Hi all,
The wife and I are looking for some recommendations/opinions for a larger boat for cruising/living aboard with our new family. We currently have a Tanzer 8.5 (28 feet). We’ve discovered after taking a 23 day, 500ish nautical mile coastal trip from Halifax to the Bras D’Ors Lakes and back with our 2 month old son that 28 feet is a bit snug for our needs. This has helped us to identify some features we’d like to have.
We ran through a pile of boats on Yachtworld yesterday, and made a bit of a shortlist of boats we like, which are listed below. We’re coastal cruisers (so far). Realistically, the longest trips we would plan on taking would be down the coast to US, Bahamas, that sort of thing.
As for dreaming, well, I have sisters in Australia, so you never know!
Given the following list of things that are important to us, can anyone offer comments to recommend or weed out boats on our list? Or perhaps suggest something else?
• Sailing ability of the boat. We hate running the engine, so something that actually points is very important.
• Shallow draft. (Shallow enough for ICW should be the benchmark)
• Decent family accommodations for Wife, myself, our son, and potential second child should we go that route. We’ve liked the layouts of the three cabin boats we’ve seen, but also noted the sacrifices in areas such as the galley size, or size of the head. I imagine there are other sacrifices with regards to storage space, etc, when squeezing two aft cabins into a sub-40ft boat.
• Less than $100k for the purchase price of boat. (Less $ is better, IMO, as the more expensive the boat, the more money we'll have to make before we can cast off)
• 40’ maximum size. Smaller is better.
And now for the list!
Tanzer 10.5
Tartan 37-2 (Wife’s dream boat.)
Endeavour 40CC/38CC
O’Day 39
Omega 36 TriCabin
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
-Adrian
The wife and I are looking for some recommendations/opinions for a larger boat for cruising/living aboard with our new family. We currently have a Tanzer 8.5 (28 feet). We’ve discovered after taking a 23 day, 500ish nautical mile coastal trip from Halifax to the Bras D’Ors Lakes and back with our 2 month old son that 28 feet is a bit snug for our needs. This has helped us to identify some features we’d like to have.
We ran through a pile of boats on Yachtworld yesterday, and made a bit of a shortlist of boats we like, which are listed below. We’re coastal cruisers (so far). Realistically, the longest trips we would plan on taking would be down the coast to US, Bahamas, that sort of thing.
As for dreaming, well, I have sisters in Australia, so you never know!
Given the following list of things that are important to us, can anyone offer comments to recommend or weed out boats on our list? Or perhaps suggest something else?
• Sailing ability of the boat. We hate running the engine, so something that actually points is very important.
• Shallow draft. (Shallow enough for ICW should be the benchmark)
• Decent family accommodations for Wife, myself, our son, and potential second child should we go that route. We’ve liked the layouts of the three cabin boats we’ve seen, but also noted the sacrifices in areas such as the galley size, or size of the head. I imagine there are other sacrifices with regards to storage space, etc, when squeezing two aft cabins into a sub-40ft boat.
• Less than $100k for the purchase price of boat. (Less $ is better, IMO, as the more expensive the boat, the more money we'll have to make before we can cast off)
• 40’ maximum size. Smaller is better.
And now for the list!
Tanzer 10.5
Tartan 37-2 (Wife’s dream boat.)
Endeavour 40CC/38CC
O’Day 39
Omega 36 TriCabin
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
-Adrian