40 foot centre cockpit liveaboard?

[VO5]

An Oceanlord with a couple of cases of lafite rothschild '90 in the cavernous cockpit locker?

The Oceanlord, for its size, is not a roomy boat.
The saloon is not that big, because the seating has contoured ends, which limits seated space and restricts spacious sleeping space.
The aft cabin has a double berth to stbd of limited size.
To port there is a small sofa which sandwiches a vanity unit.
Neither does it have full headroom aft and the floor of the aft cabin slopes horribly. If the floor is levelled to horizontal by the construction of a shallow floor locker, the headroom is further compromised, though in later models Westerly raised the coachroof (from memory) by 4 inches to allow for this.
It has however beautiful lines.
It is not an Ed Dubois design.
In its day Westerly Yachts, in a scheme to save money on the construction of a new hull to capture a market for greater LOA, took the Sealord plug and stretched it by 2 feet by inserting a spacer near the companionway, then they modified the stern to a scoop configuration. It would have been better not to adopt the scoop modification. The result of all this being the engine compartment had to be shifted, the keel deepened and the whole rig altered, including double spreaders for the mast (Kemp) both for sloop and ketch versions. But it is beautiful looking I do concede.

 

[Roaring Girl]

We have a Maxi 120 (not the 1200) which is a 40' cc ketch. Not that many were built, and they are now all older boats. We bought ours in late 2002 for under #50K. There's one for sale in Israel at http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1982/Maxi-120-CC-1915611/Israel, for us$79L or one at http://www.theyachtmarket.com/boats_for_sale/173431/ for EU69K. (It's unusual to find them up for sale at all.)

In addition to all the absolutely good points about a comfortable bunk, a large engine room, lines back to the cockpit and so on, we have always enjoyed the great sense of safety and distance from the wet stuff offered by being in the centre. It makes the cockpit more comfortable and an all-round pleasanter place to be in rough seas.

 

[TQA]

Look at a Hunter Passage if there is one in your vicinity.

Yes it is a Hunter but for use at anchor the aft cabin on that model is by far the best of any boat around that size that I looked at .

Several have made it around on the milk run route.