jakew009
Active member
Hello all
We currently have a 7.5m Cobra rib which I did some work on over lockdown and we have been messing around with in North Devon where we live.
Thread here that followed the rebuild: Project Cobra - RIBnet Forums
It lives on a trailer and we launch it each time we use it. The actual towing bit doesn’t worry me (farming background..) but the parking rigmarole with all the holiday makers has pretty much put me off keeping it on a trailer. Our local slipway (Appledore) is excellent but parking is impossible in the summer combined with limited tides.
We have also found we use it as basically a floating picnic platform / coastal cruiser going over to Lundy etc.
Because we are very limited by tides, we either have to go out for a few hours either side of hw, or go out and wait for the next tide to come back in on.
This is fine, but we feel a bit exposed on the open rib with little in the way of creature comforts.
Finally, we want to leave the boat on a mooring (no marinas here), but it will dry out on every ride and we feel the open rib is just too vulnerable to leave out. We need something with a hard top.
So that brings us to a search for a new boat. Budget will be circa 50-60k. I don’t mind doing some work on a boat, but don’t want a massive project and would rather something modern.
I’m not too worried if the new boat was trailerable or not as we can get it craned our onto hard standing over winter. We want something with a hard top and that we can lock up and go. We’d like a few creature comforts so we could consider an overnight stay somewhere.
So far I’ve been looking at Merry Fisher 795/895 with outboards.
There are lots of other French Merry Fisher style boats but they are on shafts. On a drying mooring (sand), I assume that shafts are a non starter and we either need outboards or outdrives?
Are there any other boats that would be suitable?
Longer term the plan is to get a boat in the med but corona has curtailed that for a few years I think.
We currently have a 7.5m Cobra rib which I did some work on over lockdown and we have been messing around with in North Devon where we live.
Thread here that followed the rebuild: Project Cobra - RIBnet Forums
It lives on a trailer and we launch it each time we use it. The actual towing bit doesn’t worry me (farming background..) but the parking rigmarole with all the holiday makers has pretty much put me off keeping it on a trailer. Our local slipway (Appledore) is excellent but parking is impossible in the summer combined with limited tides.
We have also found we use it as basically a floating picnic platform / coastal cruiser going over to Lundy etc.
Because we are very limited by tides, we either have to go out for a few hours either side of hw, or go out and wait for the next tide to come back in on.
This is fine, but we feel a bit exposed on the open rib with little in the way of creature comforts.
Finally, we want to leave the boat on a mooring (no marinas here), but it will dry out on every ride and we feel the open rib is just too vulnerable to leave out. We need something with a hard top.
So that brings us to a search for a new boat. Budget will be circa 50-60k. I don’t mind doing some work on a boat, but don’t want a massive project and would rather something modern.
I’m not too worried if the new boat was trailerable or not as we can get it craned our onto hard standing over winter. We want something with a hard top and that we can lock up and go. We’d like a few creature comforts so we could consider an overnight stay somewhere.
So far I’ve been looking at Merry Fisher 795/895 with outboards.
There are lots of other French Merry Fisher style boats but they are on shafts. On a drying mooring (sand), I assume that shafts are a non starter and we either need outboards or outdrives?
Are there any other boats that would be suitable?
Longer term the plan is to get a boat in the med but corona has curtailed that for a few years I think.
