1985 Norseman 44cc Sold Boat in Green Cove Springs, FL US

Welan is a turnkey vessel ready for sail. If you're looking to sail or cruise offshore this is an absolutely perfect candidate. This Norseman has been completely restored with the owners sparing no expense. Here is an account of the current owners journey with Welan:

As we had intended to sail around the world, we did an enormous amount of research, including reading Steve Dashew's book twice. We narrowed it down to two models, Kelly Peterson and Norseman, both of which are reputable blue water sail boats. Between these two we favored the Norseman 447.

We bought this boat considering all the good things about this model even though we knew the interior would require a total remodeling. After we bought the boat Alan went inside on a rainy day. His eyes were pouring tears while it was pouring rain inside the boat. Everything on the deck was leaking! It was really heart breaking.

There was not much available for working on boats in Dominican Republic (where we bought the boat). What little available was three times as much as it is in the States. Our goal at the time was to make the boat sea worthy so we could sail the boat back to the States. It took us four months to get to that point because nothing on the boat worked, nothing, not even a light! Even today we still have trouble believing we sailed the boat back safe and sound. We stopped in Haiti, Jamaica and Cayman. We had some trouble with the engine overheating and the steering was sloppy, but we did it and we had a great adventure!

After we pulled into Saint Petersburg our journey of rebuilding the boat started. We knew what we needed to do to fix the boat so we could continue to sail the boat around the world. Knowing that quality labor on yachts is very hard to find we decided to take it on ourselves, but we had no idea it would take six years. Four years of two engineers working side by side pretty much every day from dawn to dusk and two years off and on while cruising or traveling. We didn't take any shortcuts because of our hard working nature and we intended to sail the boat to wide open water. This boat truly has a soul. Even people walking down the dock will say so. She is a good old girl! Our good friend who has dedicated his whole life working on boats for over 40 years commented:" this boat is very strong! You guys can do anything!"

Here are some highlights of Welan today from the bottom to the top and from the outside to the inside. We list them here because we are proud of what we did. Hope you will have respect for what we did and be proud of her also if you are going to own this girl next.

Here are the highlights of this model of boat from our point of view:

1. The Hull shape is such that it's fast despite its heavy displacement.

2. The shape of the bow makes it cut through waves so the average size waves will not pour on the deck.

3. The ballast and displacement ratio makes it a very stable and safe boat even though it's a fin keel.

4. The fin keel makes it easy to make sharp turns.

5. The shape of the keel makes the boat stable when grounded.(We were grounded on a sand bar north of Marathon one Christmas Eve and the boat pretty much just parked there without leaning until high tide, despite the wind).

6. It's easy to balance the boat with the sails. The boat can pretty much sail herself when it is well balanced.

7. The low profile makes for much less windage, yet there is still plenty of head room and storage space inside.

8. The great access to the engine is an amazing plus.

9. It was strongly built by a reputable shipyard and we were amazed to see how thick the hull is and there is no delamination of fiberglass anywhere.