Captain Ron's

Sailing and Cruising Pages

The Tartan 34: an Owner’s Review

By Capt Ron

Talk about classic plastic, the TARTAN 34 is it …. We owned a 1974 model back in the mid 80s and loved every minute of owning her in spite of a few shortcomings. But I will say this, for every shortcoming she had an advantage not the least of which was her design firm of Sparkman & Stevens. They knew how to design boats and you better believe Tartan knows how to build them. Plus the main virtue, price … you probably won’t find a better boat for the money.

One of the important features of this boat is a result of the rating rule in vogue at the time she was designed. The CCA rule. That rule did not penalize the extra draft of the centerboard which, created an excellent cruising design especially for the shallow waters of Florida, the Keys, Chesapeake Bay, Bahamas and other such shallow places. Her big sister the Tartan 37 is really an evolution of this fine design and carried on the centerboard tradition. The subsequent migration of ocean racing rating rules from the old CCA to IOR made centerboard boats uncompetitive but that doesn’t mean that the Tartan 34 isn’t a fine sailing boat.

As it turns out, the Tartan’s centerboard gives you more than just shallow draft. By controlling the depth of board and the Center of Lateral Resistance, you can trim the Tartan 34 to neutral helm on just about any point of sail and wind condition even lugging a big genoa on a tight reach. By the way, reaching is where this boat really moves although she’ll point right up there with the best of them.

The construction of the Tartan is fairly typical of the time. The decks are cored with end grain balsa, which can cause soft spots to develop in the deck especially where fittings are not properly installed. The hulls as far as I know are solid glass and it is rare to find a Tartan with structural issues. The hull-deck joint is uniquely Tartan however and deserves mention. When the hull is constructed a heavy ¼ inch aluminum plate is glassed in around the perimeter of the turned inward hull flange. Then when the deck is bonded to the hull, the cap rail is secured by drilling and tapping through this plate, resulting in a very strong and permanent hull-deck joint. Don’t let a surveyor tell you that the nuts are missing from the protruding bolt ends up under the deck edge. They never had nuts on them. I’m sure that after a few years those bolts probably became permanently welded in place as stainless bolts do when in contact with aluminum.

The interior joinery is typical Tartan … first rate … in teak… 90% of the interior joinery is held in place with bronze Frearson head wood screws. Everything in there unscrews … just don’t use a Phillips head driver on them … they’ll strip every time. Jamestown Distributors carries Frearson tips for your drill/driver and also has the bronze screws.

The centerboard mechanism is unique too. I’ve never seen a similar system. The board is mounted on a square shaft that extends through the centerboard trunk and into the bilge. There’s a cover plate (often glassed over) on the outside of the hull so that you can remove this shaft. On the inside of the bilge sump, there’s a stuffing box that keeps the water out although some oozing is common. Just adjust it like you would a prop shaft stuffing box.

On the end of the square shaft is a lever which actually raises and lowers the board by a system of cables connected to a drum winch behind the forward end of the cockpit. A square drive crank handle fits the cockpit socket. Wind the handle to the right the board comes up and wind it left, the board goes down. Very precise control of the board position is possible except for one thing. The square shaft fits through the board in a square bronze hole. This bronze fitting on most boats is worn to the point where the board won’t fully retract. The corners of the square shaft as well as the hole wear to rounded off, making for a sloppy fit. The cure is to remove the board and replace the shaft and the bushing with new components. This system has a drawback however and that is, in a grounding the board does not automatically kick up into the trunk. The cables and winch hold it down. There is a spring loading on the cable that will absorb some shock load but it would be very easy to break a board in a hard grounding where some twisting motion was involved. You need to be careful in this regard and don’t use the board as an auxiliary depth sounder.

The engine in the boat we had, was the old Universal Atomic 4 … yep gasoline … all 25 hp of it. Ours ran fine and so we never got around to replacing it. But many owners have replaced them. Faryman diesels seem to have been a factory option, so many Tartans will have that engine.

Another point about the engine; it’s in the middle of the saloon. This drawback has advantages however. One is that it places the engine’s weight near the center of the boat and as low as possible. And secondly, you get great engine access once you remove the cover. Of course, then you’re getting greasy engine stuff all over the wife’s new rugs … not good. It also produces heat which heats up the main saloon.

Our boat had a fixed three blade prop that worked fine although it did walk the stern to port in reverse … totally predictable though.

We sailed our Tartan 34 for 5 years on Florida’s west coast … most of that in the Sanibel-Captiva to Key West area … great cruising ground for a shoal draft boat … and we enjoyed every minute of it. The Tartan was as trouble free a boat as we ever owned. Our son was raised in her V-berth.

We never raced her but she sailed so well, I’m sure she would have showed well no matter what the rating rule but she is a cruiser at heart, and a great one.