Cabo Rico Yachts for Sale

John Schofield was a British Leyland executive in Costa Rica who molded boats as a sideline, in a corner of the car assembly plant in the San Jose area. His first boat of consequence was the W.I.B. Crealock designed Tiburon 36, launched at the start of the 1970s, and that hull grew into the Cabo Rico 38 in 1977, the boat the yard is known for and the one Crealock said was the hull shape where everything came together best. Around 200 of them were built. The line went on to take in the 40 and 42, the 45 and 47 and the 56, the Northeast motorsailers and the Cambria racer cruisers, with designs from Crealock, Chuck Paine, Mark Ellis and Raymond Hunt & Associates, all of them heavy, full keeled and finished in a great deal of locally cut teak. Fraser and Edi Smith bought the Costa Rican factory in the late 1980s and kept it running until the 2008 recession stopped it. The Florida sales company filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and nothing new has come out for years.

Two things follow from the boats being Costa Rican. The first is that there is no dealer network in the United States and effectively never was one: the Florida sales company has been gone since 2010 and there is no factory to call for a part or a drawing. The second is that it matters less than it would on most imports, because there is almost nothing proprietary on a Cabo Rico, and generic marine supply, an owners' network and a competent yard cover it. Two decisions age particularly well. The ballast is lead, encapsulated inside the hull rather than bolted on, so there are no keel bolts to worry about on a boat forty years old. The tanks are fiberglass, which does not pit or corrode. The expensive item is the teak: a laid deck left too long stops being a deck and becomes a deck rebuild, so have every fastening and the core underneath checked properly, and look for water staining in the joinery below. Beyond that it is the usual list for an older cruiser: chainplates and their bedding, the rudder and its bearings, seacocks and hoses, the engine, and the standing rigging on age. Boats delivered new into the United States were built to meet Coast Guard requirements, but check the import and duty history on any individual boat rather than assuming, particularly one that has spent its life outside the country.