What factors went into the decision to buy your current (or future) boat?

[Calabego]

For me, price, stability, low budget weekender for a guy and his 9 year old kid. Oh, and price. An active fleet and reasonable "slip" fees on top of the floating money hole.

[erps]

Our cruising boat:

within our budget
robust build
sailing performance
water and fuel carrying capacity
comfortable layout

[Hesper]

For me, it was, pretty much in this order:

Biggest I was comfortable handling alone - 28'
Wheel steering - admiral doesn't like a tiller taking up cockpit space.
Large cockpit (see above).
Diesel - I hate gasoline.
Proper head - I don't like going in buckets.
Roller furling headsail - the alone thing again.
Within my budget.

My lovely S2 8.5 fit the bill on all counts. After 8 years, I'm still in love (the Admiral's still OK in my book too).

[padean]

In the order we "de-selected" boats as options:

1. appearance (sorry, couldn't stand having a boat I didn't admire from the dock) - an easy 1st test
2. sailing performance - if it doesn't move, I don't want to be on it
3. "wifely" amenities - if she doesn't like it, I won't be on it anyway
4. soundness of construction
5. condition (both hull and deck, as well as interior - see #3)
6. Cockpit layout
7. Size - once everything else fits, is it the size we can handle?

There were a huge variety of factors (I once has a 2 page list from another source of things to look for) but most fell under one or more of these categories.

Often left off the lists, but in my opinion probably the most important criteria is what we wanted to do with the boat. I saw lots of very nice boats that I'd love to have, but even the most beautiful, heavy, slow cruising boat would have been a mistake since I wanted to race and do a lot of day sailing.

[CalypsoP35]

For me it was:
Price
Shallow draft
Ease of singlehandling
large cockpit
need to sleep at least 4 comfortably
Roller furling
Diesel
fiberglass hull
minimal amount things that needed to be fixed
autopilot (this was recommended by a friend, he was right an autopilot is not a luxury its a necessity, especially if you plan on singlehandling a lot.

[soulfinger]

My wife "forced" me to buy a boat in which I could stand in the cabin. The Catalina 350 was the smallest one we could find!

[WinterRiver]

Cam told me to.

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Also check the Hylas 47/49...some of them have 3 cabin layouts and are solid boats.

Somehow the Hylas 47 hadn't seriously crossed my radar until Cam's suggestion. I looked into the boat (aka Stevens 47), and it fit our criteria well. It's a solid blue-water cruiser, and we are planning an Atlantic circle or at least a direct trip to the Caribbean.

Besides the usual price, performance, handling, construction, etc. issues, planning to cruise made the layout very important. We have two daughters, and we knew that everyone would be happier if they were able to retreat to their own spaces at times. The 3 cabin requirement ruled out many, many boats. I hate sleeping in a v-berth, which ruled out many more. The cook wanted a good galley. Also, we made sure we liked the ergonomics of the boat, since changing the basic space can be a major engineering project. For example, I wanted to be able to lay down comfortably in the cockpit. I knew that it would frustrate me forever if I couldn't. We also checked out some boats that had settees that were too narrow to sit on comfortably, with no room to easily expand them. Standing head room was important.

We've had the boat nearly a year. We still think it was a good choice for us.

Thanks, Cam!

[blt2ski]

The "Admiral" liked it when she went into the cabin. Along with the it looked purrrty from the dock. A fast cruiser/racer to a slow Racer/cruiser if you will in those categories, for my wanting to race reasonably well.

Definitely wanted a deeper draft for its size, shoal/full keel models were OUT!

She did forget about a built in shower, but overall, our little 30'r suits our needs just fine!........but she/Admiral does get 5-7' ites in 35-57' boats.........

marty

[c40eb]

My wife and I were looking to move up in size from our 24' sloop and were thinking of something in the 30-36 foot range. We are from western Maine and had been looking for a few years, on and off. We had checked out Sabres, being local, and with knowledge of the quality of these boats, but most were more than we really wanted to spend...

Then, our current boat kind of fell into our laps...it is a Sabre 30...price was right, quality is excellent, had much extra on board, and was in very good shape.

So...it had all we need:

Quality
Cost
Room for at least 2 couples
Nav station w/radar
Good shape (as we want to sail, not restore...been there, done that)
Sails great

Not necessarily in that order....

[Cope44]

1. It was in my price range.

2. It floats....