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need help ASAP

5K views 20 replies 8 participants last post by  magnusmurphy 
#1 ·
i guess being new to this bb has caused me to either ask the wrong questions in the wrong places or ya''ll just don''t like smokers. on more than one ocassion i''ve followed some craft w/sails out of ports that the EPA should have been notified about. 8^). so we''ve unloaded the HOG and are currently looking for the ideal boat; for two to sail comfortably anywhere we may want to go, without a great deal of maintaince requirements, feeling as safe as we do on the Viking. we are sizing way down to something easily managed by 2 (no more crews and attitudes); with enough comforts that a long cruise would be enjoyable, and if we decided to stay out there for a long time (live aboard) would gracefully age, appreciate in value and make a nice home. we feel we need at least 37 feet as a base boat to use and learn aboard. thanks to all of you more experienced cruisers that can and will share your experiences and knowledge.
 
#2 ·
tybeefolk,

I missed part of your previous questions, but I''ll try to answer this one as I understand it.I''ve owned a 19ft.boat,and presently have a 26 ft.boat.I''ve sailed numerous boats up to 45ft.Of all of them, I like the feel of 37'' to 38'' boats the best.I look to cruise full time one day, and prior to doing so,that is the size of boat I''ll look for.My favorite boat is a Wauquiez 38.My friend John Drake that visits this board from time to time has one.The boat has everything that I desire in a solid,fast cruiser.You might e-mail John for some specifics,or research the boat here on the web if you''re interested in finding out more.Unfortunately,the boat is out of my price range right now. But,in the future,who knows :^) If you have other questions that aren''t being addressed here,feel free to e-mail me and I''ll try to help.
 
#3 ·
tybeefolk,

I have sailed on boats from 14'' to 47''...I now have a 23''monohull. I am very comfortable singlehanding it and I am a small female. When you are choosing a boat keep in mind that there may come a time when your mate may have to sail it alone...for instance if you are sick or injured. While the cabin space is great on a 47''...there are some things on that size boat that are hard for me to do alone. I do not want to have to singlehand a 36'' boat but I do feel that I would be more able to do so on that size if I had to. If your mate is female make sure that whatever you choose if fitted to her body strength also.

bobbi
s/v Kokopelli
 
#4 ·
Lots of good points in the above posts. The devil''s in the details, though. For example, some of the Hood/Wauquiez 38''s were built so that to go below you climb out of the cockpit, go forward, and then down the main hatch. Not necessarily handicap access, and perhaps dangerous in a seaway. If you''re planning on cruising the Bahamas, you need to watch the draft of your dream boat. If you''re looking to cruise up & down the ICW, you have to be aware of mast height. If you can (re)tell us more of what you plan to do, people may be able to give better advice.
s (
 
#5 ·
paulk,

The Wauquiez 38 I sailed was a boat I chartered out of St.Martin.The boat had none of the difficulties you describe.I didn''t know there were different configuations for the cockpit to cabin access, but then again, there''s a lot of things I don''t know :^)
 
#6 ·
This is not all that different than the search that I had done for myself and for a friend of mine who lives in Savanah. There are a lot of boats that could meet your general description. They are listed below in no special order.

Beneteau First 38s5:
I know that a lot of people don''t like Beneteaus especially the Oceanis series, but I really like this model. I have spent quite a bit of time on one and they sail very well, have a really nice layout and seem to hold up quite well. The standard hardware is quite well laid out and sized. The fractional rig really makes shorthanding a lot easier. Great ventilation and interior layout (2 cabin ''owner''s'' plan). In many ways these are ideal boats for what you are planning. Several years ago my friend in Savannah ended up buying one and setting her very nicely. She is for sale due to a decline in his health.

Brewer 12.8 (42 feet):
When my father was looking for a boat he had a lot of specific goals; good build quality, shoal draft, lots of ventilation, seaworthy, comfortable and good performance. We must have looked at literally dozens of boats before homing in on the Brewers. Dad''s is one of the near legendary original dozen which were all centerboard cutters, and it has been a spectacular boat in all ways. He and my stepmother have really enjoyed the boat, cruising the US Atlantic coast (offshore as well as ICW) and out into the Islands. Great boats for what you are trying to do.

C&C 41 (centerboard):
These are high performance cruisers that were quite well constructed. They had first class hardware and deck layouts. The were especially weatherly with the board down. Like many boats on this list these are big jib/small mainsails which is a difficult rig proportion to short hand or in a blow.(I generally prefer the opposite extreme, fractionally rigged sloops)

Dehler 38:
Nicely constructed fractionally rigged sloops. Not all that common in the US and most that are here are the deep keel model. A good boat for your purpose if you can find one.

Farr 11.6 (Farr 38):
Like I said before I too went through the same search a couple years ago. I wanted a boat that was a great coastal cruiser that also had a solid offshore reputation. I wanted a fractional rig for its ease of handing and heavy weather flexibility. I wanted good seaberths and a comfortable motion. I wanted a boat with excellent engineering and high quality construction. I wanted a relatively fast boat. I bought a Farr 11.6. After 2 1/2 years I think I got what I wanted. I would try to find either a South African or New Zealand version.

Hinterhoeller Niagara 42:
Big, solid and well designed. They had two interior layouts and while one was a little strange it was very workable. Excellent ballast ratio and reasonable draft should result in a boat that can stand up what it has to deal with.

Hood 38/Bristol 38/Little Harbor 38/Wauquiez 38:
Hull and rig wise these are all very similar boats. There are some big differences between various years and models that may turn you off. They offer a nice ballance between substantial construction and good sailing ability (although not so great at either end of the wind range). They have a strong and loyal following but a reputation as real rollers (especially the centerboard versions).

J-40:
These boats were designed to be performance cruisers. They offered a very comfortable interior, a good turn of speed and very nice accomodations. They are well constructed and nicely detailed. They make a great couples boat.

J-37C:
A smaller sister to the J-40. A little cramped but perhaps an easier boat to handle.

Kalik Concept 40:
If you can find one without teak decks, these are nice sailing boats with a very nice build quality by the late great Gary Mull. A little short on ventilation.

Sabre 38:
Nice build quality, nice sailing ability, keel centerboarders. They have a real fan club although they are somewhat biased a little toward coastal cruisers.

Sweden Yachts Cayenne 41/42:
These are little known in this country but they are cool boats in a lot of ways. They were designed to be offshore performance cruisers. While there are quite a few ''quirks'' to these boats, they should be pretty fast and very seaworthy. They also should be easy to handle with their fractional rigs and easily driven hull. They have a quite narrow beam which is good in a lot of ways but which means a small interior for a 41 foot boat. One nice feature on some of these boats is a well designed self-tacking jib.

That should be enough to get you started.
Best wishes,
Jeff
 
#7 ·
Hello to all,

tybee..you have gotten some great advice from a terrific and knowledgable group of folks here. JeffH''s list is a particular well informed one and spans quite a spectrum from relatively light displacement race boats to moderately heavy aft cabin livaboards. Prices in the above list could range from 80-150k.

Just to round out the list I would throw in the Valiant 40, as it is a perenial favorite among long term, long distance cruisers.

Price will likely be your most limiting factor, it is for most people. If not...that is great.

Draft may or may not be a limiting factor...something you have to consider very seriously. I was quite familiar with my intended cruising grounds and knew that draft was an issue for me. That alone eliminated a lot of really good boats.

Those two issues decided, your hunt continues. I think next up is how you want to live on the boat: do you want to sleep in a forward vee berth or an aft cabin. And will you have many guests? Where do you want them to be sleeping?

After all that, I think it comes down to your philosophy as a sailor, whether you are into lighter, faster boats or is livaboard comfort most important to you. The Brewer 12.8 is a very good all around choice: pretty good turn of speed, nice aft cabin, plenty of tankage, nice galley and space in the cabin....but hard to find one in good shape under 150 or so. I do enjoy the speed, comfort and sea kindly motion of my Wauquiez Hood 38...and there is a $20k difference in price between the MK I and MK II (with the regular companionway, not the Baltic/swan style submarine hatch).

If you are going to be living aboard, think about how you will be using the space. How you will cook, navigate, pay bills, lounge down below, watch a movie, sleep in the cockpit etc. These things can really make a significant difference in your enjoyment of your lifestyle. There are a lot of small differences in boats, seat widths, length and widths of berths, cockpit benches etc...that are the difference between being comfortable there and not. Measure, try it out and compare.

Good luck in your search.

John
s/v Invictus
Hood 38
 
#8 ·
John,

I was actually looking at this list as spanning a $40K to $140K purchase price range. I had considered the Valiant but was concerned that they are generally too deep for the Georgia coast. That said many of these boats are close to the draft of the Valiant so I should have thrown that in. I agree with you it is the ''default answer'' serious cruiser.

Best wishes,
Jeff
 
#9 ·
Hi Jeff!

You are right...I blew past the list too fast...the 80k was my shoot from the hip response...been very busy lately.

Also agree that the Valiant 40''s 6ft draft puts her out of contention for the Ches down through FLA and the islands. I think the Valiant has some other issues that make it less than ideal, but I am always impressed by the number of people who have lived aboard them for years (I have personally heard of a 15 yr livaboard) and sailed them far and wide. Ones in good shape are pricey.

best

john
 
#10 ·
Good grief! One can''t live with a 6'' draft when sailing on the Bay and doing the ICW...or on the East Coast of Florida!? Imagine my surprise, having been all these places with close to 6'' of draft and with nary a problem...

Perhaps if you had a thousand weekends to actually nose your way up all the Bay''s narrow tributaries, or if not wanting to bother using the tide tables once or twice and keeping track of the nav aids when transiting a narrow channel with tidal flow...but I surely don''t think 6'' precludes abundant, safe, trouble-free use of a boat in those waters, in general.

Jack
 
#11 ·
Hi Jack,

I do not think that I meant my post to mean "One can''t live with a 6'' draft when sailing on the Bay and doing the ICW...or on the East Coast of Florida".

I have assumed that Tybee will be sailing in the Savannah area, an area that I know reasonably well from the six years of living in and sailing out of Savannah. The prevailing wisdom down there is that 6 feet is really pressing the limit. While you can sail in and around the Savannah area with that draft, it really begins to limit the places you can get into and greatly narrows the width of the channel that you can sail in without grounding. For example there were times during a really low tide that I could not get into Turner Creek (one of the more popular places to keep a sailboat) at dead low tide without dragging in the silt with the 5''-6" draft on the quarter tonner that I owned during that period. (I have not lived in Savanah in over 20 years so that may have changed since those days.)

Similarly there are places in the middle third of the East Coast of Florida that would be very restricted for a boat that deep. OTOH I have known folks who cruised the Bahamas with boats that drew 7 feet and over. Its just not as easy.

Regards
Jeff
 
#12 ·
I think it is a matter of degrees. It is IMHO easier to navigate more places from the Ches on down with a 4.5ft draft than a 6ft one. I think that stands to reason.

I sail the ches and fla and have a few friends in those areas as well. Sailors that have 6 ft drafts have had more hassels than others. By hassels I mean that they have bumped the bottom many times, had to mind the tide departing or returning and been shut out of some harbors and other places they wanted to go.

I think people who wish to sail to places unknown to them, people that want to explore the nooks and crannies of various shores and people who want to gunkhole in the areas we are discussing, it is not unreasonable for draft to be a limiting requirement in boat selection.

But of course, all boats are compromises and if a Valiant 40 (just as an example) pinged every single requirement of a cruising couple except draft, I would not make that a deal killer.

Respectfully

John
 
#13 ·
many many many thanks to all of you who responded to my post. we probably should have been more specific as to our plans. we have available space to dock "the boat" at several locations, all are on the georgia coast. and yes Jeff, one is actually in Turners Creek, and no, not much has changed. The others are in St.Simons and in-between, but all are at docks currently being used as sailing facilities.
back to our plans; we are planning to make a move to and aboard a cruising/liveaboard as soon as we can find "the boat". dockage is available but as stated (ga.coastal area}. we are not accustomed to having to worry about draft,a totally new feature to boating we have never had to deal with.(what is a safe draft?) if this limits our choices, then what should we do as we plan to hopefully spend a LONG TIME seeing parts of the world previously unavailable to us?
(kids are thru schooling), and this way they can"t move back home, WLOAsO!
So we will have dockage available to us when we come home, IF we come home. we want to cruise the ICW where available and to be comfortable off shore when it isn''t; we want the ability to gunkhole and weather safely as needed; traveling either north or south as well as be able to do the islands. we don''t intend to circumnavigate at this time. lately we have considered doing the great loop but are still investigating that possibility. please help narrow our learning curve so we can join you as soon as possible. oh, important we guess, we will port as necessary but intend to live on the hook a lot.
 
#14 ·
Well... sounds like draft would be an issue to you, but that issue aside. I think your goal is a common one, but still in all, not an easy one. A boat that makes a good livaboard does not always make a good sea boat...and vice versa. But all boats are compromises and so you will simply need to balance your needs against the "must have''s" and nice to have''s given a certain budget (that we still don''t know).

There is a good thread on another BB you have posted on: "what makes a boat livable". You should check it out. Surprisingly, size and the amount of space are not as high on people''s lists as is certain amenities like a separate shower (just as an example).

Without question, stowage and tankage are going to be significant requirements. That is something to think about as this is where boats do tend to vary greatly. In my mind, the next two considerations are: comfortable seating (you will be doing a lot of lounging around) in the cockpit and down below and a spacious berth. IMHO mattress dimensions and cabin dimensions also vary widely on boats and larger boat do not always have the nicest accomodations. You will have to measure and keep all this in mind.

Boats are an interesting study in compromise. In general, you give up something to get something else. A larger quarter cabin can take some space from the main salon and thus the galley may be smaller. The nav station might be at the end of a settee and thus be great in port as an ''end table'' but may make for less of an "office desk." And more.

I think your budget will be the major limiting factor in your boat choice.

My best to all.

John
 
#15 ·
The comment "Boats are an interesting study in compromise. In general, you give up something to get something else." perfectly sumarizes the issue.

Because a newspaper or news show is a fixed size, the CIA & others use a related concept of "news hole analysis" to figure out what important things are influencing the world. If a new ____ stats getting covered/talked about, then something else has to go away.

We used Powerpoint''s outline capabilities to gather what every memeber of our family cared about in a boat when we were shopping. (We included input from the kids and put all the related stuff together).

Wow, talk about reworking priorities: seperate shower, cockpit design, side decks, galley, visabilty from below, low freeboard and ability to go to weather zoomed up on the list.. then we shopped at our target budget. Aft cabin went.... oh yeah, we didn''t get one.

If you are looking for a good list of questions try Nigel Calder''s Crusing Handbook. It has 15 pages of (not all with answers). There are lots of places your preferences can rule.
 
#16 ·
I''ve noticed (for myself anyway) that one can literally drive yourself nuts trying to find the "perfect" boat. I''ve come to realize that that really is a fools game. When you realize that most people make do with what they have quite nicely, whether it is a $50 000 or a $500 000 boat, you realize that most boats (within reason of course) will work, provided you fit it out for the intended purpose. I think that is the key - the possibility of turning most boats into the vehicle of your dreams.

In the end it may happen for you as it did for me: the boat found me, not the other way round...

Magnus Murphy
 
#17 ·
Good point, whatever boat you get you can enjoy. I find it interestin to read owner reviews of boats. I don''t think I have ever read a bad one. Everyone thinks their boat is great. You learn to live with the trade-offs.

I think it was easier to buy my past boats than it will be to buy my next boat. I know what I like now and what I don''t like. So I, like a lot of other people research boats to see if there is one that has everything I want for the price I want to pay.

I think the perfect boat for me will be in the 36 to 38 foot range, under 14,000 lbs, at least 30 LWL and deep draft. It would have no teak on the outside, would have aluminum toe rails, one decent double berth in a private cabin, swim platform and a large cockpit. It would have a grid/stringer construction (no pan liner) and a fractional rig. If I could find that for 50k I would move up now.
 
#18 ·
That almost sounds like a Farr 11.6 except that instead of a grid the Farr uses all hand laid up stringers and tranverse frames. You do lose a little headroom but gain a deeper sump. Depending on where the boat was built there is almost no teak on the exterior and they all have a punched aluminum toe rail.
Here''s the numbers:

LOA 38''-3"
LWL 31''-8"
Beam 12''0"
Draft 6''4"
Displacement 10,600 lbs
(IMS measure which is dead empty)
Ballast 4100 or 4600 lbs
(depending on when and where the boat was built and whose literature you believe.)
SA with 100% fore triangle is right around 690 s.f
SA/D= 22.71
L/D= 154
The last European boats had the aft cabin and and swim platform. The New Zealand and South African ones do not have either. The racier versions of the 11.6''s sell in the high $30K range. The more cruising oriented versions sell for as much as $65K.

Oddly enough there are not many 36-38 foot light weight fractional riggers out there in the under $50K range. A Soverel 38 might meet your requirements except that they are way more stripped out than the Farr. X Boats built a couple models that might suit your needs and Sigma had a boat that was an old IOR era design that sells in your general price range.

Jeff
 
#19 ·
Jeff, I have always thought your boat looked alost perfect. Not certain what the interier looks like, some that I have seen on the web are pretty sparten. I havn''t seen many for sale, never on the left coast.

I think the Jeanneau Sunshine 38 is an interesting boat. They had a Regata model that had a fractional rig with tiller steering. I could go either way on steering. A tiller is nicer for sailing but a wheel is nicer when you have guests along. I figure I will end up having 80k in a boat that is ready to go. More if I go with a newer boat.

Keep an eye out for a nice Farr 11.6 for me.

Gene
 
#20 ·
Gene:

There are quite a few of the New Zealand built 11.6''s on the West Coast. The stock NZ boats were a little nicer finished than the South African boats. (No swim platform though). I don''t believe that the New Zealanders never produced the stripped out race versions that were built as a one design class in SA. As far as I know the South African 11.6''s still race as a one design class in the Capetown to Rio race (although the race now goes somewhere else in South America).

If you email me I''ll email you some interior photos and a interior layout drawing.

Regards
Jeff
 
#21 ·
Hi Jeff

The Cape to Rio Race is still going to Rio. I was just in SA and read a report of the latest race. As far as I know it went to Montevideo (Uruguay) once or twice in the apartheids years. That was a long time ago though. The Cape to Rio race remains the pre-eminent South African ocean race and one of my biggest disappointments (in that I never had the opportunity to participate...)

M Murphy
 
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