When buying a star

[JMOD]

a teammate of mine and i are looking to buy a star. what are thinks to look out for? weak spots, difference between the builders, etc.

we now have an eye on a Lillia out of 1995, what are things to look out for.

we are already looking at boats that have an:

- epoxy hull

- dubbel bottom (airbags)

- selfbailers already in the boat

- number and state of sails

- trailer

- sort and state of hardware.

we will use it for regular fleet racing. we have no aspiration to buy the best boat, we want to get more on the technical side of sailing.

we want to have a boat with which is reasonably competitive as we both have agreements with other yachts for racing. this is purely for our own development but we do not want to come in last and we certainly don't want to say that we are always "slow because the boat is just slow".

all tips, tricks and information helps. thanks in advance

 

[jamieb]

Thoughts on Boat Rennovation

Here's a pretty good start

 

[40grit]

Looking at it strictly from hull #s one would want to be careful about anything pre 7000 series. in the late 6 thousands a hull keel break thru made almost everything obsolete up to that development. you can still race with the early boats, they just don't seem to run with the big dogs in breeze.

I think the best bargans are in the 79 to 8000 range, older than that you will see the slow in breeze problem, newer and you will quickly see a fun for dollar ratio slide sideways. just sayin

Brownie

 

[JMOD]

thanks, the lillia we are looking at is in the 76-77 range from 1992. so number wise that should be okay. thank you all for the info sofar!!

 

[GlitterBomb]

If you want a good fleet boat that lasts buy a mader.

 

[40grit]

I currently have a Madder, great fleet boat, plenty of them around. they do struggle with Foliis up wind. have seen some magical M boats, and some not so magic, they are great in flat water, not so good in Miami, if you don't have any plans or expectations for the winter circuit and want to go Star Sailing cheep that's the boat for you. Hell I might even trailer my Madder to Bacardi, and sleep in the car?

See you in the sailing cntr parking lot

 

[Madmax]

Look for a pile of $$$$

 

[willsailforfood]

Newer boats have the smaller cockpit and that's a HUGE advantage in a breeze. The Star can ship a ton of water and the smaller the cockpit the better. Sailing around with 100 gallons of saltwater in the boat is really, really slow. Looking at the most recent boats I'm really impressed with how small the cockpits are becoming and how fast they drain.

A boat with extra spars is also very handy. Sooner or later you're going to break one (if you're like me you'll break 2).

A really good trailer and some good training sails are also very important when you first get going.

All the boats go soft so a boat that was lightly used will be stiffer than a boat that's been sailed hard and often. Best thing you could do is go and sail a really good new boat and then compare whatever you're looking at to that benchmark.

 

[blackensign]

Here is a good website that will guide you through the process:

http://www.buyastar.net/

 

[hart]

many stars tend to be a long way away, that's why they look so small in the night sky.

there are therefore 2 things you need to consider:

1. once purchased, how easy is it to get to, (eg Virgin space launch, new russion shuttle ship) and

2. in pre-purchase research, make sure it's not too hot to live on....oh and make sure it can support life

happy to help.

Coincidentally, last months Yachting World had a piece on Star's: their history, buld options etc.

 

[thadbrej]

If you want a good fleet boat that lasts buy a mader.

+1

...or a Folli.

Just my opinion, but the Maders and Follis of the mid to late 7000 series were built far better than the Lillias of the same vintage.

It wasn't until Lillia formed a strategic partnership with Devoti in the 8000 and higher boats that the build quality improved significantly.

 

[Foxy]

I've owned two. The first #6767 a Gerard built for Ding Schoonmaker. That boat was a light air flyer and just seemed to have a groove she would get into. The problem with the older boats was that they were fairly open and held a lot of water when the breeze came up. We could foot and keep the bailers working upwind, but once you took a really big wave the boat got heavy and too slow to bail.

Our second boat was 7911, a Mader. Great boat and we sold her only because we moved to an area where there was no place to launch her locally. The boats in the 7800-8000 range before the weight rules kicked in were optimized for heavy crews with keels at the max aft end of the tolerance. The newer boats are optimized for lighter crews.

Folli, Mader and Lillia are all competitive builders. The Folli's tend to be better upwind boats and the Mader's good all round. Lillias seem to be either very good or not so good so look carefully at the race record. My original partner in 6767 bought a 7850 era Lillia because he thought our old boat was holding us back. He never beat me with the new boat.

If I were looking for a boat right now, it would be a Folli.

 

[john a bailey]

many stars tend to be a long way away, that's why they look so small in the night sky.
there are therefore 2 things you need to consider:

1. once purchased, how easy is it to get to, (eg Virgin space launch, new russion shuttle ship) and

2. in pre-purchase research, make sure it's not too hot to live on....oh and make sure it can support life

happy to help.

A friend of ours got given one for his 60th. It was named after him and had apicture of it in the sky and directions to find it

 

[JMOD]

thanks for all the replies! so for a decent fleetboat a mader is probably the way to go! thanks for the differences on the builders, that really helps! i'll post updates as the search continues!