Bolero 25.5 Quarter Tonner

If you are buying it for cruising usual things to look out for , but if you are looking to race one be carefull , although they are all called Bolero's 25.5 , there was rarely two constructed the same .

Purple Haze was the prototype and built of cold moulded mahogany , and a winner from new.

Production boats were GRP , some sandwich construction i think , some had more flexible rigs with runners , some had rigs with no runners and baggy luffed foresails ,

most had iron/steel keels , but best had steel box keels with lead shot low down.

In short if you want to race you want - purple haze ! , next best is a boat with sandwich construction , steel box keel with lead , check out racing record , history , some were relative dogs .

Other good names to look out for are "Ravels Bolero" was RORC year winner in its day , until my ole pop bought her and raced her  badly - not his bag ! ,now winning again in new hands

"Fiskery" - very fast in her day

Both above had runners and steelbox keels with lead , i think .

And as with any Nick Stratton boat any boat with Djinn in its name ! , as would have been built for Nick himself and always very quick boats.

There's one on e bay that seems to have been bstardised pretty severely and looks like racing days over (as it SEEMS to me) praps good cruiser.

Bolero's were gr8 boats to sail , fast , will surf when windy enough , decent accom for size and amazingly dry on deck, easily handled

good luck

You will know if it is a box keel or not if you lift the floor boats. the box keel version has a little round cap, 2-3 inches in diameter in the middle of the keel footprint. They got the lead shot in this way.

If this is not there, then u have the standard cast iron version.

I bought a bolero last year and spent last winter completely refitting her. She is like a new pin now. I bought her 100% for racing. I put 70kg of lead on the keel in the form of a shoe and put a taller rig on her to allow non overlapping jibs. This allowed me to put huge kites on her for very little IRC penalty.

They are a great little boat and are weapons at club level in IRC.

One would want to be immaculately prepared tand well sailed to make the top 5 at the 1/4 ton cup though.

I was 3rd in Cork week, having led for the whole week.(Don't ask!)

Check out http://yachts.apolloduck.com/listings.phtml?cid=213

Woody is a sister shuip of Purple Haze. She is in perfect condition. Her current owner won everything in it and came second behind purple haze 2 or 4 years ago during Cork week. Great little boat in tip top condition.

best of luck.