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Morgan 321

Tom

New Member
Hello everyone, glad to find some more Morgan lovers! My partner and I are the recent proud owners of Bagheera, the pretty little 1980 Morgan 321 below!
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I know she isn’t quite a Morgan 38, but there is next to no information about these boats out there and she is a scaled down 38 after all! She is the 5’5 full draft which is even rarer as far as I can tell, from the little bit that I can find it seems like we might have struck gold with her :)

I am writing because we are refitting her so we can sail her from Montreal (home for now) to the Caribbean and hopefully beyond in the next couple of years. I am hoping to find others that have sailed these boats to see what their capabilities are and what are known problem areas that we should look out for. She will be a live aboard and we are hoping to maybe take her across an ocean one day.

So, does anybody have any thoughts on the 32’s? Any suggestions of might be a weak point that should be addressed? Know of a forum or space that might have other Morgan 32 owners in it?

Cheers,
TomFE0068CC-6C69-4D31-8759-D320545BF06F.jpeg
 
Hi Tom - welcome to the forum, and congrats on your "new" boat! She's very pretty IMHO. Maybe that's because she looks so much like a Morgan 38?! ;)

That's a pretty cool/wild dinghy davit you have on there, it looks like a piece of artwork!

There are a few posts on here about Morgan 32s that you can find by searching for "Morgan 32" with the quotation marks. Maybe you already knew that.

I'll bet that some of our members have experience with 32s and will chime in soon. Sometimes it takes a few days or weeks for the right person to see your post.

Anyway, good luck, and please keep us posted.
Cheers,
-Mark
 
Thank you for the kind words Mark, and yes the davit is pretty special! The previous owner Paul built it, he is an extremely talented "carpenter". He calls himself a carpenter anyways, but in my opinion what he really is is an artist who's work happens to be functional ;)

The quotation marks trick helped but unfortunately I did not find exactly what I was looking for yet. Will wait patiently and hope that the right person sees my post :)

Cheers,
Tom
 
I looked at the sailboatdata.com description. If you have not yet, it gives all the critical measurements. The line drawing shows a shoal draft version with a shorter rudder than you have. Perhaps the prior owner did that? It is shaped much like the rudder addition made by one of our long time members to his 382, the Maluhia. Given the 32's wide beam and IOR shape, perhaps the rudder addition was to help steer if she tends to round up going down wind.
 
Hey Terry, yes good eye! That is not actually a modification though, this big is one of the seemingly very rare full draft models that have a bigger rudder and a foot and a half deeper keel :) In case any other Morgan 32 owners see this and are curious I have the original manual with all the line drawings. It is interesting though, from everything I can see there are two quoted keel depths (4' standard draft and 5'4 deep keel draft). Despite the two different keel / rudder options it seems like there is only one set of specs for weight/ ballast which to me does not make any sense? I can't imagine adding almost a foot and a half of keel wouldn't add ballast and subsequently weight?
 
Hi Neighbor Rick here in Maine. Nice boat, is that a hard dodger installed on your boat? We need to see some closeup pictures! I hope to get to Canada this year Cape Breton area. I hear it is beautiful.
Welcome to the site!
 
actually, with more draft, Morgan could have reduced the amount of lead and kept the same righting moment--which is why centerboard models of boats that also come in versions with standard fins are heavier. But in a production boat like a morgan, they may not have bothered (although lead is expensive). My 382 is a 6 foot draft; I have no idea if they reduced the weight of the lead, but with only a foot difference in draft, probably not.
 
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Hi Neighbor Rick here in Maine. Nice boat, is that a hard dodger installed on your boat? We need to see some closeup pictures! I hope to get to Canada this year Cape Breton area. I hear it is beautiful.
Welcome to the site!


Thank you for the welcome and it sure is a beautiful area!

That is a hard dodger, made by the same previous owner who made the davits. Will certainly add more/ better pictures one I get back to the boat, for now she is all the way in Cleveland, Ohio waiting for us to sail her home next June! Such a tease!

In the meantime we are working away here in Montreal to pay most for the refitting we have planned for next summer and the start of our voyage to Guadeloupe for the next couple of years and then who knows! Deep in the figuring out what kind of equipment and modifications we will have to make to make her offshore ready, any and all wisdom on. The matter much appreciated!
 
Hi, Tom. We have owned a 1984 Morgan 323, "Morgan Glory", for many years. I used to contribute on a Morgan Owners Yahoo group, but activity waned and I stopped following it. I have heard there is a facebook group for Morgan Owners but I'm not on fb. Maybe that could be a resource for M32 info? I haven't been checking in here recently, but am happy to answer any questions when I do. I've been all over the boat and know it pretty well.

When we were looking at Morgan 32s I recall the deeper draft being an option. We didn't prefer that because it's shallow in lots of places around Florida . In our M323 manual, the 4-foot draft is the only option shown. Ours is specified to be 4 feet, but I've measured it on the hard at multiple haulouts and it seems to measure 4 feet and 8 inches.

I don't know if it's a weak point, but our model has a forward hatch that is formed from a single piece of opaque, white acrylic (the photos look like yours is, too). It has always bothered me that a failure there means there will be some custom rework to perform - you can't just order one from somewhere. I've thought about being proactive and removing it to get one made like it while it is in one piece.

The original aft chainplates were mounted with carriage bolts. I found one of these chainplates to have a typical crack at a corner of a carriage-bolt hole. I replaced the chainplates with ones that have round holes and used hex head bolts to mount them.

Once, when I was replacing some anchor chain, the store manager made me a deal if I would take the full length he had left, rather than leaving him with a remnant. I took him up on it, but found the boat rides low with the extra weight forward. So, I'd recommend keeping your chain length at a minimum you are comfortable with.

I think everything else probably falls under standard sailboat maintenance and inspection stuff.

BTW, is that an M38 in the background of your selfie photo? Maybe you're in the right forum after all. :)

Cheers.

Jim
 
Thanks for the reply Jim, just seeing this now unfortunately! We are currently in the Bahamas making our way south slowly, Bagheera has done us well so far and has proven quite seaworthy. Any tips on how to use the space more efficiently? We find the original layout (or the version that we got the boat with) rather wasteful space wise. Of course this boat likely wasn’t designed to be a live aboard so not that surprising I guess!
 

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Our boat had no cushion in the quarter berth because previous owner(s) used that for stowage, so we use it for that, too. We've spent as much as 3 months on the boat at a time. Space is tight and we haven't made any special spaces for storage. By now I'm sure you've figured out what works for you. Nice photos. Fair winds!
 
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