Figuring out what this means

FatBear said:

Here is an excerpt from a sailboat for sale ad:
"Informed capable principals please.
2005 36 Ft C and C 110 Racer - Cruiser $ 129,999 "

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I laughed as soon as I read that!!!!!!!!!! It means the price is too high.

FatBear said:

But the owner seems to be a bit on his ego

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Yup! You answered your own question.

Give him an offer of $50k and see what happens 😁

I mean, really, $130k for a 2005 boat...? Made of gold? I don't know the boat at all, but others will chime in. $130k you should be able to get something very nice.


Mark

My best guess, and it is only a guess, is that this person is tired of people calling him who know almost nothing about boats and have no idea what a C&C 110 is. An acquaintance of mine sold his CS about a year ago. He was flooded with calls from people who had no concept of what his boat was, whether the price was fair or not, or anything else that came close to suggesting that they would actually buy his boat, or any other boat for that matter. They would pepper him with questions for a while then disappear as quick as they came.

By informed I suspect that he he only wants to talk with serious potential buyers who know enough to ask mostly relevant questions and not waste his time with silliness. (i.e. Per my acquaintance some of the questions were: "Can this boat sail around the world?", "How many people does it need to go out for a sail?", "You said that boat is a sloop with one mast and has 9 sails in good condition....How do you fly that many sails from one mast? ", "If I buy your boat will you teach me to sail?")

Jeff

FatBear said:

I'm still curious about the racer-cruiser issue. Is there some reason that I should avoid them if I'm not interested in racing?

Thanks

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The C&C 110 is a racer/cruiser so it has a more powerful sailplan than a typical cruiser or "performance cruiser", so it can be more of a handful to sail short handed. Cockpit ergonomics are more geared to racing, with the traveller in the cockpit etc. By all accounts they are very nice to sail.

They are well made boats, and tend to be higher priced than the typical production boats. They have decent interiors but they don't have as much interior space as more cruising oriented boats in that era and size range.

I don't know what C&C 110s are going for these days, but that price seems a bit high. I am sure it is negotiable, and if you like the look of it you should check it out. At the same time you should look at what other boats you can get for the same price.

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john61ct said:

Seller is not limiting actual buyers
just trying to discourage time-wasting contacts from people that are "just browsing"

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Oh yes he is. This buyer, at least. I've seen this ad for a while now and I think he may have just lowered his price a lot. So he is failing to sell it for whatever reason. Everyone is just a potential buyer until the sale closes. The set of boat buyers who knows exactly what they want - year, make and model - and will accept it in any condition is vanishingly small. Everyone else is browsing. Looking for that right boat. I am 100% in the market for a boat and have ready cash. I wouldn't even have to borrow money or wait for an investment to sell to pay for this one. It only takes one buyer, but he has "limited" this potential buyer away from his boat.

SchockT has answered my question about difficulty. It doesn't sound like it's likely too difficult to sail once you get used to it, especially being rigged for single-handed sailing already. I find it hard to imagine that a 36' sloop is going to be more of a handful than a much larger schooner unless I'm trying to race it, which I won't. And I liked what I saw in the ad and read about this model on other sites. So I might have been his buyer. But I'm going to keep looking elsewhere rather than try to deal with someone who may be an excellent sailor, but knows nothing about selling. I think he'll probably make the purchase another nightmare. I'm just getting over one bizarre FSBO and I think I just need to stick with broker boats.

But thanks to SchockT I will not worry about whether it is a cruiser or a racer-cruiser. I'll just look for one that I like that is safe to leave the bay in.

Here are a few that I am thinking about. I'd be interested in opinions of them for my purposes (sailing in and around San Diego and maybe down to Mexico or out to Catalina). If my selections seem a bit varied, it is because I do not already have a specific make and model in mind, so I need to "browse" until I find what I want. When I find it, I will buy it. I would like to be able to do as much sail handling as possible from within the cockpit as I am getting old and injuries take much longer to heal than they used to.

Tartan 3400
Marlow-Hunter 37 This one has the main sheet traveler on top of an arch, keeping the cockpit less cluttered. How reliable is an arrangement like this?
C&C 115 This is similar to the one in the CL ad, but a couple feet longer. Is it feasible to move this one's traveler onto the top of an arch? Seems like it would need to be a pretty sturdy one.

Thanks.

Hello,

A few more or less random points:

I owned a 2002 C&C 110 from 2013 to 2021 (sold in May of this year). I am biased but they are great boats. Fast, comfortable, well made, well designed, safe, reliable, etc. I'm not familiar with the boat you are considering, but that price is very high. I find it hard to believe a 110 would sell for more than $!00K.

You stated that you felt comfortable managing a 44' schooner with just you and your wife. Yes I believe that two experienced people could sail a boat of that size. But, can you dock the boat, get into or our of a slip, with a crosswind, with just two people? How heavy are the sails? Can you bend on the sails or remove them by yourself? Does the boat have powered winches, a bow thruster, or other features to make it easier to handle? I used to sail my 110 short handed / single handed all the time. It was manageable, but trying to dock or leave a slip in challenging conditions was not easy and I was very hesitant to try it in windy conditions.

My new boat is a Jeanneau 409, a 40' boat that weighs about 18,000 lbs (the c&C 110 was around 12,000 lbs). The Jeanneau has a bow thruster, powered winches, dutchman mainsail handling system, etc. Even so, it's a handful to manage. I'm a fit 57 year old, but I don't think I could handle a bigger boat. I can manage the sails on this boat, but not a boat much bigger. I do some racing on a J 44 and one person can't carry the sails for that boat.

The racer / cruiser thing doesn't mean too much to me. Generally, a more performance oriented boat will have a traditional main while a more cruising oriented boat will have in mast furling main. A performance boat will have a large genoa, while a cruiser will have a smaller jib. Cruising boats will have dodgers, bimini, connector, cockpit table, traveler mounted on the cabin top (if there is a traveler). Performance boats will have deep draft keel, multiple sails including asymetric spinnakers, end boom sheeting with traveler in the cockpit. Only you can decide what's important to you.

My Jeanneau is a performance boat: 7' keel, 140% genoa, traditional main with large roach, adjustable backstay, deep rudder. It's also a comfortable cruiser with air conditioning and heat, good tankage, bow thruster, 55 gallon fuel tank, My C&C was also performance oriented with large sail area, adjustable back stay, traveler in the cabin right in front of the wheel, folding prop, etc. It was comfortable with large head with shower, refrigeration, oven / stove, etc. The tankage was limited to reduce weight but was decent.

Lots and lots of things for you to consider.

Barry

BarryL said:

I owned a 2002 C&C 110 from 2013 to 2021 (sold in May of this year). I am biased but they are great boats. Fast, comfortable, well made, well designed, safe, reliable, etc. I'm not familiar with the boat you are considering, but that price is very high. I find it hard to believe a 110 would sell for more than $!00K.

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Thanks. Those are very helpful.

stated that you felt comfortable managing a 44' schooner with just you and your wife. Yes I believe that two experienced people could sail a boat of that size. But, can you dock the boat, get into or our of a slip, with a crosswind, with just two people? How heavy are the sails? Can you bend on the sails or remove them by yourself? Does the boat have powered winches, a bow thruster, or other features to make it easier to handle?

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Lotta questions for my little cell phone keyboard.
The schooner displaces 32,000 lbs and has sail area of 1200 to 1300sf. That compares to your Junneau at 773. Both according to sailboatdata.com. The schooner has 4 sails and the Junneau two. So while the main on the schooner is probably a little bit larger than yours it is probably in the same ballpark. That's kind of the point of schooners, lots of smaller and more manageable sails so they can be sailed short handed. I said I was a little tired after our sail, but that was from raising and lowering the sails with manual winches. I was not sore the next day, so it wasn't that hard. And I could really use the exercise! I partly grew up on a small farm when teenage labor was still cheaper than the more specialized equipment. And I was a long distance rower for many years and miles (over 17,000). I'm still fairly strong for my size, though the covid lock downs really fattened me up and I have yet to lose it. I also worked on tugs and crewed on a 131' schooner back in the '80s. So I'm pretty used to hard work and still think it feels good from time to time.

There was a stiff afternoon crosswind across the slip and docking could have gone a little better. A bowthruster is on the list of things to add after we buy. If we buy, which is not highly likely and is why I'm here asking about other boats.

A couple quick thoughts.... Performance oriented cruisers and racers tend to carry comparatively large sail plans for their displacement. The can do that by having a lot of stability for their weight and drag. But they also depend on being able to depower their sails in a building breeze. (Depowering is reducing the side loading as windspeeds increase. It is not the same as reefing. )

Depowering requires a traveler and easy twist control. Generally, twist control is very difficult if not impossible with arch or cabintop mounted mainsheet controls.

But the flip side is that modern performance boats are extremely easy to maneuver under power and generally don't need or necessarily benefit from bow thrusters until they get to be over 40 or more feet.

36-38 footers are a very convenient size, in that they offer a lot of accommodations yet are small enough to be easily handled short handed without specialized equipment.

Jeff

Jeff_H said:

36-38 footers are a very convenient size, in that they offer a lot of accommodations yet are small enough to be easily handled short handed without specialized equipment.

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A glance at the other links I posted would show that I'm mostly looking in that size range. I only mentioned the schooner to illustrate that a racer is unlikely to be all that difficult to sail. To race and win would be very hard for a newbie, of course, but not just to sail around and enjoy. Every boat has its little idiosyncrasies to learn. I'm sure I can learn any of them that affect me and probably won't bother with those that don't. I'm mostly trying to learn whether I should bother looking at racer/cruisers. It sounds like this model is probably overpriced for my needs even if it is reasonably priced as a racer.

So what about that Marlow-Hunter I mentioned? (Marlow-Hunter 37) I somehow got the idea that Hunters were pretty low on the quality totem pole, but that Marlow had improved them quite a bit with their new designs. Don't know how much truth there is to either part of that. Any opinions on it? I actually know the listing broker, but don't know how forthcoming he would be with negative opinions if he had them.