# Just picked up my 1967 Pearson Wanderer



## Thecoffeeman

Just looking to network with other Pearson Wanderer owners.


----------



## mitiempo

I don't have a Wanderer but welcome to Sailnet.


----------



## CalebD

I don't have a Pearson Wanderer either but my Tartan 27' looks like a 3' smaller cousin of that boat: WANDERER 30 (PEARSON) Sailboat details on sailboatdata.com
right down to the nearly full keel with a center board. My boat is also from 1967. 
Is your engine an Atomic 4? Mine is and still going mostly strong after 43, no 44 years.


----------



## ilikerust

I own a 1968 Wanderer - number 85. I'm currently deep in the middle of major work on her. I pulled the Atomic 4 out and brought it home and am doing a full-blown overhaul. You can read all about it and see lots of 8x10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back saying what each one is, in four-part harmony right here.

I'm also doing some interior carpentry. I yanked out the entire cabin sole because it was pretty badly deteriorated. I just today epoxied in new floor timbers that I had made a few weeks back.


----------



## Ducky

*67' Pearson Wanderer*

Hi,

I own a 67' Wanderer, hull #40. Sail out of the N. shore of MA. Spent three years working on her, so if you need some advice, just ask.

Ducky


----------



## CLOSECALL

Just bought a 66 wanderer. Hull number 5. Docked at Pt. Lookout, MD. It's a great boat and will be a beauty by this spring.


----------



## ilikerust

CLOSECALL said:


> Just bought a 66 wanderer. Hull number 5.


Cool! It's interesting to me to see the various differences in the boats. It seems that no two are the same, as they made lots of changes in the few years the Wanderer was in production and I'm guessing there also was a bit of customization possible based on the customer's requests. They were mostly handmade, really. My impression is that in their day, the early Pearsons were very nice boats.

I still have the original bill of sale for mine from 1968, and it sold for over $15,000 then. That is the equivalent of about $125,000 today.



CLOSECALL said:


> will be a beauty by this spring.


Heheheh.... get back to us on that. I said the same thing about mine - I was going to do a bunch of work on her and get it all done by Spring of 2011. It's never done - and I haven't even finished half the stuff I started last year...


----------



## ehlsail

I just sold my 68 Wanderer, Hull # 114. She was a great boat, sailed her offshore from Galveston to Port Isabel (near the Mexico border) a couple of times, to Corpus Christi many times, back up the ICW numerous times. The Wanderer performed very well, likes to be reefed early for best performance. Would have kept her but it was a partnership boat, needed some serious work, and we found someone who was willing to pay the partners more than I was. The Wanderers are very solid and the hull is thick as a brick.


----------



## Jeff_H

My family came very close to buying one of the first Wanderers from the factory. The factory had a few mould and gelcoat problems on these early boats and so was offering the one that we were considering at a pretty big discount. We drove up to Pearson to look at the boat and had a tour of the plant. At the time there were probably a half dozen Wanderers and Coasters in various stages of production within the factory. 

When its suggested that perhaps Peason was willing to customize these boats and so they vary widely, that does not match my recollection. As I recall there were two standard layouts on these boats, which were more or less essentially the same as the layout on the Vanguard, which is what we ended up buying. I vaguely recall that there may have been one update to the interior before the boats left production. 

Which is not to say these boats were strictly standard....Pearson sold their boats much the same way that cars were sold in those days. Basically almost everything was optional. It was kinda like: 
You want a table, great- optional...
You want winches, What size? any size- Optional...
You wanted seatback cushions, good idea- optional...
and so on down to a pretty course or fine level. 

The point being that you saw some of these boats bring sold pretty naked, while others were loaded to the hilt. It was not as bad a system as it sounds since individual owners had specific goals and budgets and this let them fine tune to their needs. 

But also these boats are pretty long in the tooth. The last one I was on (which may have been a Coaster now that I think of it) had almost a new interior because the plywood bulkheads rotted out behind the freshly painted formica that was on the boat when that person bought her. He did a beautiful job restoring and reconfiguring the interior to suit his needs and if you saw that boat, you would think it was another factory layout, but it was strictly customized with berth lengths increased and a more workable galley layout. And more room in the engine compartment for a larger alternator and the kind of gear that goes with extra battery boxes. 

I know that people hate when I say this these days, but back then Pearsons and Columbias were the Hunters of their day. They were value oriented production boats. Frankly they were not all that heavily or well constructed. 

But the one thing I will say is that the Coasters and Wanderers of their day, being designed to race under the MORC racing rule, were pretty wholesome designs for thier day, and frankly nicer boats to sail than similar sized designs of that same era such as the Alberg 30. 

Jeff


----------

