Corby 34 For Sale – £49,500

Short Description of the Corby 34

Corby 34′ ‘Oxygen 111’ built 2004 in the Netherlands. Boat constructed by the boat builder Lucas Adriaanse to a design by John Corby in Cowes, UK. Originally optimised to ORC, she was adapted for IRC in 2011 with carbon rig, keel and rudder foil replaced to optimise her rating.
With her weight at only 3331KG, she is a lightweight and this shows in her sparkling performance with either symmetric or asymmetric spinnakers.
Her condition can only be described as stunning and reflects the considerable care her owners have taken over the boat, rig, electronics and equipment.
Rating currently puts her in IRC 3 where she has performed well under her rating in the RTIR and Cowes with a regular crew.

Engines & Propulsion

Diesel with shaft drive and folding propellor.
Engine removed and refurbished 2019
All skin fittings are retractable.

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Electrical Systems

The Electrical Systems of this Corby 34 – DC panel with breakers for 12V system

Navigation & Performance Systems

Garmin 2010C chart plotter
Garmin GPSmap 620 unit*
ICOM IC-M241 VHF DSC
Raymarine ST60 multi-function instrumentation with 4 x cockpit and 2 x mast readouts.
Mastervolt battery monitor system
AIS system with stealth switch
DMK wifi gateway
Raymarine SeaTalk to NMEA converter

* Garmin GPS 620 comes with Garmin 2014 maps on SD cards for UK & Ireland (which is in the unit, as per the photo) plus SD cards for Atlantic & Spain, plus West, Central & Eastern Mediterranean. This unit is AIS compatible when mounted in the cradle on the chart table, or it can be used as a separate handheld (but no AIS in this mode).

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General Equipment

6 person liferaft, never deployed (due for re-inspection)
Various cups, plates, cutlery, pots and pans.
2 pipecots for offshore racing. These attach to the hull in the middle of the boat, using the fittings provided.
Door for front cabin – never finished by the boat builder, and never installed as there is a door between the main cabin and the heads & front cabin anyway.
Various fenders, including one large slab fender.
An Eberspacher diesel heater was fitted to the boat in 2012. This is useful for both cruising and offshore racing purposes. I tested it in September 2019, and it is fully operational (instructions are in the chart table).
Electric oil-filled radiator heater and dehumidifier – great for winter layups and keeping the boat warm and dry in general. Plus extension leads.
Various safety equipment – flares (might be out of date), EPIRB, set of lifejackets, lifelines, jackstays, dan buoy, seabrake (emergency steering), rescue sling, throw line, grab bag.
Simrad tillerpilot – great for cruising or double-handed sailing, will steer to apparent wind angle or fixed course as desired.
Cockpit bags – these are stored on the boat and fit in the cockpit, for storing sheet ends etc.
iCom hand-held radio
Spare backstay – metal wire.
Various boxes of spares, bolts etc.

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Rigging & Winches

Rigging & Winches equipped on this Corby 34 – Selden carbon rig with twin spreaders, discontinuous rod rigging.
Harken winches deck and coachroof

Sails

Sails of the Corby 34 – Sails – The owners have always had a policy of having a primary set of best sails for the most important events (such as Round the Island and Cowes Week) and then a secondary set for the more run-of-the-mill events (e.g. JOG inshore series races, summer evening regattas etc.)

Primary sail group (conventional spinnaker pole and fixed bowsprit configuration)
Mainsail – One Sails, custom D4 membrane with 2 reefs. This sail has a good shape but has signs of slight delamination. This sail could now be relegated to the secondary group and replaced, as it would still make a decent secondary sail. Purchased for Cowes Week 2011, it has only been used in three summers – 2012, 2015 & 2016.
Largest jib – North Sails J2, Medium/Heavy 3Di 760M. Like new – used in Cowes Week 2015, and then for a short summer season in 2016 including Cowes Week. Spec’d to be a sail that should hold its shape for a long time.
Jib – J3, Quantum Sails, Fusion X-16 Kevlar. An older sail that has decent shape but looks a bit worn. Probably needs demoting to a secondary sail, replacing with a new J3.
Jib – J4, Dimension Polyant / Kemp Sails, Kevlar, 2011. This is our heavy airs jib, very strong, has not had much use but when we did it was great.
Symmetric spinnaker – North Sails S2 SuperLite/Kote SK75 (white). Like new – used in Cowes Week 2015, and then for a short summer season in 2016 including Cowes Week.
Code Zero – North Sails A0 Asymmetric Aramid Downwind Laminate CZ30DP – like new, only used a couple of times in 2016. Incorporates an anti-torsional cable for use on the included Karver urling unit on the fixed bowsprit. The Code Zero anti-torsional rope is fixed to the entire luff of the sail.
Asymmetric spinnaker – Quantum Sails A5, re-cut by North Sails Cowes in 2015 to work with an anti-torsional cable and Karver Furling unit on the fixed bowsprit. The A5 spinnaker is loose luffed, so the anti-torsional cable is only attached at the top and bottom, and the sail is furled using the top-down Karver furler.
Secondary sail group (conventional spinnaker pole and fixed bowsprit configuration)
Mainsail – Quantum Kevlar – an older sail that looks good but has lost its shape. Good as a delivery sail.
Jib – J2, Quantum Fusion X-16 Kevlar. The J2 is the workhorse jib for the boat, as it gets used the most (i.e. in 0 – 16 knots). This jib is worn and is really only useful as a delivery sail.
Jib – J2, Hyde Sails Tri-Radial Kevlar X05/10. I think this sail is in reasonable condition, and would be worth test sailing to see if it performs better in light airs than the North J2 (which seems a bit heavy for light airs).
Retractable Bowsprit Asymmetric Sails
These sails can only be used with the retractable bowsprit as the luff length is longer:
A2 – Quantum Sails (white)
A4 – Quantum Sails (white), with sponsored Dimension Polyant logo.

Other Sails
There is a storm jib and a storm tri-sail, compliant with RORC offshore racing requirements.
Small spinnaker in Quantum bag (can’t remember if this is asymmetric or symmetric).

Accommodation

Two pipe cots to either side aft.
Saloon berths for two or four crew
Forward cabin with double berth
Heads in storage area to midships
Galley with cooker, cold box with cooling element, stainless steel sink with cold water supply
Navigation station with chart plotter, VHF, DC panel
Eberspacher diesel heater

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Owner’s Comments of the Corby 34

2004
Boat constructed by the boat builder Lucas Adriaanse in Holland, designed by John Corby in Cowes UK.
Lucas built it using the best materials and techniques for his own use, but also as a prototype boat for use in the local area ( Almere / Amsterdam) as he was hoping to do a production run for the local sailors. Ultimately a large group of owners opted to buy a fleet of X-35’s, and so the production run plan was shelved. Local racing was done under the ORC rating system, which penalises stability, hence a relatively lighter keel was fitted for this reason. However, John Corby specified the hull design to allow for a much heavier IRC type keel if needed in the future. The hull is made with kevlar and closed-cell foam-core sandwich construction, using epoxy resin and vacuum bagging for the strongest light-weight construction. This will not absorb moisture, unlike GRP, and so the hull remains light and osmosis is not possible.

2006
Boat purchased by current owners, sailed to the Solent in the UK in November / December.

2007
Replaced the instruments with a new Raymarine ST60+ package.

2008
New carbon rig installed with rod rigging

2009
New Vetus M2.06 engine installed, 2 cylinder 16hp. This replaced the light-weight single cylinder Ruggerini RM90 10hp engine, which in my opinion was a bit under-powered for the boat.

2010
Custom cradle made for the boat in Hamble. This was designed to be easily dismantled for transportation. Foam cored hulls really should have custom-made cradles to prevent high pressure points from non-custom cradles.

2011
New IRC keel, full racing design – hollow steel fin and lead bulb, designed by John Corby. Keel fin is 154kg, bulb 1154kg, total 1308kg. This is a 38% increase in keel weight from the original keel, lowering the IRC rating, but a 73% increase in bulb weight. Hence much more righting moment, leading to a much better performing boat and a lower IRC rating. We decided to keep the bulb relatively light so as not to kill the downwind planing ability, even though a heavier keel would probably give better overall IRC results. However, the keel is designed to take a heavier bulb if desired. Personally I think the bulb should be increased by another 200kg, giving better upwind performance and a lower IRC rating (and will still be a very fast boat downwind anyway). If I was keeping the boat this is what I would do next.

2011
New carbon fibre rudder with upgraded Jefa rudder bearings. With the stronger carbon rig and more powerful keel design the boat was more powerful and the rudder had to be upgraded to match. The boat sails beautifully with the new rudder, really well balanced both upwind and downwind. The retractable carbon bowsprit pole also had to be upgraded for the extra power too.

2015
The boat was switched from an asymmetric retractable bowsprit configuration (i.e. like J boats) to a conventional spinnaker pole setup but with a short stubby fixed bowsprit for flying Code Zeros etc (i.e. like the Corby 36 “Yes!” configuration, which won Black Group overall in Cowes Week in three consecutive years 2013-2015). This configuration is better suited to sailing in the strong tides of the Solent, when having the ability to square back a pole to sail in the shallows out of the tide along a coastline is a big advantage over an asymmetric sailboat. The fixed stubby bowsprit also allows for Code Zeros and furling asymmetric spinnakers to be used, allowing for a wide range of sail options. This is considered by John Corby to be the optimal configuration under IRC, and so it proved for Yes! It does require a regular well-practised crew though, which is something I did not have in 2015 / 2016. However, the boat can easily be switched back to the retractable pole asymmetric sailboat configuration if desired

2016 – 2019
The owners moved to Canada in 2016 and ‘Oxygen 111’ has been only lightly used since for a couple of events. A decision has been made to sell in Autumn 2019 as there are no plans to move back to the UK.

The owners believe the potential of the boat has not been fully realised yet. In 2011 the boat was dramatically improved (and the IRC rating lowered) by replacing the keel and the rudder. In Cowes Week 2011 I still had a regular crew, and we got two firsts and a third and a fifth place in the highly competitive IRC Class 3 division. After 2011 I was only coming to the UK from May or June through to August, and so was not able to keep a regular crew going or attract the better sailors. Half the crew were usually rookies looking to learn. The potential of the 2015 changes has certainly not been realised yet, as that can only be done with a regular well practised crew and I just did not get the time to do that.

I also tried a bit of double-handed racing in 2016, and that is something that I would have really liked to pursue more in 2017 if time had allowed. The boat is very light at 3331 kg, and so a smaller sail plan will still drive the boat and be manageable for two people with a much better IRC rating.

Corby 34 For Sale is lying in Cowes, UK. At 10.38 metres (approx. 34.06 feet) this Corby is a bargain at £49,50