A Rare Bluewater Sailboat

One of only six Liberty 38 sailboats is for sale now in Annapolis

I always thought that someday I would own a Valiant 40 or 42. I wanted to be able to comfortably sail anywhere at any time in any weather and sea. I didn’t end up with a Valiant and I don’t sail a Pacific Seacraft, Baba 40, Westsail, Southern Cross or any other commonly recognized bluewater sailboats of that style, size, and era.

Instead, I purchased Avemar, a 1987 Liberty 38 in November 2021.

There is a slim chance that you’ve heard of these sailboats, and for good reason – They only built six of these Joe Fennell designed, full keel, cutter rigged boats back in the 1980’s in Riviera Beach, Florida.

Avemar is the final Liberty 38 produced and she is hull #6 of 6 and based on the information I have, the other five are named: Voyager (#1), Conchtown Lady (#2), Charm (#3), Sea Joy (#4), Rosco (#5).

One of my sailing friends recently referred to the Liberty 38 as a “forever boat” and now after only a year and 3500 miles under Avemar’s keel, I’ve adopted that phrase into my vocabulary.

Since there are so few of these boats, you won’t discover the Liberty 38 casually browsing “bluewater boat boats for sale” and so let me get to the reason for this post.

One of other Liberty 38 sailboats, ‘Sea Joy,’ hull #4 of 6, built in 1985, is for sale now in Annapolis, MD. If you are a couple or a singlehanded sailor who is looking for an amazing boat to sail anywhere in the world, you should be on your way to Annapolis right now.

I’ll write about my boat, Avemar, more later but for now, I’ll get you pointed in the right direction with a few links to see Sea Joy:

• Sailboat Data - Liberty 38

• Listing Broker: Annapolis Sailyard

• YachtWorld Listing - Liberty 38 ‘Sea Joy’

• YouTube Walkthrough - Liberty 38 ‘Sea Joy’

• Random Liberty 38 Facebook Page

• Broker Contact Information:

  • Richard Kahn
    410-268-4100 or 410-980-5096
    rich@sailyard.com
    

Here is an email from former Sea Joy owners written in October 2015:

Sea Joy has been well-loved and faithfully and beautifully maintained by only two owners during the 30 years since her original commissioning. 

She is a very capable blue water cruiser with 22,000 lb. displacement and a canoe stern she handles very well in nearly all sea conditions. Though she is a heavy displacement vessel, she sails extremely well in most wind conditions.

And yet, with only a 5' draft, she is very well suited to sailing the Chesapeake, the Intracoastal Waterway, Florida Keys and the Bahama Islands. She has a very sleek hull design and has beautiful curved lines both in the exterior and interior.

She has great amenities for the cruising life or for a live-aboard couple. The freezer capacity allowed us to carry enough frozen meat and vegetables for a one month voyage. She has ample size refrigerator as well. The freezer and refrigerator are very well insulated and temperatures could often hold for 2 days without running the compressor. The compressor is quite new, having been replaced in recent years and is extremely efficient, using little electricity and can run from the inverter which was also installed at the same time. This new compressor is also so quiet that we do not even know when it is running.

Sea Joy has huge storage capacity throughout the boat. and as you can see from the photos she has a very comfortable and beautiful living area and a spacious v-berth.

Other important features for the cruiser are her generous water (80 gal.) and fuel capacities (100 gal.) as well as the spacious chart table with storage below.

We have found the cutter rig to be very versatile and having all these varied sail options allows for more sailing time and less engine time.

Speaking of engines, we had a professional test the engine a few years ago, and he told us "don't do a thing but change the oil, that engine runs sweet, better than any I have ever heard". We have never in our 12 years with Sea Joy had a single engine problem and she always turns over on the 1st try --- even when first started up after our long and bitter winter of 2014.

I don’t have anything do with with this broker or the current owner of this boat but if you have questions about these boats in general, please feel free to comment below and I’ll try to answer what I can based on owning the same boat.

UPDATE Oct 10, 2022 – A second Liberty 38 just came on the market. I wrote about it here.