Crowther Eureka Info Needed

[Eureka!Girl]

Hello to everyone

we are new to this forum, having just come across from "The Dark Side" of monohulls.

We recently bought a 1985 build Eureka 32 sailing cat, apparently built in Victoria, Australia.

Just interested in any info, advice, comments regarding this boat??

Cheers

[masalai]

I am not sure but I think the Lock Crowther family may still be involved in Incat Crowther, a contact here cannot hurt.... http://www.incatcrowther.com/ContactUs.php

[Eureka!Girl]

Thanks Masalai for that.

I saw on another forum that Incat Crowther have archived old Crowther plans away forever, never to see the light of day again.

Another lead was Stuart Bloomfield, I think an ex-employee of Crowther, but same deal, all info is now stored.

Thanks anyway

[catsketcher]

Hello

As I recall the Eureka 32 was designed by Lock as an alternative to his fast racer cruiser designs like the Windspeed 32 and the Crowther 10. Both were much wider (about 22ft) and couldn't fit into a mono dock. The Eureka was designed for the niche that Prouts and Geminis occupied. They sometimes had just one diesel in one hull. There was a flop moulded Eureka clone called the Osprey. They had a pop top for standing headroom in the bridgedeck.

If you want to know more I would try googling Norm Silva and John Basden. I remember John talking about the Opsrey back in the 80's. John is an architect at Nabiac - Sunergy design. They worked for Lock for a long time. Stuart Bloomfield and Brett weren't there when the interesting cats and tris were being designed in the 70s and 80s. Later Lock got more into ferries and charter cats a move continued by his son.

At least one Eureka did some serious cruising. In the 80s one sailed around the Pacific a bit. If you can find some old cruising skipper magazines (not cruising helmsman) you may find an article on one.

My feeling is that they are good solid cruising boats, less money and performance than similar sized "normal" aussie cats.

cheers

Phil Thompson

[J hulls]

Originally Posted by Eureka!Girl

Hello to everyone

we are new to this forum, having just come across from "The Dark Side" of monohulls.

We recently bought a 1985 build Eureka 32 sailing cat, apparently built in Victoria, Australia.

Just interested in any info, advice, comments regarding this boat??

Cheers

Hello;hope you had some luck with your search,I have bought the production moulds for the lovely eureka ,do you still have the boat and are you still searching for imfo like to hear from you ; j hulls

[redreuben]

I have just come across this thread. I used to work for Bolwell in the eighties and although before my time i believe they made Eureka cats, try http://www.bolwell.com.au/index.html
The man you need to speak to is Campbell Bolwell.

[Typhoon]

I tried to reply to this thread a few weeks ago.
I've got a lot of experience with Eureka 32's. a good friend's family owned one back in the 80's-90's, it was the boat featured in the Skipper magazines mentioned above.
The one I knew was a very well built boat, was fitted out from bare moulds by the owner. I recall that the hull and deck moulds made extensive use of balsa core and were very strongly built too.
They're not fast by multihull standards, but fast by 32ft cruising monohull standards and have a mountain of storage and living area in them for their size. Although it should be said that the boat I am familiar with was quite overbuilt and always heavily loaded with gear, so that would've affected performance a bit.
If I needed a cruising cat in this size, they'd be very high on my list.
J hulls, if you build the boat properly and market it well, it should be a big success.

Regards, Andrew.