Advice: boat for singlehanded UK circumnavigation

[Rossynant]

I can imagine if I get stormbound somewhere grim for a while, one of these dark and gloomy cabins might give me a touch of fever....

On "newer AWBs" with open space inside and lots of light - in heavy weather you will not be feeling secure, but thrown around...
For dark interior - paint new shiny varnish on and some white bulkheads. It's just a fad that old strong boats are dark, and new lightweights are light. Yes, on lightweight boat not much furniture can be put in, or it sinks

This is original interior on 50 years MAB: http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/seadog-30/s4698-saloon-wa.jpg http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/deep-seadog/a86705-saloon-aft.jpg

 

[halcyon]

I've now looked at a few Westerly/Sadler/Moody/Nicholson boats and whilst they would undoubtedly do the job, I'm struggling with the accommodation on those too - having been brought up on bigger, newer AWBs I'm finding them all cramped, dark and a bit too basic to spend weeks/months on. It's my own problem I know, plenty of people manage just fine but I can imagine if I get stormbound somewhere grim for a while, one of these dark and gloomy cabins might give me a touch of fever. Maybe that's all part of the game...

A lot depends on the boat, I have one brown bulkhead basically, the rest is white. You would have the advantage that you can stop and go ashore, our boat previous owners sailed to America, mid-Atlantic you have no where bar 27 foot of yacht.

Brian

 

[Wave22]

It's not the colour (although I did say they were dark), it's more the space, the sagging headlinings, the lack of hot water etc. I'm not particularly big but I struggled to get into the forepeak in some of them when the infill was in and I kept banging my head!

I have found a couple of boats that seem as if they might do the job and be more comfortable to live on. Both very easy to sail singlehanded, seaworthy (Cat B) and comfortable and spacious below. I'm a bit nervous about suggesting them as I suspect they might get shot down in flames but here goes:

Hunter Legend 295 http://www.legend295forsale.co.uk

Hunter Ranger 245 http://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=282043

Opinions please?

 

[Rossynant]

Hunters were not built to especially high quality, and not intended for high seas, normal production boat. Nothing wrong with this, but personally I'm not impressed Question of price versus the state of boat, anyway.

As for forepeak - in old school this was sail storage. Mostly on AWBs berths are at quite an angle. How do you sleep there when at sea, heeled? head down and jumping?

Did I mention Contest, 29-33, or was it another thread? Inside height 190 cm (guess 6'3"), no headlinings (they have fiberglass inserts), moderate longkeel or moderate fin, moderate draft, made for groundings - come from Holland. Seaworthy, fast, comfortable. Not a flat AWB camper style naturally.
Can be bought cheap indeed, especially in Holland and Germany, but saw a few in UK. One C29 for 2,500 with new sails and engine! Interior to mend, though.
Contest 29 is classic longkeel, rather sleek and cramped, but enough space.
Contest 33 is a IOR racer, I'd say is better and safer then Contessa 32, while much more space inside. Very good quality of build.
They were building to Lloyd rule - You don't have to buy british, after all...
http://www.martin-faerber.de/plaene.htm

Edit: now I be shot, but: I would never say of any flat, high aspect fin boat "easy to sail singlehanded". Maybe on weekend sail. And then only with good autopilot...
Seaworthy - I'd never say that of category B. Not even of category A (just read the rulings).
Category A is the bare minimum of minimums of safety at sea. On a boat only meeting this CE cat A minimum I'd be scared s***
Category B is for short sail close to shore in nice weather, so you will not get caught in storm; and you better not be - "up to F8" they say, and up to 4 m wave...

 

[chinita]

Inspired by Nathan (and Ellen)

I am glad you remembered to mention Ellen.

 

[NUTMEG]

Read this thread with interest. Nice little spat there for a bit. If I had not read from the start but picked it up half way through I could have been forgiven for thinking we were talking about a global circum not the UK. People have done this in open dinghies! On jet skis. Some old chap even started in a Mirror Offshore!
Talk of seaworthiness is laudable but let's keep a sense of proportion, just a series of day sails after all. Take a peak at David Goes Over The Top blog, he did the hardest bit in a Crabber mk1.

Rather fancy it myself in five years time (retirement). Work the tides, watch the weather, don't take chances!

Rant over. As you were.

Steve

 

[Tranona]

Some very helpful and interesting replies here - thank you very much. Particularly interested in the comments about the ability to dry out not really being necessary for UK circumnavigation, this may well change my thinking which will give me a lot more options.

I very much appreciate all of your input (well most of you anyway!), some of which has been very helpful indeed. It's particularly nice to hear from Dylan and Nathan. I've read both of your blogs for quite a while and you are both part of the inspiration behind this project so thank you. Inspired by Nathan (and Ellen), my original choice for this venture was a Corribbee (and there is a beautiful one for sale here http://www.ybw-boatsforsale.com/boat/yacht/cruising/w/uk/dorset/portland/corrie-bee-339870.html) but I just don't think I'm hardcore enough to live on one for an extended period - hats off to you Nathan.

I've now looked at a few Westerly/Sadler/Moody/Nicholson boats and whilst they would undoubtedly do the job, I'm struggling with the accommodation on those too - having been brought up on bigger, newer AWBs I'm finding them all cramped, dark and a bit too basic to spend weeks/months on. It's my own problem I know, plenty of people manage just fine but I can imagine if I get stormbound somewhere grim for a while, one of these dark and gloomy cabins might give me a touch of fever. Maybe that's all part of the game...

As you can see from the wide range of suggestions here there is no one perfect boat - except the one you choose for yourself and that may well be very different from the one I or anyone else on here might choose. That is the reason why there re so many boats suitable for the job. It is just what the typical cruising boat is designed for.

Just pick a boat you feel comfortable with, one you are confident in handling in the sort of conditions you prefer to sail in and fits comfortably within your budget. Make sure it is sound and well prepared, plan your trip to do the sorts of things you want to do, whether it be to get round as fast as possible or dawdle in every little creek and harbour, or any variation in between. Then just get on and do it. You do not have to justify your choice to anybody else apart from yourself.

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Rather fancy it myself in five years time (retirement). Work the tides, watch the weather, don't take chances!



Steve

Hi Steve
that's exactly what we did this last summer and it was as good as we had hoped for..... especially as the Western Isles had one of their best and driest summers for a long time.
We were very lucky with our timing and the rest was as /your thoughts above.

go for it!
S.

 

[JimC]

Hunters were not built to especially high quality, and not intended for high seas, normal production boat. Nothing wrong with this, but personally I'm not impressed Question of price versus the state of boat, anyway.

I think there's some confusion here between the products of Hunter Boats of Florida USA http://www.marlow-hunter.com/ (Hunter Legend 295), and British Hunter of Southampton UK http://www.britishhunter.co.uk/ (Hunter Ranger 245)

I can only speak for British Hunter and my opinion of their products differs markedly from that stated.

 

[Rossynant]

And You are probably right I commented on Legend, as the OP mentioned. And nothing wrong, just it's not built like some others traditional British boats, on Lloyds specs, were. With age some issues may show.

But Category B?

 

[Lucky Duck]

And You are probably right I commented on Legend, as the OP mentioned. And nothing wrong, just it's not built like some others traditional British boats, on Lloyds specs, were. With age some issues may show.

But Category B?

(British) Hunter claimed that at 24 foot long it was impossible for the Ranger 245 to gain a RCD Category A. Same for its larger sister the 265.

 

[Wave22]

I have found a couple of boats that seem as if they might do the job and be more comfortable to live on. Both very easy to sail singlehanded, seaworthy (Cat B) and comfortable and spacious below. I'm a bit nervous about suggesting them as I suspect they might get shot down in flames but here goes:

Hunter Legend 295 http://www.legend295forsale.co.uk

Hunter Ranger 245 http://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=282043

Opinions please?

So these Hunters then - any good?

 

[JimC]

So these Hunters then - any good?

Don't know anything about US Hunter but personally I've a good opinion of British Hunter boats, if you want any more detail or justification PM me because I'm not going to be drawn into publicly singing the praises of my own boat. You can read any amount of that on here.

You could look at the owners' website http://www.hunterassociation.org.uk/ and the builder's: http://www.britishhunter.co.uk/index.html#ds

I believe PBO is publishing a test report on the Hunter Ranger 245 in a forthcoming issue.

 

[TimBennet]

The British Hunters were all very well designed and of dependable build quality. The vast majority were of quite simple construction (which as they get older, will be a good thing). However their more racy models (Formula One, HB31,) were actually surprisingly high-tec in the their construction, but have also stood the test of time. The thing that Hunter really knew was the market - they were masters at giving the buying public what they wanted at the price that was more that it cost to build them. The economically sound balance of features / price / and cost of production was a skill that seems to have completely eluded every other British sailing boatbuilder except Oyster.

The US Hunter Legends (even the ones built for a time at Portland), are designed and marketed to a similar market segment as British Hunter (plus some bigger boats), but are less conservative in both their design and construction techniques. Their core markets (and manufacturing base) are in warm, light wind areas of the States and this seems to permeate the company psyche, in the same way that building British Hunters in cold wet miserable south Essex for tight fisted ex-dinghy sailors, permeated theirs.

 

[Seajet]

TimBennet is basically correct, especially re the light build quality of American Hunters, which were nothing to do with the British make.

In early days - 1970's - Hunters used designer Oliver Lee ( if you look on the ' community ' tag at the top of this page there's a site dedicated to ' The genius of Oliver Lee ' ), he designed such classics as the Hunter 19 - smallest boat to compete in the 1972 Ostar transatlantic race with David Blagden, the design was later modified into the Europa - the Squib keelboat and 701.

Later on they employed designer David Thomas, who came up with fast but to my mind lightly built boats like the Sonata and Impala etc.

I've test sailed a Horizon 27 and 23, they had gone from purists' boats to crowd / SWIMBO pleasers with the accent on accomodation and trendy open plans, but they're still much better than some other creations beginning with ' N ' I could mention !

 

[maby]

I think there's some confusion here between the products of Hunter Boats of Florida USA http://www.marlow-hunter.com/ (Hunter Legend 295), and British Hunter of Southampton UK http://www.britishhunter.co.uk/ (Hunter Ranger 245)

I can only speak for British Hunter and my opinion of their products differs markedly from that stated.

We had a British Hunter Ranger 265 for some time and really liked it. It was certainly not badly built, but I'm not at all sure I would have liked to try a UK circumnavigation in it. On those few occasions that we unintentionally got into significantly bad weather in it, I was really wishing that we had something bigger and heavier.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

I sailed round the UK in 2001 (over the top, not canal) in an X99. It took me 60 days. Deep keel, big bendy mast, but did the job no problem at all (apart from 1 blown head gasket, engine, not mine). Of course, if I'd had an Anderson 22 I could have done it in half the time and twice the enjoyment with its much bigger envelope or something, but I was young and foolish then and hadn't discovered this forum.

 

[chinita]

I sailed round the UK in 2001 (over the top, not canal)

This forum is for talking about what you are going to do, not what you have done.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

This forum is for talking about what you are going to do, not what you have done.

Ah, the self appointed forum policeman strikes again, ruthlessly marking down a post he considers inappropriate with harsh retribution because it breaks a rule he made up on the spot 10 seconds previously. Just as well policeman and offender are both virtual otherwise I could be nursing an Ian Tomlinson thwack in the kidneys right now.

I'm intending to sail round the UK in 2001 (over the top, not canal) in an X99. It may take me 60 days. Deep keel, big bendy mast, but hopefully will do the job no problem at all (apart from 1 blown head gasket I intend to have, engine, not mine).

Better? Or am I still an inappropriately posting twassock?

 

[dylanwinter]

Ah, the self appointed forum policeman strikes again, ruthlessly marking down a post he considers inappropriate with harsh retribution because it breaks a rule he made up on the spot 10 seconds previously. Just as well policeman and offender are both virtual otherwise I could be nursing an Ian Tomlinson thwack in the kidneys right now.



Better? Or am I still an inappropriately posting twassock?

oi!

twassock

good word

not sure it can be used for sailors though

Dylan