Best Boat

Lakesailor

Lakesailor

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I see many threads asking which is the best boat. Why should anyone be able to tell you? Each individual is looking for something different, probably at different times.
I have been looking after a friend's Prelude 19 for a few years and today went out for a sail on it. Not the first time, but this time I looked at it as though I was considering buying it.
A boat I had always assumed I would be interested in buying if he was to want to sell.

Cockpit a nice place to be.
Step up to coach roof too high.
Side decks too narrow.
Coach roof slope, forward of mast, dangerous.
Cabin nice and roomy with plenty of sitting headroom.
Cruising genoa sheets fouled shrouds, even though it's a fractional rig.
Boom too low.
Sheet leads poor.
Sheet cleating poor.
Probably more tender than my Seahawk 17, although quite stable (maybe over-canvassed comparatively).

I was surprised how compromised the boat was. This is a well-regarded boat and I would have bought on reputation alone.
Maybe it's a personal thing, but I would have been pretty disappointed if I had bought without a critical test. There are lots of mods I would make right now to improve the handling.

How many people buy without a proper assessment of suitability. All I seem to see are Survey threads concerned with condition.
 
Lakesailor said:
I see many threads asking which is the best boat. Why should anyone be able to tell you?
Click to expand...
I think that many boaters make such question simply because they can't answer it themselves.
Which is understandable, because it's a difficult one.
I've been making myself such question since I began boating, and I still do, now and then.
Not found a sensible answer yet, aside from having realised that the best boat is the one you can actually use, at any given time.
 
Good question.
Particularly when there is a tendency from forumites to defend their particular brand in case -horror of horrors- the value of their "investment " might fall if neg comments were posted.
Think it comes down to a shared experience thing. I've never sailed a Prelude 19 so if I am researching, I ask for comments so as to inform my research rather than to make the decision for me. There is no substitute for taking her on the trial sail and getting to know her first hand.
 
Good thread topic.

I've come to the conclusion that the 'ideal boat' is an illusion, peculiar to the modern western world.

For some people building their own custom craft is seen as a solution, but even then in some 'blogs' (awful word) the author writes something along the lines of: "I've just cut the wood and started to assemble the various parts, and already I've started dreaming about the next boat."

The 'best' boat, the 'ideal' boat, the 'next' boat - it's essentially the same search for something not quite obtainable. Maybe it's a substitute religion, who knows ?
 
I have 2 boats and they are both different.
They both do what I want them to do within the constraints I have though.
There are probably other boats that do each job better too, but the boats I have are the ones I am happy with for now.
 
SAWDOC said:
Particularly when there is a tendency from forumites to defend their particular brand in case -horror of horrors- the value of their "investment " might fall if neg comments were posted.
Click to expand...

As much defending their boats, I think people want to defend their decisions and therefore themselves. Hence, for example, the well established touchiness of Bavaria owners ... deep down they worry that the Halberg Rassy boys are sniggering at them, just as thirty years ago the Centaur owners worried that the Buchanan lads despised them.

It doesn't matter, of course. There are a huge number of factors in buying a boat, and I'd be gobsmacked if the ones which mattered to me also mattered (in the same order and with the same weighting) to anyone else here.

Just taking the OP's review - sounds as if the Prelude might be great for someone who likes lounging around and occasional overnights aboard, with a bit of sailing from time to time.
 
Surely it comes down to experience, for the absolute beginner a boat is a white thing with a pointy end. The type of sailing experience you later have in your opinion forming stage will probably continue to influence your preferences for the rest of your life. If you start from the modern marina, or on charter boats, you may tend to look for volume and convenience, the hull and rig efficiency will be secondary. If you begin racing dinghies or by crewing on a racing boat performance values are paramount and even as you grow old and decrepit it is hard to give them up. It is very hard to change direction, I scrambled across a trot last summer and one of the shrouds I grasped was (too me) obviously far too slack (they all were), I found it hard to mind my own business and walk on. Some sailors never adjust their backstay but are just as happy as me as I tweak away at the travellers, they find it hard to understand why I won't fit a big bunch of lazy jacks and a stackpack and am happy to spend 5 mins. folding my mainsail.
Its a visual thing too, there is a shape of hull and rig which looks right and attracts my eye and gives me pleasure, it does not have to be modern, in fact more often than not is old perhaps with a gaff. Just after Tabarly drowned I watched as Pen Duick and another Fife swapping tacks up the Sound of Mull in bright sunshine, it was so beautiful that I could have followed them for ever.
The beginner has not begun to narrow his priorities so he is not sensitised to the differences he wants to look for, depending on how he develops his sailing his priorities will be established. But isn't it great that our sport/pastime is so diverse, pity the poor mobos with about three choices of style, but then they may know different for what do I know.
 
I think it's a matter of attitude. I looked at boats and tried to work out whether they were roughly what I wanted. I picked one, she isn't perfect but I'm happy to compromise. I'm the sort of person who will stick with one boat forever, I'd rather get to know her than change her for something else. I'm pleased, though, that other boat owners have different ideas of perfection, or we'd all be sailing the same boat and life would be a little less interesting.

I also get the feeling that some people know exactly what they want and the fact that it doesn't exist and never will is too much to contemplate.
 
It all depends dunnit?

On what you want to do with it.

Where you want to do it.

And how much you can spend to buy & run it.


Answer those questions & a general outline of style will arrive - size, keels, key design brief (eg racing, cruising, liveaboard, ditch crawling, trailing etc)

Of course, if you are a Shane Acton, cash & availability drive your choice almost exclusively. There clearly no such thing as a "best boat" for everybody, but there are plenty to choose from & it isn't that hard to find something to suit if you really want to. AND, if you get it wrong it can always be changed for another.

People who ask for others to recommend a "Best boat" probably don't know the answers to the 3 questions I started with.
 
Searush said:
It all depends dunnit?

On what you want to do with it.

Where you want to do it.

And how much you can spend to buy & run it.
Click to expand...
I'd add a fourth - where exactly are you going to keep the boat, when you're not whating, whereing or howing with it ?
I often think that the keeping question ought to be the first one to ask, seeing as most boats spend most of their lives not doing what they were designed to do.
 
I'm surprised that you think the Prelude's handling and gear layout is not good . The designer is /was one Ian Proctor of Wayfarer, Wanderer, Eclipse, International 14, Merlin Rocket and National 12 ,Osprey,Tempest,and Nimrod fame, designed metal masts too. Unlikely to be the original set up, he was a perfectionist when it came to rig and balance.
Not many 'dogs' from that designer.

ianat182
 
I know who designed it and that it has a good reputation.
That is exactly my point. When it gets down to the nitty gritty there are points about a boat which I find problematic and others may not.
Because my back is a bit dodgy a big step up (and down) to the side deck is not good and a steeply sloping coach roof can catch me out.
But designing a boat with a side deck you can only walk along until you reach the shrouds is not good design. If the shrouds need to be just there, at that angle, then alter another aspect of the design to make the coachroof a safer route forward.

If specifying a headsail with a bigger overlap creates sheeting problems because the boat is small and there not many options on postioning, then address those problems. But if a sailor has never had a boat that doesn't hang up it's sheets now and then they will regard it as normal.

My main point is that is you try different boats and layouts you begin to create a set of desirable traits. If you buy a boat and stick with it you may become used to less than ideal aspects whilst loving the better points of the design.

I have not owned a larger boat so I would very likely be starting from the bottom in choosing "must haves" for a 30'+ boat.
 
Since 1988 I have owned three cruising boats over 28 feet, all very different, as for the best, it's the one I have now.
 
I think the majority of posters base their recommendations on the published boat tests and reputation rather than their vast experience of different types.

Mostly if some one asks "which is best" someone else will ask "for what?"

There's certainly a lot of hype about some types. I was a bit disappointed by the Contessa 26's accommodation for instance. But for someone, she's perfect.

You definitely need to keep an open mind and as far as I'm concerned the forum is a good way to do that. Someone is always suggesting something you maybe haven't considered. And a few thoughts from an owner are useful too.

I think fact that there are so many designs and for so many budgets is a great thing - none of them is best overall but with so many to go at you've a good chance you'll find one that's best for you.

The problem is knowing what you want!
 
Silly question

Asking "what is the best boat" is like asking "what is the best car?". There are boats that are supercars, boats that are luxury SUVs, boats that are cheap 2-door coupes, boats that are family sedans, boats that are Minis, etc. Which is best depends upon your budget and what you want to use it for...

And if buying used, then another question becomes availability - you might want that Scanmar 35 as your perfect used boat, but if you can't find one, you can't find one...so your idea of the best used boat may have to be a bit flexible.

So far MY dream boat would be a Najad 511 Classic...but then again my dream car is a Range Rover Overfinch, not a Ferrari. To each their own...
 
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