Boat choice

[cptsolo]

Hi, I am at the early stages of trying to develop a shortlist of boats suitable for live aboard and extended singlehanded/ short handed cruising. I have a budget for initial purchase of £25-£30K. I have been looking at something like a Seadog Ketch as the kind of boat I would be looking at. It seems to have a good balance between accomodation, performance under engine and sail, safe seakeeping and offshore capabilities and ease of handling. I would welcome some views from those out there who have been down this road, either on this particular choice or others to consider ( I have for example also had a look at and likesd a Roberts 34 but it is a vey different type and the accommodation is perhaps too much of a compromise). Thanks.

 

[Talbot]

As we all know, every boat is a compromise in one way or the other. Suggest you sit down and decode what are your major requirements, and how much time do you expect to allocate to each , and then start to allocate a percentage trade-off. Then you can look at the boat requirement with a much more informed viewpoint. Personally I reckon that a cat is the best liveaboard solution, but I might be a tad biased.

 

[TigaWave]

Its a good idea (I think) to look at as many different types of boat within your budget as you can. The boat I ended up with would not have been on an initial list of favourites, but it was a combination of condition and how she'd been used that meant we had a strong boat that was unlikely to need much maintenance (over routine) in the next 10000miles of cruising.

One thing I've seen on several old and some newer boats that I would look closely at is the state of the electrics, if there has been any salt moisture damage to any terminals it will have crept up the cables. This usually would mean re-wiring or facing electrical failures, a long job and quite disruptive as most boats are wired up before interiors are fitted.

I ended up with a Bavaria 390 (1991) after starting out thinking Rival 38/Nicholson! and didn't regret it for a moment, in a all conditions. A really great boat. (the old ones that were well made with fittings to match, I'm not so sure about the more recent Bav's)

 

[CodStewart]

I'm currently waiting on tenterhooks as my skipper checks out the ferro over in Mexico. We are young and so not flush with cash but crave a different kind of life. Looking at ferro not only suited our budget but provided more space for our dosh.
The ferro over in Mx is 45ft, larger than we at first considered but we know that eventually we'd want to upgrade so why not do it at the start. Suits our plan to use the boat as a temporary English school sometimes too!

 

[pragmatist]

The other factor we used when choosing a boat was the "NO" factor. There will always be a few things that you (and the joint prospective owner if there is one) will say NO to.

We had several "I couldn't bear that" and in particular we had one perfectly respectable Moody to which I said "I couldn't possibly spend my money on that". HWMBO blew out a nice steel boat because there was nowhere he had full headroom - my problem with the Moody was that it had nice interior fittings (good fridge, smart upholstery, immense aft cabin) but not a single lee cloth, only 2 sails (both knackered) ... If it wasn't a floating caravan it did a good impression (and no I'm not knocking Moodys in general - its just that that one was not for me !)

I'm not sure that this is entirely logical but I do believe if you hate some aspect before you buy you'll almost certainly detest it shortly thereafter !

 

[gonad]

always go for headroom!

 

[devonian]

i'm in a very similar situation with a similar budget, i am looking at an 8 ton hillyard at £11,250 has anyone any experience of them as a liveaboard