Hughes Columbia Columbia 43 For Sale & Buying Center

"Former Columbia employee Doug Ward has had some conversations with Dick Valdes about the 43's. If he has his information correct, there were only 3-6 MkIIIs built. They had a full draft keel that is lead rather than iron. They are obviously very rare. The Vice president of Columbia (Robert J. Poole) wanted to build a winning race boat for the Transpac race & he had these select specification 43's done. His did very well in the race & I believe it took 1st in its class.

I got this info from Col 36 owner, Joe Moraski:

I lived in Portsmouth Virginia in the early 70s and had many friends who worked for Columbia. My brother was a mould shop inspector for a few years. I thought I would pass along a little tid bit of information about a certain Columbia 43. In the early 70s, Columbia had a 43 that they used as a company racer. I believe that Mr. Valdes raced on the boat but I'm not sure of that. I do know that the company kept the boat at the Holliday Marina in Portsmouth Virginia. The boat interior was gutted for racing and about 8"" or 10"" of the top edge of the hull had been cut off before the deck was set in place. This made the deck that much lower and reduced weight and windage. I'm sure that everyone thought it was a stock production boat. I don't know what ever happened to that boat. It had a dark gray hull as I recall.

Yes, I get mail. I received this in Aug, 1999. Check it out:

hi eric my name is anthony hagedoorn and i sail a columbia 43 out of aruba dutch caribbean.im very happy to find you and all of you interested in columbia yachts. my dad started tranquilo charters in 1978 with the 43 and handed over the business to me 4 years ago. the boat however is showing some tiredness as it has been working hard as a day charter vessel taking 22 pax at the time. but we have some plans to fix up and install a sugarscoop and maybe cut away the transom to improve boarding for our guests. aruba is a very windy place to sail and the boat is always reefed down with her shoal draft. but we do have tons of fun sailing her every day. so far i have not seen any bigger 43 foot sailboat like this one. her deck and cocpit is huge and does fit a full load of 22 pax rather comfy. deck repairs are going on step by step as we cant take too much time for repairs since we just have one boat and need to make our daily bread with it. so we take it a long weekend at the time. deck areas are becomming soggy and soft here and there. replacing core in the deck is our only option so we do a piece at a time always working on top of the camber going down to prevent that moisture can creep into repaired area . injecting epoxy in pre drilled holes after treating with alcohol also worked well on the delaminating cabinhouse. a big piece of cabinsole also had to be replaced that got moist due to a big hole that was probebly cut by the dealer to install the speedo.after my dad im the forth owner of the boat and the first one unknown. any ways i like to apologise for writing bad english since papiamento our native tounge is my primary language but its great to know that you guys are out there. if you know any one comming this way and like to sail our 43 ,there more than welcome to contact me at sail.tranquilo@setarnet.aw i will write soon with more info and im also working on a web site but give me some time on that since am totaly new to computers. thank you for all the great info and all the columbia models i did not know of . till the next time . anthony."