# Morgan 33 out island



## sck5 (Aug 20, 2007)

Hi

I am wondering if anyone has experience with these boats. I am looking at one and having trouble finding any reviews or other information about it. It has a full keel and 3-11 draft so it looks to be a pretty good choice for a boat to cruise down the east coast and into the Bahamas. Does anyone have experience with that? I wouldnt have thought a boat like this would do more than coastal sailing and island-hopping which means it might be a bit difficult getting as far as the Caribe via any sort of offshore route, even though it probably would be fine once it got there.

I would appreciate any opinions or experience on this boat - things you liked or to look out for.

Thanks!!


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

I have some experience with these boats. They were poorly built, and did not sail well. They had a very rolly motion. When they were fairly new, they were acceptable boats to sail around Florida and the Bahamas, but most of these boats are 30-35 years old and would need a major investment before I'd want to sail one across the Gulfstream. 

Jeff


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## billangiep (Dec 10, 2003)

Well if there was ever a bullet proof boat this has got to be it..My buddy owns one and he runs that boat into one thing after another, run aground more times than I can count....in our club we have a trophy called the "grounds man award" he still has it after two years. I personally don't find them esthetically pleasing.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Bulletproof? At least the one I worked on with the torn hull to deck joint and loose bulkheads had deck flange that was a narrow turned out flange glued with 3M 5500 and wide spaced sheet metal screws, sloppy glasswork, bulkheads that were skip tabbed in place and deck cleats (except the bow) that were simply screwed to the deck. 

They are roomy though. 
Jeff


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Well, I am not sure any of the above posters actually own one, but we do, so I will try to give my $.02 below. 

We have a 1979 Morgan OI 33 (see our blog on the boat sv.islandzephyr.com) and I wouldn't think that a boat built by Charlie Morgan would be of poor quality, and I haven't found this to be true myself, but they are slow, or more like lethargic, which is fine with us.

A few points I would make about the OI.

Each boat is built with a specific purpose in mind. I have found there is no good all around boat for every purpose. The Out Island was built for Florida to Bahama-Caribbean cruising. You can see the exact stats of the 33 on our blog (go to the link for "history"), she has a 3'11" draft, perfect for the "Islands", but even with a full keel, I wouldn't say it was ever built for deep water at all, that wasn't her purpose. 

Her purpose was to be able to get in and around the shallows of the keys, not sail to England from the East Coast. I personally ran our Chrysler 26 aground so many times up in the Pamlico River, breaking the keel, rudder, outboard, etc etc that I would have LOVED to have had our OI over there, it would be a great boat for that area as well.

They are slow, yes, but you are SAILING, if you are in a hurry, you can fly?  We had two other sailboats, a Chrysler 26 and a Catalina 22, both of which were way faster than this boat, but both also had their limitations as well. We wanted one we could learn on in larger bay waters and still be able to sleep comfortably on while we are anchored or in our slip.

The are very roomy inside. Our previous two sailboats gave me a terrible backache from bending over all the time (I am 5'10", not tall) and the head room in here is almost 7 feet. The beam is so nice that my wife and I can spend a good deal of time on the boat and not bump into each other every time we turn around. If you spend a lot of time at the dock (as we do at the moment because of our Perkins) it is GREAT to have this beam and headroom.

The comment about them being bullet proof I have to say are pretty close to accurate. I can break just about everything I touch and this boat is very tough and from my time spent on board you can beat the heck out of the boat and it doesn't seem to bother it at all.

They normally have a 50hp Perkins, which is a good motor to have in a boat this size. Ours when we bought it (unknown to us) had a blown bad heat exchanger ($700) and a blown head gasket (about $2-$3k). The heat exchanger we fixed, the other engine problems we will have to wait until we can fund them, but it starts up every time and runs smooth. If you buy one with a 35 year old Perkins I would recommend having it checked out by (an independent) diesel mechanic that knows the Perkins specifically. Our was checked out by a local mechanic to the marina but no one every ran it up for longer than 30-40 minutes. It wouldn't start to overheat (due to the head gasket) unless you ran it that long, so it was never known until we bought it. The engine has been our biggest problem thus far and keeps us from sailing her right this minute.

The other comment about needed to be fixed up before going longer distances I would probably agree, but don't think that is specific to the OI. Any 30-35 year old boat is going to need intermediate or greater care, upkeep, maintenance, etc etc. For some of us on a very very limited budget, the OI is a great boat, especially if you don't have the $50-75k range to spend on a boat. I believe you can get a Morgan OI for around $20k in fairly good condition, and for $20k I personally think it is a lot of boat for the money.

As far as sailing her to the Caribbean, our boat has already been there. Not with us on it, but when we bought it, we found a GPS with the tracks and waypoints still loaded and it went all throughout the Islands. The route was from Tamps, through Lake Okeechobee and down throughout the Islands going south. It had also been sailed up to the Chesapeake Bay area but not on the same trip. This was not 25 years ago when she was young, but 3-4 years ago.

We had ours delivered from Tampa to the Alabama gulf coast and the delivery captain said he was quite surprised at how well it handled the gulf (and he wasn't a big fan of the OI either).

This boat happen to fit our needs, it was in the price range, structurally sound, larger enough, could sail to the Islands with the right upkeep, is a fantastic boat to stay on while working on repairs in the slip, can be handled by two easily, and it gets us on the water.

If I had $40-$60k to spend on a boat I would probably have bought a different boat, but we didn't, we had just enough to buy the OI, and we looked at a ton of other boats in the $20k price range and this was the best boat for the money at the time (May 2007).

Good luck on your search, we for one love our OI, even if other people think it looks like the ugly duckling. 

Scott


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## sck5 (Aug 20, 2007)

thanks everyone for the comments. it helps a lot. dont know yet what we are going to do


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## chucklesR (Sep 17, 2007)

Good review Scott. 
Good luck with IZ, and your plans.


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## dave22q (Jun 1, 2011)

i've had my morgan 33 OI about a year and am amazed at the poorly built comments. i did not see any in my pre-purchase research and i doubt if you can find this opinion repeated in many places. this is heavy, solid boats, safe in a blow. its no racer, particularly to windward but the living space beats most 38s. not sure about any 30 year old for trans Atlantic but this one is fine for coastal or the islands.
i'm really curious, are their any current or former owners who think the morgan 33 was poorly constructed?


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## CaptainForce (Jan 1, 2006)

I lived aboard and cruised my OI 33 for thirteen years on the East US Coast and Bahamas. Sure, there are compromises for expense,- not the best of joinery below, but the hull itself is very sound. Some had trouble with the hull-deck joint which was more vulnerable to damage with the early 70's boats before moving the joint from the rub rail to the toe rail, but the deck is secured with SSbolts, not sheet metal screws as inaccurately posted above. In general, the boat performs in compliance with it's design and production costs which suited me enough for 13 years to cause me to spend the last 27 years on my Morgan OI 41. Take care and joy, Aythya crew


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## dave22q (Jun 1, 2011)

thanks for your input.


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## happyhealer (Jun 8, 2016)

Currently have a 33 out island and have sailed it to Grenada and back. Lucky for me the previous owner replaced the jib with a roller furling genoa that was cut to make the boat sail much better than it is reputed. Extending the forestay about 12 to 16 inches forward of the bow and having a good sail maker allows this boat to sail amazingly well. On return from Grenada had a full batten main made by South Sails or "Mack" in Indian Harbour beach which helped my boat tack and point much higher. The real problem with this boat is that it just needs to be upgraded and well maintained and for some reason it well be a good boat for you! Put 15 to 20 k in this boat or any well made older boat and guess what you have a good all around cruising boat. Buy any boat in dis-repair and you well get what you paid for regardless of name or age.
This boat is very dry going to weather and sails to weather as good as any true cruising boat out there actually cruising with full gear, water, food, etc. We keep up with 35 and 38 foot boats until it gets over 20 knots and then the "high end" boats with sail maker captains pull away from us in the open ocean. This boat regularly does five to 6.3 knots under sail or power with a well maintained iron jenny perkins 4-108. Anyone who says they do not motor in calm weather to make a rough passage easy is well full of hot air or has an outboard or a carbon fiber mainsail. Have had a great sail between islands too many times when others had the snot handed to them because they wanted to leave when the wind was 25 plus...(leave in calm conditions motoring and sail the last 25 miles in perfect 15-20 afternoon conditions.) Remember this is a coastal cruising boat and thus a good Island hopping boat as almost every modern production boat under 40 feet to this very day. Because it is much more heavily built and does not have a break away racing keel it might even be better.
This boat and the 41 are the original clorox bottle boat that started the whole charter cruising industry in the 70's and no one well admit they arghh and have been copying it in one form or another ever since. They are built super solid and well take you over the reef and into the lagoon if you should be so unlucky to lose your way.
She is an ugly duckling and has a bad rap but the full keel away from the dock is great in the open ocean and away from the distain of anyone with half a million in they're boat. Once at anchorage in any port away from such folks you well be treated with complete respect as no one really cares once you are out on sail about. Often your boat is the happy hour boat if you are friendly regardless of size or style of boat. It is all about your attitude and how much fun you want to have.
If you want to sail around the world then get a six foot draft forty foot boat with pedigree that gives you confidence to go for it or go the Lin and Larry Pardee way and hand make your own wooden boat under 30 foot (with no iron jenny) and be a true blue water adventurer.
Tom


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## MarkHo (Mar 2, 2017)

Owned our 1977 Morgan OI33 for 10 years now - very solid boat, I agree with the other owners here. Yes, sailing to wind is not the same as a performance boat, but we like the "built for comfort" aspect and spent two enjoyable summers (8-10 weeks each time) in the Bahamas as a family (2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs and did I mention a guest?).

Never felt "looked down upon" - guess we were enjoying the Bahama Mamas too much to notice!


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

CaptainForce said:


> I lived aboard and cruised my OI 33 for thirteen years on the East US Coast and Bahamas. Some had trouble with the hull-deck joint which was more vulnerable to damage with the early 70's boats before moving the joint from the rub rail to the toe rail, but the deck is secured with SS bolts, not sheet metal screws as inaccurately posted above.


A quick comment on this. From what I gather, there are huge variations in how the Out Island's were assembled over the years. When I was in college I worked in a number of boat yards and had the chance to work on a number of them. These were definitely early 1970's era boats and apparently, the later ones were better built.

But the ones that I worked definitely had the hull deck joint screwed together with sheet metal screws. As the Morgan rep explained to me during this era, the yard believed that the joint was glued together with the 5200 that was used, and the screws were only there to hold the parts until the 5200 had hardened. I can also state from personal experience that the at least the deck cleats that I reinstalled (with through bolts and backers) were originally installed with self-tapping screws into the fiberglass.

I can also state from personal experience grinding and repairing these boats, that the glass work was moderately heavy as the result of the lack of internal framing, but it was also pretty poorly done with proportionately large amounts of non-directional reinforcing, and poor resin ratios.

Jeff


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Mine is a 1973 model, all the cleats are thru-bolted with backing plates. The only cleats I can access and see the backing plates are on the bow and stern, so I really cannot comment on those amidships. The cabin top is bolted to the hull at 6-inch intervals and glued with 5200 (I guess that's what was used), and there is a lot of heavy, structural framing, which can be seen when you remove the storage drawers on the starboard side. However, I have no way of determining the fiberglass layup, mainly because it would be damned near impossible to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat, and don't intend on doing so. 

Using a 100-percent jib, and battened main, I find the boat sails quite well in all conditions other than very light air. I'm too old to fool with a spinnaker or oversized jib (that's why I have an engine.) I'm sure that with some sail modifications the boat would point tighter, but I really am not in a hurry to do anything these days - I just want to put the sails up and stop in a quiet creek or cove when I feel like stopping.

When I was offshore and bumping against the Gulf Stream with an opposing wind, (my bad) the boat took the beating and continued to ride very dry in light of the nasty conditions. Once I got back inshore, the boat settled down and handled the 4 to 6 footers quite well. 

The only negative is that with that close proximity of the prop to the keel is the boat does not back down well at all, and tends to do some weird prop walks in directions other than anticipated. I was thinking of switching to a 2 bladed prop to see if there would be an improvement, but right now I don't need the added expense, though I should probably have a backup prop on the boat just in case.

Having spent time on several Catalina's to 48 feet, I can honestly say the Morgan 33 OI has as much, or more, interior space and storage as most 41 footers. It never ceases to amaze me as to the amount of storage and living space this boat has. Plus, it has a very spacious cockpit and foredeck. What more could a cruiser ask for, especially at the price these boats are not going for.

All the best,

Gary


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## RegisteredUser (Aug 16, 2010)

I always thought this would be a great boat to fart around in the islands on...and be very livable...comfortable.


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## captndave1 (Nov 25, 2016)

One available in Apollo Beach, Fl


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Here's a video of the interior of my boat.






Gary


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## JimInPB (Oct 5, 2020)

travlin-easy said:


> Here's a video of the interior of my boat.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Geeze,
That's one of the nicest OI33s I've seen. 
If you ever decide that you want to sell that thing, please drop me a note.


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## Thomas Gentry (May 22, 2020)

It's worth noting here that Jeff_H is completely full of it.

The owners comments: sails well but not to wind; "handled the 4 to 6 footers quite well."

Jeff_H: "They were poorly built, and did not sail well. They had a very rolly motion."

The owners comments: "Mine is a 1973 model, all the cleats are thru-bolted with backing plates. The cabin top is bolted to the hull at 6-inch intervals and glued with 5200. I have no way of determining the fiberglass layup, mainly because it would be damned near impossible to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat, and don't intend on doing so. "

Jeff_H comments: "When I was in college I worked in a number of boat yards and had the chance to work on a number of them." "At least *the one *I worked on with the torn hull to deck joint and loose bulkheads had deck flange that was a narrow turned out flange glued with *3M 5500* and wide spaced sheet metal screws, sloppy glasswork, bulkheads that were skip tabbed in place and deck cleats (except the bow) that were simply screwed to the deck."

The comment is almost illiterate to me, and I work in a boat shop, so I'll try to translate: 'I worked on one. It had a separated hull-to-deck joint. It also had loose bulkheads. It also had a deck flange that was narrow, with inappropriate screws, and glued with *3M* *5200. *Some bulkheads weren't fiberglassed thoroughly to connect to hull. Deck cleats weren't fastened properly.'

My comments: I am a 1976 Morgan Out Island owner, liveaboard, and work on boats as my profession. Since Charlie Morgan lived a good long life, he was asked many times what he thought of the Morgan Out Island 33, which was designed just after he stopped designing for Morgan, but before he left the company. He said "I'd like the displacement to be a bit heavier", nothing about construction with improper materials.

The glass is super thick and probably literally bulletproof. The hull-to-deck joint has been resealed in the last forty years, and 5200 was used then, and is still the right stuff for the hull-to-deck joint. Self-tapping/sheet metal screws weren't used. As other comments have said, all the hardware is correct. Jeff_H is probably misremembering something he read somewhere or conflating one boat with another, maybe viewing a boat after a poor refit. Memory is highly fallible and influenced by suggestion and repetition. But anyone in this forum can walk to a boatyard and see the truth.


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## Thomas Gentry (May 22, 2020)

Thomas Gentry said:


> My comments: I am a 1976 Morgan Out Island owner, liveaboard, and work on boats as my profession. Since Charlie Morgan lived a good long life, he was asked many times what he thought of the Morgan Out Island 33, which was designed just after he stopped designing for Morgan, but before he left the company. He said "I'd like the displacement to be a bit heavier", nothing about construction with improper materials.


Correction, I've been doing some digging and Charley Morgan's name appears on the preliminary drafts of the 33 Out Island in July 1972. He's listed as the Designer. Oddly, the Manual I found for a 1976 Out Island 33 gives the earliest design and production dates as mid-1971. "The Out Island 33 was designed and first produced in mid-1971 as a "charter member" of the Morgan Out Island series."


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Thomas Gentry said:


> It's worth noting here that Jeff_H is completely full of it.


I will start by putting on my Moderator hat for a minute. Forum rules forbid personal attacks. Had you said that about any other member (besides me) you would have a temporary banning as a warning against such statements. Because this was said about me, and I do not have thin skin, I will not be banning you. But Mr. Gentry, you need to consider this as a warning. If you make any further similar statements about any SailNet member, including myself, you will be banned.



Thomas Gentry said:


> The owners comments: sails well but not to wind; "handled the 4 to 6 footers quite well."
> Jeff_H: "They were poorly built, and did not sail well. They had a very rolly motion."
> 
> The owners comments: "Mine is a 1973 model, all the cleats are thru-bolted with backing plates. The cabin top is bolted to the hull at 6-inch intervals and glued with 5200. I have no way of determining the fiberglass layup, mainly because it would be damned near impossible to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat, and don't intend on doing so. "
> ...


I will start by providing some background on my exposure to these boats. In the 1970's, I worked in a boatyard who serviced a charter fleet of Out Islands used in south Florida and the Bahamas. The new Out Islands were shipped to that yard for commissioning, and boats in the fleet were brought in for normal maintenance and repairs, warranty work, and insurance claims. I saw quite a few of these boats in a short period of time. I was the little guy sent into lockers and tight corners to patch damaged glass, and install backing plates, bolts and washers. On a number of occasions, I also took day gigs helping to bring boats from the charter fleet to the boatyard and from the boat yard to the charter fleet, Because of that experience, I have helped other Out Island owners make repairs on their boats and have made deliveries on these boats on a number of occasions over the years.

If you work in boatyards, then I am sure that like me, you would remember pretty accurately every detail of a comparatively new boat that had a hull deck failure. In my position I got to see the damage up close and personal. I got to sit in the conversation with the Morgan factory production rep, the insurance company surveyor, and the repair crew as it was worked out how to repair the damage, and how to assign how much of this repair as a warranty claim and how much an Insurance claim. I helped pry open the joint enough to work on it, I was the one assigned to clean out the joint, I helped lay the new glass where the 5200 split the glass in the flange. I helped to install the new 5200 and new bolts and nuts that replaced the self-tapping screws. I helped when we glassed over the hull to deck joint beyond where we stopped prying the deck apart, I crawled into the sail locker and cut away the skip tabbing, ground the hull, and reglassed the bulkhead. If you were not there, and did not do the work with your own hands, then don't tell me that I am full of it. And, yes, thankfully, I only saw one with a failed hull to deck joint.

Commissioning these boats, we were installing knot meters and depth sounders. Between visiting the factory in the 1970's and seeing these boats being built, grinding these boats making repairs, and examining the cores that came out when we drilled for electionics, I stand behind my statement that the glass work was crude, resin rich, and by any objective engineering standard, contained excessive amounts of non-directional fabrics. That was more the norm than an exception back then.

As I have said before, clearly during the long production run of the Out Islands, over that production run the building techniques clearly varied. I will also acknowledge that most of the boats I saw were built for the charter trade and there were obvious choices made to keep the cost down on those boats (cheaper and less hardware, or formica over fir non-marine plywood bulkheads for example). But I also have seen non-charter trade boats that had similar construction conditions.

In terms of bolting for the cleats, if you have one of the Out Islands that have the teak cleat aft of the genoa winch (rather than the aluminum cleat that showed up on later boats) look at the underside of the deck below that cleat and you will see the visible ends of self tapping screws. I helped retrofit bolts and backing plates on those cleats and on the stern cleats of a number of these boats either where the self tapping screws had pulled out of the deck or as a precaution. I know for certain that was changed at the factory to bolts and large washers (no backing plate) at some point in the production run since I saw a later boat with that cleat installed that way and zolatoned over.

In terms of motion, from the early 1960's to this day, I purposely sail on as many different boats as I can. With my background in yacht design, and my interest in the science of sailing yachts, it allows me to understand the relative characteristics of various makes and models. While motion comfort is somewhat subjective, by being able to compare back to back a number of similar sized boats from the same and from different eras, I can generally get a relative sense of how one particular design behaves relative to another. Having been on a number of Out Islands in a broad range of conditions, I stand by my statement that they tend to be rolly, by which I mean rolling through wider angles than similar length sail boats of that era and of subsequent eras. I would think that if you have experience sailing on a range of boats of this general size you would have made a similar observation.

I understand that as a boat owner you nd some of the other owners feel compelled to defend your boats. I get that, it's just human nature. But as an outside observer without a dog in this hunt, I stand by my own personal observations.

I have provided the above background information so that others reading this discussion can weigh for themselves, what they want to believe.

Respectfully,
Jeff


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## JimInPB (Oct 5, 2020)

Jeff_H said:


> I will start by putting on my Moderator hat for a minute. Forum rules forbid personal attacks. Had you said that about any other member (besides me) you would have a temporary banning as a warning against such statements. Because this was said about me, and I do not have thin skin, I will not be banning you. But Mr. Gentry, you need to consider this as a warning. If you make any further similar statements about any SailNet member, including myself, you will be banned.
> 
> I will start by providing some background on my exposure to these boats. In the 1970's, I worked in a boatyard who serviced a charter fleet of Out Islands used in south Florida and the Bahamas. The new Out Islands were shipped to that yard for commissioning, and boats in the fleet were brought in for normal maintenance and repairs, warranty work, and insurance claims. I saw quite a few of these boats in a short period of time. I was the little guy sent into lockers and tight corners to patch damaged glass, and install backing plates, bolts and washers. On a number of occasions, I also took day gigs helping to bring boats from the charter fleet to the boatyard and from the boat yard to the charter fleet, Because of that experience, I have helped other Out Island owners make repairs on their boats and have made deliveries on these boats on a number of occasions over the years.
> 
> ...


Thank you for all that background information. Although I recently bought a different boat & do not expect to be back in the boat buying market for the next few years, I do expect that some day I will probably buy an OI33, as I like the layout & the shallow draft. This being the case, & your apparent knowledge of the boat being as in depth as you described, I would like to ask you if there are any specific areas of this particular boat that you would recommend for special inspection from a perspective buyer.

Thanks,
Jim


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Jim,

I would respectfully suggest the following:
1) Try to find one that was not built for the charter trade and one of the later production run models since build details apparently got better over time.
2) Look at how the bulkheads are tabbed in. Some boats have continuous tabbing and others have skip tabbing (discontinuous). If the boat has skip tabbing I would move on. If it has continuous tabbing check the condition of the tabbing both at the hull and the bulkhead since the type of hull to deck joint on some of these boats heavily loads the bulkhead joints.
3) Check for leaks in the hull to deck joint. That would typically result from the 5200 separating from the fiberglass or the fiberglass itself delaminating.
4) Look for spider cracks in the gelcoat where the hull rolls into the hull to deck joint. (I will note that the boats that I saw all had the hull to deck joint behind the rub rail. I have been told that the hull to deck joint was moved up to deck level on some model years.)
5) Look at how the stern cleats and sail handling cleats are installed. Its pretty easy to reinstall them with through bolts and backing plates on the early boats, but it should be done if there are self-tapping screws. As noted in the discussion, Morgan and/or some owners had switched that detail to thru-bolting at some point.
6) The boats with the mahogany or teak bulkheads probably were 'owner boats'. They seemed to have left the factory better built and better equipped.
7) Depending on year and model, some of the Out Islands have external chainplates that are solely fastened to the topsides above the hull to deck joint. Later versions of those boats had internal reinforcing crossing the joint either in the form of a knee, bulkhead or a strap. It was thought that the absence of that connection contributed to the hull to deck joint repair that I was involved in, So pay attention to that. That is not an issue with the boats that have the hull to deck joint at the deck. I would also note that the bolts passing through the hull tend to corrode where they pass through the hull. Also some of these boats do not have backing plates on the chain plate attachments. I would plan on checking the condition of the bolts once you own the boat. The good news is that the bolts were pretty accessible and the replacement would not be all that expensive. Also the chainplates follow the topsides and then have a fold that aligns them with the shrouds. Because the Chainplates flex a little at that point, I would check the chainplate on the inboard side behind this fold for signs of fatigue.

Other than that, there are the usual old boat issues.

Jeff


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## JimInPB (Oct 5, 2020)

Jeff_H said:


> Jim,
> 
> I would respectfully suggest the following:
> 1) Try to find one that was not built for the charter trade and one of the later production run models since build details apparently got better over time.
> ...


Thank you for all of this. Item #6 was particular enlightening.


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