SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

Cruising Worlds Top 40 Boats

15K views 48 replies 23 participants last post by  jak3b 
#1 ·
#7 ·
Don't sweat it, Bob... If there were 2 boats I would have bet anything that would make the list before looking at it, I'd pick your Tayana 37, and Valiant 40...

Just off the top of my head, 2 boats notable in their absence come to mind...

The Tartan 37, a very successful S&S design (almost 500 built) which seems to epitomize the shoal draft keel/centerboard concept... And, the Allied Seawind, the first fiberglass boat to ever circumnavigate, and like the Westsail 32, was very representative of a stout, seaworthy, no-frills little boat that was a great value, and really helped make cruising attainable for those of more modest means...
 
#12 ·
Does it really have to be cruisable? If that's part of the opening definition I missed it. Otherwise "Best ever..." really comes down to intended use, performance within a respective category, etc. The venerable Flying Scots and Lasers belong in a Sailboat Hall of Fame. So do the Stiletto 27 and F-27 multihulls. What about at least one of the Freedom designs by Gary Hoyt? Of course designers like Alberg, Perry, and Stephens would earn acknowledgement, but we shouldn't forget the innovators (Hoyt, Jim Brown, etc). And why 40? That is soooo 1951!
 
#14 ·
Cal 40 got my vote...
That's a good choice, certainly a landmark design... Still, I think it's original influence was as more of a race boat, so I've got to give the nod to Bob's iconic Valiant, which was an equivalent breakthrough in the realm of cruising boats...

if I could have any on that list for my own, however, it would be the Morris 36... (Sorry, Bob - your boats are a too deep for my dock (grin))

Hat's off to CW for finding the least flattering pic of a Bermuda 40 I've ever seen...



Sorry, but a Stack Pack on a B-40 is downright criminal... (grin)
 
#16 ·
I have copied the list of nominees from Cruising World's 40 best cruising boats of All Times(below) to keep people from having to search for it. To me this is one very strange list both for the boats included and those it does not include.

At some level, I can rationalize why most of these boats are on the list, while I am totally baffled by others. After all these are supposed to be the the 40 best cruising boats of all time. Two words jump out at me, 'best' and 'all time'. I find myself asking are these boats really the best 40 cruising boats of all time? Really?

When I work my way down the list there are quite a few boats which are charismatic and draw at the heart strings, which is not a bad thing, but this is not a beauty contest. Its a search for best cruising boats of all times and it seems to me that for a boat to be included on a list of 40 greatest cruising boats, it first and foremost must clear the hurdle of functionally being a great cruising boat.

To me the most critical piece of what makes a cruising boat 'great' is how it functions. The rest is icing on the cake. Cruising implies a certain minimuim level functional requirement, and even the accompanying article seems to suggest that Cruising World saw meeting a minimum functional requirement as being a part of the criteria.

To me, at a minimum, cruising boats need to provide shelter and house their crews; providing a reasonably minimumally a place to sleep, eat, navigate and vacate thier bowels. They need to carry adequate consumables and operating gear to sustain a voyage of some reasonable length. They need some degree of self-sufficiency.

They also need to be reasonably good sailing boats; able to sail well across a broad windrange, have a decent level of motion comfort, protect thier crews, offer safe cockpits and appropriate sail handling gear. Be robust enough to take whatever nature hands out.

So, if this is the 40 best of all times, why are there so many boats on this list that fail horribly at that minimum price of admission?

But beyond that, to be the best of anything, the candidates should be exceptional. Some of these are really crummy boats by any reasonable comparative standard. Why are they on any list of potential 'best of all times'.

With that all in mind, I cannot understand how boats like the Alberg 30, Alerion Express 28, Beneteau Sense 50, Columbia 50, Dufour Arpege 30, Hinckley Bermuda 40, Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43DS, Moore 24, Pearson Triton, Pearson Vanguard, Hunter 356 even ended up on this list.

Compared to all of the choices out there boats like the Alberg 30, Pearson Triton, Pearson Vanguard, while cheap to buy, and with care and the right skipper can be cruised, in any fair comparason these were not all that well constructed, do not sail all that well in light air and really beat up a crew in a breeze. If the magazine was looking for a well rounded small cruising design from the 1960's, why isn't the Morgan 24/25 or Tartan 27 on this list.

The Hinckley Bermuda 40 is a beautiful boat to look at, were well constructed, and are fun to sail if for no other reason that they are not a great sailing boat, but they are miserable as cruising boats being essentially submarines with a mast or two, short on carrying capacity and internal space, sail on their ear in enough breeze to get them moving, roll and pitch miserably and requires great skill and a lot of hard crew work to keep them safe in breeze.

While someone may chose to cruise any of these boats, given their limitations, are they really candidates for 'best of all time'.

Or how did something as unforgiving and squirelly to sail as the Dufour Arpege 30 make this list? Dufour has built some very nice boats, but this was not one of them.

The Moore 24 is a super little race boat, and a very cool design. I love these boats. But again, how did it show up on this list? If you wanted to include ultralight cruisers wouldn't something like the Express 27 or Laser 28 make more sense since they actually have something resembling cruising accommodations?

There are a cluster of interesting and decent production coastal cruisers on the list. Some of these are emblematic of a particular place and time, and some are good boats in their own right, but when I think about each I find myself asking what makes them exceptional enough to be on this list?

The polling at this point shows the Island Packet 38 as leading as the number 1 best of all time. To me this boat fails on the sailing ability characteristics being lousy in light air, corky in a rough stuff, and not great heavy air boats. They are good live aboards, they have benefitted from aggressive advertising, but are these really the best cruising boat of all times? If that is what the readers of Cruising World believe to be true, then I seriously question the criteria of these readers.

I need more time to finish my thoughts, but I am out of time.

Respectfully,
Jeff

Alberg 30
Alerion Express 28
Beneteau 423
Beneteau Sense 50
Bristol 40
C&C Landfall 38
Cal 40
Catalina 30
Contessa 26
Columbia 50
CSY 44
Dufour Arpege 30
Freedom 40
Gulfstar 50
Gozzard 36
Hallberg-Rassy 42
Hinckley Bermuda 40
Hunter 356
Hylas 49
Islander 36
Island Packet 38
Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43DS
Mason 43/44
Morgan Out Island 41
Moore 24
Morris 36
Nonsuch 30
Nor'Sea 27
Pacific Seacraft 37
Passport 40
Pearson Triton
Pearson Vanguard
Peterson 44
Sabre 36
Swan 44
Tartan 34
Tayana 37
Valiant 40
Westsail 32
Whitby 42
 
#19 · (Edited)
The Moore 24 is a super little race boat, and a very cool design. I love these boats. But again, how did it show up on this list?
That was the one that baffled me, as well... Then, it dawned on me, that regular CW contributor Webb Chiles's latest boat is a Moore 24...

The polling at this point shows the Island Packet 38 as leading as the number 1 best of all time. To me this boat fails on the sailing ability characteristics being lousy in light air, corky in a rough stuff, and not great heavy air boats. They are good live aboards, they have benefitted from aggressive advertising, but are these really the best cruising boat of all times? If that is what the readers of Cruising World believe to be true, then I seriously question the criteria of these readers.
yeah, but you're overlooking one very important thing...

Their performance under power IS pretty impressive... (grin)

Great thoughts, as always, my friend... What you've served to remind us, is how few designers and production builders actually have managed to satisfy the wide array of compromises and criteria that go into the making of a truly great cruising boat... (As an aside, it would be interesting to see how many of CW's 'Boat of The Year' winners through the years wound up making the list ... I suspect VERY few, the H-R 42 might have been one (grin))

Lists like this are always gonna be problematic and the subject of much debate, and in fairness one must resist the temptation to make comparisons between 'bluewater' and 'coastal cruising' boats that each might rightfully belong on such a list... And, since they've limited it to boats built in volume by Production Builders, an awful lot of great designs and boats are gonna be left out...

One builder conspicuously absent to my eye, is J-Boats... Now, I realize they're hardly considered 'cruising boats' by most, but I've always thought the J-40 represented the sort of 'breakthrough' design in terms of a performance cruiser that I think the editors were looking for... Sure, the boat is somewhat light on tankage, etc., but otherwise I think they make an otherwise wonderful all-around compromise between performance, and liveability/practicality, and I think in retrospect turned out to represent a pretty influential new direction towards performance among production builders... (Not to mention, somewhat surprising to see one of CW's most loyal advertisers shut out completely)

On to the larger boats, I also think that a design that represents the design philosophy of Steve Dashew, and perfected by Chuck Paine with his Bougainvilla Series rates inclusion on such a list... A boat like the Apogee 50 is in my estimation one of the greatest large cruising boats ever, but in fairness were built in such small numbers by Able, or Kanter, I suppose they really don't belong... But still, the sort of 'breakthrough' that I would think deserved recognition, somehow...

OK, so when are we gonna see YOUR list? (grin, bigtime)
 
#20 · (Edited)
My wife's account will allow me to double down on my Valiant 40 vote, but in truth it would be a tough call for me personally between a Peterson 44 and the Valiant 40, each for thier own reasons.

Of course if it was up to me, my list would be very different. I would probably have the original Esprit 37 before putting the Pacific Seacraft 37 on the list.

I would probably have something like the Morris 45 RS on the list as well.

I would definitely have the Morris Justine 36 rather than the pin-up girl Morris 36.

As I would expect there are almost no IOR era boats, and yet I would think that the Tartan 41 might be a reasonable candidate for this list.

I would think that the Hallberg Rassey 40 would be a better choice than the Hallberg 43 on the list.

I would think that the Hylas 46 would be a much better choice than the Hylas 49.

While popular and ubiquitous, roomy and a decent sailer for its day, and certainly a good value, I would never think of a Catalina 30 as being one of the top 40 cruising boats of all times.

I would think in the top 40 that there should be some performance cruisers as well. I might have something like a J-44 or Farr 47 on the list.

In the end these kinds of contests are a bit of a beauty contest perhaps rigged by the limited number of choices on the list.

Jeff
 
#26 ·
My wife's account will allow me to double down on my Valiant 40 vote, but in truth it would be a tough call for me personally between a Peterson 44 and the Valiant 40, each for thier own reasons.

Of course if it was up to me, my list would be very different. I would probably have the original Esprit 37 before putting the Pacific Seacraft 37 on the list.

I would probably have something like the Morris 45 RS on the list as well.

I would definitely have the Morris Justine 36 rather than the pin-up girl Morris 36.

As I would expect there are almost no IOR era boats, and yet I would think that the Tartan 41 might be a reasonable candidate for this list.

I would think that the Hallberg Rassey 40 would be a better choice than the Hallberg 43 on the list.

I would think that the Hylas 46 would be a much better choice than the Hylas 49.

While popular and ubiquitous, roomy and a decent sailer for its day, and certainly a good value, I would never think of a Catalina 30 as being one of the top 40 cruising boats of all times.

I would think in the top 40 that there should be some performance cruisers as well. I might have something like a J-44 or Farr 47 on the list.

In the end these kinds of contests are a bit of a beauty contest perhaps rigged by the limited number of choices on the list.

Jeff
Jeff - given your criteria, what boats would you recommend for a couple starting out in the PNW and eventually venturing forth. No plans to cross oceans but wanting to keep options open.
 
#23 ·
My guess is you will win especially if you combined all of your boats on the list. They missed my favorite of yours the Tayana 47. I still wonder if we should have taken a chance of that wreck of one in Stonington. Oh well maybe next time we'll get one of your boats. Did you ever design a nesting dinghy lol?
 
#24 ·
Jon,

I just saw your comments and I agree with your comments that in fairness one must resist the temptation to make comparisons between 'bluewater' and 'coastal cruising' boats that each might rightfully belong on such a list. I wrestled with that in terms of whether 'weekenders' and 'camp cruisers' belonged there.

There are a lot of good cruising boats, which most folks forget about, but which might belong on this list. Boats like the Niagara 35, Lavarnos Monte Carlo, S&S 34, the Richards designed Choey Lee 35, Hood 38's, Outbounds, Tatoosh, Bristol 41.1, Brewer 12.8, Dehler 41 DS for example.

Of course the missed the Allied 30/30 and the Farr 11.6 so, we lose out on bragging rights.

The good news is that at least they had the sense not to include any of the Garden-esque leaky-teaky ketches on the list. ;)

Jeff
 
#27 ·
Jeff and all: In all fairness to our friends at Cruising World, its not a list of the 40 Greatest Cruising Sailboats of all time, its a list of the 40 Greatest Production Monohulls of all time. Their criteria in making their selections was admittedly nothing like Jeff's; they said they were trying to find sailboats that (and I'm paraphrasing here) changed the way boats were made or perceived. That explains (at least to me) why some of the boats that Jeff and others have identified as less than stellar sailers or cruisers are on the list. You may not like the way a Pearson Triton sails or think that its an appropriate choice as a cruising platform, but you would have a hard time denying its place in the history of mass production sailboats.

That being said, I am equally enjoying the conversation we are having about the 40 best cruising sailboats that should be on the list.

Discuss.
 
#28 ·
MStern: Very good points, and from that perspective I would agree about the Triton or Cat 30 for that matter.

Dave6330: It would be helpful if you mentioned a budget, general size or the number of crew that you plan to sail with.

Jeff
 
#33 · (Edited)
When are people going to consider how well a boat holds up and what they take to fix when something goes wrong.

How many shoe horns do you need to get in places just to do an oil change or repair other systems.
 
#35 ·
When are people going to consider how well a boat holds up and what they take to fix when something goes wrong.

I many shoe horns do you need to get in places just to do an oil change or repair other systems.
Definitely a consideration. However, I believe their are Rolls Royces out there that are absolute lemons and there are probably some Yugos that still run perfectly. Breeding counts but I think individual care and maintenance trumps.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top