Hello,

My wife and I are new owners of the Fairweather Mariner 39, ex "Raven" and recently "Odyssey". We renamed it to "Kolea", Hawaiian for the Pacific Golden Plover.

The boat is in San Carlos, Mexico, while we are in Portland, OR. We spent a week there in October for survey and sea trials. The plan is to drive down in February with a car full of boat gear for updates and some cruising. 

There is much to learn. Hopefully FWM 39 owners can help answer a few questions here.

1) Cutter or sloop? The boat is rigged with a forestay and hank-on staysail. Does the boat sail well as a sloop in most weather? Or, is the staysail an advantage in heavy weather?  Has anyone re-rigged with a Solent stay? The headstay has a roller furler with a 120% Genoa.

2) Main reefing seems quite stiff. It appears to have the Isomat in-boom shuttle system. Any advice on servicing, reducing friction, or otherwise improving the main reefing system? 

2) Is there a standard pedestal model on the FWM 39? It is an Edson system. The steering is very stiff and likely needs TLC at the pedestal head, maybe new needle bearings, etc.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thank you,

Randall Webster

Hi Randall,

We have one of the original 13 Westsails built in California. A previous owner did a significant refit on it in 2010 for which we are grateful.

 The Westsail sails great as a sloop. Ours has a removable inner stay, so we only use the staysail in stronger winds. The rest of the time the stay is stowed near the mast.

Ours also came with a solent stay and a Hoyt boom which I removed. The foredeck was unusable with the boom and the genoa could not be tacked with completely furling it. In our light-wind area, this was a non-starter. We’re headed south next year and I’m considering reinstalling the solent stay but not the boom. 

We have shown in-boom reefing which works great  I did have to replace the sleeves in the book that were seized causing problems during reefing.

 We also have a Edson pedestal with stiff steering. I’ve replaced the steering cables but that didn’t fix the problem  I believe my issue is in the rudder post. It had a stuffing box type sealing ring. I’m pretty sure I have to drop the rudder to fix this. I tried removing the quadrant last year but it was seized to the shaft. A job for another time…

Kevin