doesn’t mean the owners continued to coddle them as necessary, however, and I still get cold sweats thinking about a leaky thru-hull or toe-rail missed at survey.

The current object of our affections is the C&C 37+, also known as the C&C 37/40 XL, or the C&C 37/40+, closely related to the C&C 37/40 R, or just the plain old C&C 37R. We’ve never seen a forty-foot boat with as many misleading names. A last hurrah from the company after it went into receivership and before it was finally purchased by Tartan in the late nineties, not many were built and the line was ultimately rather unsuccessful.

But as per expectations, the hardware is beefy and the performance is reputed to be good. Better yet, the interior has good storage, a voluminous head (adjacent to the companionway ladder) with a separate shower, and an utterly decadent master berth beneath the cockpit. You pay for that with a reduction in cockpit storage; her little sister, the 34+ (don’t get me started on the names again; it’s 36 feet, and also on our list) has a terrific cockpit locker that would have been nice to see in the larger version.

Possibly because there wasn’t a huge production run, there are not a lot of sources of information on the boat, even on the normally voluble C&C owner’s mailing list. Some owners seem to love them, others have complained of poor workmanship and quality problems.

The model seems to meet most of our criteria, although the draft still gives us some pause. They did make a wing keel version, and there are one or two of those on the market, but they are on the East coast. The two available locally have the standard 7’3″ bulb on the bottom. One of them has been defiled by the installation of in-mast furling, which for our purposes would probably have to be removed and replaced at some point. At the right price, we could work around those issues; a vicious and thorough survey might lay to rest questions of build quality and hull compromise.

There is a 34+ also on the market locally, but at the same price as the larger version, it seems silly to give up four feet of space, no matter how shiny she is.

I would like to take a look at a Landfall 38, but there are none for sale nearby currently. Mandy got a chance to look at one on a recent trip to Florida but all I can get her to say about it is, “It was weird,” so I probably need to take a look in person to pass judgement.

Our scorecard on the 37+:

Performance
Based on a racing hull that has been fairly successful locally and nationally, we think this shouldn’t be a problem. The additional weight introduced by cruising equipment and stores may degrade slightly from the top-end potential but even compromised we imagine better performance than a dedicated cruiser of this length.

Layout
The aft cabin is perfect for privacy and provides a space where a workable desk space could be introduced for my business. Mandy likes the galley layout and large hanging lockers. The nav station is more or less worthless, but we can probably do something with it. The common U-shaped settee wrapped around the fixed table is not totally our cup of tea but it’s not as wasteful as some are. And we’re pretty happy about the head location (wet locker!) and layout.

Storage
This is fair to good. There are a lot of secure and divided compartments with attractive cabinetry, and probably a sufficient number of larger spaces for bulky items. It could use much better cockpit or deck storage (I neglected to check the chain locker entirely) but you can’t have that and a huge aft cabin on a forty foot boat.

Compromises
A lot of lead that goes way down. Cored hull necessitates constant vigilance for rot problems. Tiny holding tank, without a clear location to augment it. The good light air performance also means she would probably need to be reefed early and often in variable winds, leading to workload problems. Some folks suggest they have control problems running downwind, although others claim to not have had any issues.