Buying my first sail boat!

[25931]

Evening one and all

I am very new to sailing, in fact I am on my competent crew course tomorrow morning ( Monday 13th July 2020 ) with Elite sailing in Chatham Marina, I will be following this up with day skipper courses and any additional you could advise.

I would like some advice and feedback from you experts in here please on what would be a good boat to buy based on needs, usage and budget.

myself and my wife intend to retire in 10 years, sell up and given hopefully the experience we have by that time, go off sailing and exploring for a couple of years so due to the long term plan we want to get something half decent now that will stand us in good stead for 9 - 10 years time still when we go off on our adventures, but also something we can use now as a weekend cruiser or for holidays so we could spend a week or two aboard and be quite comfortable.

Our budget is £80-£100k

We have been doing some research for quite a few months and our current preferred boat would be a Jeanneau sun odyssey 349, a 2014 - 2017 model.
Thoughts on this boat, is it a good boat in peoples eyes and be good enough to go world cruising if needed, even in 10 years time, also good enough now and comfortable enough to be a good weekend / holiday cruiser?

Other boats we like are as follows

Beneteau Oceanis 46

Bavaria 37 cruiser

Bavaria 33 cruiser

Dufour 455 grand large

Thank you so much in advance for any help or advice given it really is much appreciated

You appear to have rather decided views on the type of boat. Although it appears that you can afford it I would not advise buying just yet. What noone has mentioned but is vital for continued marital harmony is your wife's enjoyment. You don't say anything about her learning to sail. If she's going to take an active part in boat handling you should consider how suitable is the boat for her, if ,on the other hand she doesn't want to but likes the idea of sailing with you there are important factors such as her comfort wen you might be enjoying challenging conditions.Perhaps you might try a trip on a catamaran for experience.
Whatever your decisions I wish you both much happiness.

 

[convey]

Your choice of boat for now seems to be based on berthing costs and maintenance costs over the next few years. I can afford both and it won’t be a problem.

Can you afford to do a largely total refurbishment of a 10 year old boat in 10 years time (and more to make it seaworthy for your grand adventure), and regular fibreglass/gel coat repairs for every time you bang a jetty or worse?

"Sailing: It's not like buying a car".

Buy an old boat, do your banging about in it. In 10 years time (if), you'll have a better idea of what you need. Chuck in an expensive charter once a year on a big boat to give yourself a broad experience.

But, if it's just to sit in a marina, have drinks on, and pour money down the drain, any of the boats you mentioned will perform adequately.

 

[Catalina36]

Everything is more demanding on a bigger boat - bigger, more complicated, more to maintain.

No doubt everyone here has made mistakes when they first learned to sail, and then again when they got their own boats - I bet my list is longer and more expensive, not only because I'm a muppet, but also because I bit off more than I can chew. I have broken things and made mistakes so mortifyingly stupid that I would not dream of embarrassing myself by admitting them here. Make your mistakes on a boat that doesn't matter - when you run aground you can say, "well, it'll cost us some money, but we bought this boat to learn on".

My 40'er is terrifying in a marina. It's a modern fin reeled boat, of the kind that someone else here described as "predictable". but when there's wind going one way and tide going the other, and you're tired or lacking confidence - if there's a risk of dinging into other people's boats, I suggest choosing a smaller lighter vessel. If I was still sailing with the club then I'd probably be happier helming their 35' and 40' boats, because the club requires always at least a skipper and two crew. But I think on my own or with only one crew I would often be happier with a smaller boat at my level of experience. Don't let this be you!

As someone else has also said, you'll know more what you want from a boat when you have experience. In my opinion a 5-day course is probably not enough to become really competent crew - I reckon that I was becoming reasonably handy and seamanlike after 15 or 20 days onboard. As a member of the crew that is, not as a skipper.

Lots of things you now think that you'll want, you'll revise your opinion once you have experience. I lusted after Jeanneaus when I was still a dreamer, and now that I've sailed on one I think Beneteaus are better - although they're now part of the same company, neither are the kind of boat I would choose for this kind of adventure, but they're perfect for you first few years' sailing, building experience crossing the channel at weekends.

"My 40'er is terrifying in a marina. "

So was my 36 when I first got it. A bow thruster helped a great deal but I still suffered from a lot of prop walk to port in astern, such that it was impossible to reverse to starboard should that be needed. I designed and had built a removeable stern thruster and put proportional control on both thrusters, which transformed the whole business. If I were doing it again I might just go for a cheap Chinese electric outboard, mounted such that the thrust is athwartships. It would need to be able to run in either direction.

 

[convey]

Buy a [smaller] old boat, do your banging about in it.

Oh, including banging OTHER PEOPLE'S BOATS about.

I mean, I suppose you can afford the insurance too, and may be even the repairs to their boats, but they're still not going to thank you for it.

 

[sgr143]

and maintenance costs over the next few years. I can afford both and it won’t be a problem.

Which is fine - but you might also bear in mind that there are likely to be circumstances when you need to fix something yourself, especially if you're going further afield. Even a small cruising boat contains a complex web of systems - electrics, electronics, engine(s), sails, water, and the rest, and the bigger the boat, the more and more complex those systems tend to be. I'm a reasonably experienced "amateur engineer and fixer-upper", but even so, owning a boat has thrown some pretty baffling problems at me. OK, my boat's over 30 years old, but even very new boats will have things on them that need fixing, and things that will go wrong, and there might not be outside help to hand.

One might even argue that one reason for starting on a relatively small and simpler "starter boat", is that if will help you learn the boat-related maintenance skills that could stand you in good stead when you set off into the blue yonder, wild or otherwise.

Enjoy your course(s), take it easy, especially on boat buying. It sounds like you've got plenty of time in hand; so there's no need to rush into anything.

 

[Stemar]

The instructor that I did my courses with didn't allow you on his day- or coastal skipper courses unless you'd already passed the corresponding theory course.

That doesn't seem to be a rule, unless it's changed. I booked a Comp Crew course and ended up on a course with two would be Coastal Skippers and two Comp Crews. It was the first time I'd set foot on a yacht. When I saw what was expected of the Coastals, which was basically the same the CCs, plus nav, met and tidal calculations, having done nav & met before as pilot training, albeit a while ago, I asked if I could upgrade to Dazed Kipper. The instructor was dubious, but allowed it. In the end, the only reason he didn't give me a Coastal Skipper ticket was because I wouldn't lie about experience.

 

[Petronella]

If you do decide to buy 'the boat' first time round you could do worse than buy from a retiring long term liveaboard. If you find the right person he/she will know the boat, have lots of spares and tools, will have looked after the boat and may be keen to take you out on her and teach you the quirks of his boat (every boat has quirks). Once a boat is a certain age the level of maintenance is more important than the age. Meanwhile sail whatever you can wherever you can.

 

[Skylark]

That doesn't seem to be a rule, unless it's changed. I booked a Comp Crew course and ended up on a course with two would be Coastal Skippers and two Comp Crews. It was the first time I'd set foot on a yacht. When I saw what was expected of the Coastals, which was basically the same the CCs, plus nav, met and tidal calculations, having done nav & met before as pilot training, albeit a while ago, I asked if I could upgrade to Dazed Kipper. The instructor was dubious, but allowed it. In the end, the only reason he didn't give me a Coastal Skipper ticket was because I wouldn't lie about experience.

When in doubt, refer to the RYA website

I qualified as a Cruising Instructor after retirement from a "real" job.

Candidates are expected to have background theory (shorebased) knowledge to match their practical training course. There isn't time on a DS Practical course to teach the shorebased as well. Situations do arise when it's pretty obvious that a DS candidate doesn't have the background theory and they are likely going to end the week without the course completion certificate but with an action plan. Shorebased and Practical course content / syllabii are on the RYA website.

 

[Babylon]

Agree entirely with the above.

On my DS Practical blind-nav exercise (sprung on me just as we'd cleared Cowes entrance) we stopped within a few meters of the navigation mark I'd nominated outside the Beaulieau, at which the instructor bounced down below demanding to see the hidden GPS he thought I was using!

Don't tell me anyone can do this after just a bit of casual crewing or three days into a five day practical course without having sat down to learn and repeatedly practice pilotage and navigation theory first.

 

[Wansworth]

You want a boat that enables you to still sail it whilst you are out of the wind and the Sun so a eleven meter cutter with a permanent wheelhouse open at the stern with opening forward windows,the wind and the sun are a real pain day after day.Shoal draft with protected rudder,engine easy to work on with accessible fuel tanks and ancillaries.If possible room on deck for a proper dinghy for rowing and sailing and handling equipment for four anchours.

 

[Concerto]

Hope you enjoyed your course with Elite. You will have walked past my boat to get to Spitfire or their other sub 38ft boats. Ask to go on Tonic and you will quickly realise the massive difference in how much more powerful she is.

My advice is do not buy your ultimate yacht now. Get experience on other yachts by chartering or crewing. Then buy something for around £40,000 and sail it for 8 years. This experience will ensure when you do buy your ultimate yacht you get it right. I have been sailing for over 50 years and mainly in the 30ft to 45ft range on numerous different boat. From all of my experience I have decided an older 32ft yacht is an ideal size as I usually sail singlehanded, despite being in the position I could have bought a new 32ft to 34ft yacht.

When you learnt to drive, did you start with a Jaguar or Rolls Royce? I very much doubt it. The car(s) you drive now are so different to your first car but you know what you want when choosing your next one. The same should apply to buying a boat. Your needs now are to have something that will teach you all the basics and then as you get closer to retirement, make the decision to change to your 40ft plus boat. You have made the assumption that both of you will love sailing, will not get sea sick and handling a boat is just like a car. In reality there is so much more than that. The most dangerous time in any journey on a boat is the first and last 100 meters. So boat handling should be the top of your list to learn. Understanding how to sail is much easier to learn, but you have to know all about reading charts, know your buoys, the rudimentaries of passing vessels or collision avaoidance, navigating to get to where you want to go and how the tides will affect your course. Not to mention using a VHF, understanding all the safety equipment, sorting electrics and electronics, being a water engineer, clearing a blocked loo (yes, it happens), being a diesel engineer, learning about ropes and splicing. You can pay someone to do lots for you, but if you are away from services, you are on your own.

Final comment. Get a smaller cheaper yacht to learn on. It will cost you less to berth and maintain, plus easier to handle. If you find sailing is not for you, you will loose very little compared to investing £200,000. Again in 8 years time you will know what you need from a yacht and will be confident buyers.

Do post on how you get on with your experiences and your thoughts on all the comments made.

 

[Jamiekent]

I can't advise you on a specific boat but what I can say is that I started with a 17 footer because I couldn't afford anything bigger though I always hankered after something that could cross the Channel.

A decade later I bought a 27 footer which to me was a big boat and sailed it for 10 years with family, down to the West Country and the Channel Islands and Brittany. Realisation dawned that even 27 feet wasn't enough for comfortable cruising. It had 6 berths but nowhere to store the clobber of six people. It could only carry 10 or 20 gallons of water.

Eventually with the family grown we were able to afford a 36 footer. At last, something large enough for just two people to live on for a couple of weeks without worrying about refilling water tanks every day, having to pick something up and move it before you can sit down, not banging your head every five minutes etc. You get the picture. Time flies, you're clearly very keen and you can afford it. Don't waste precious years messing around with something which won't satisfy you. On the other hand, take the time to find the right one. Buying in haste then regretting and having to sell is expensive, harrowing and time-consuming. It's much easier to part with the money than get it back.

This is by far the reply that made me think YES!
I think just go for it. I have watched months and months and months of vlogs on YouTube of people on their adventures and they all say if you can afford it now then do it, but the big boat, don’t waste precious years building up to it. Life is too short.

we simply can’t afford to go off sailing the world right now but in 10 years our mortgage will be paid off and we can either sell up and buy something really special for around 300k to go world cruising or just rent our home out and use that for an income and use the boat we intend to buy very soon once we decide on one

 

[Catalina36]

This is by far the reply that made me think YES!
I think just go for it. I have watched months and months and months of vlogs on YouTube of people on their adventures and they all say if you can afford it now then do it, but the big boat, don’t waste precious years building up to it. Life is too short.

we simply can’t afford to go off sailing the world right now but in 10 years our mortgage will be paid off and we can either sell up and buy something really special for around 300k to go world cruising or just rent our home out and use that for an income and use the boat we intend to buy very soon once we decide on one

I sort of picked up on the vibes! Glad to help, but do take your time to look at plenty before you decide, including test sails if you can arrange them. As I said, it's far easier to shell out the money than it is to get it back. You'll find any number of people who'll want your money, you'll only find the occasional one who wants your boat.

Have fun!

 

[LadyInBed]

Sorry to be a party pooper, but this sounds like a classic case of more money than sense!
My advice - Buy a 50 odd footer and employ a Skipper.

 

[Kelpie]

Are you honestly sure it is worth owning the boat now? It sounds like the main thing preventing you getting away is that you haven't paid off your mortgage. If you spend £80-£100k on your boat now, in ten years time it will be worth half that, and you will have replaced the standing rigging at least once, and very likely the sails and instruments too, so that's another £10-20k or so for a boat that size. Then you have your mooring/berthing/haulout/hardstanding/maintenance costs.
If you took that very substantial pile of money and put it into your mortgage, how much quicker could you get away?

 

[seadog30]

Year one - take the day skipper, VHF, First aid etc course, buy a stable dinghy eg a Wayfarer or similar . You will learn more about boat balance, sail trim and working the wind than 5 years on a 40 ft palace.

Year two - charter as many different types as you can.

Year 3 based on your improved knowledge buy your big boat.

Good luck

 

[ryanroberts]

Charter / an off season flotilla is a much better way to find out if you both enjoy it (or at least the after glow) when things go wrong at sea. That's a much bigger variable than the cash in my experience. You can GTFO in a far less fancy boat, but you only have the one wife.

We got caught in a squall with very very limited experience. I felt like I had just tweaked Neptune's nose, but my ex partner was more on the PTSD end of things, and feared telling me for some time as she knew how obsessed I was with boats.

 

[PabloPicasso]

There is a big difference between a day sailor/weekender/fortnight cruise boat and a full on live aboard blue water boat.

Most of us desire the latter but only have time for the former.

Lots of you tubers with videos on topics like the kit needed to live aboard, or living aboard on the cheap etc.

Bigger is more Comfortable, complex and expensive. Smaller is easier, cheaper, and usually more fun. Especially if time is tight.

Buy the boat for what you will use it for. Learning to sail, short coastal hops, occasional lo ger passages a 30ft will be great.

Live aboard and cruise the world, I'd like something bigger with a lot more stuff to allow off grid living. Again, youtu e has it all covered. Spend time on youtube before you spend your money

 

[[178529]]

Some good advice on here. The best I think was the person who advised going out with your partner in a strong blow in a decent passage and see if either or both want to get back on a boat again.

 

[KompetentKrew]

One might even argue that one reason for starting on a relatively small and simpler "starter boat", is that if will help you learn the boat-related maintenance skills that could stand you in good stead when you set off into the blue yonder, wild or otherwise.

This is one of the things I thought of, but didn't explicitly say.

I was hefting my sails about earlier today, and was thinking how much more pleasant it would have been to learn to do this job, had they not weighed so much. I can just about manage mine, but I see my Caribbean 40 has 65% more sail area than (say) a Sun Fast 3200. It would've made all the difference in the world, had they been that much lighter.

I don't think I'd want a much smaller boat for the kind of sailing I do (and want to do) - davits and a 2.7m tender look proportionate on a 40' boat, and that makes anchoring out and tightwad sailing (pay £2 for the ferry!? no thanks., I'll row!) much easier. But I think there are a lot of times a smaller boat would be more fun.

Jamiekent: I write as someone who was in a similar position to yourself only 2 years ago, and I can assure you that some of the things you think about sailing, and about what you want in a boat, are wrong. You will learn this for yourself, and think "I'm so glad of X, I was daft to think Y". I urge you to get the experience to develop your sailing knowledge, so your boating opinions are more informed. Rebuild a winch, bleed the diesel, fit a new seacock and you will have better perspective - the guy urging you to "go for it" could already do those things by the time he bought his larger "final" boat.

I have sailed on at least two Jeanneaus and two Beneteaus (Jeanneau is now owned by Beneteau), and have spent over a month on each marque. I think they're incredibly well designed but most people aren't longterm cruisers and Beneteau have become market leaders by recognising this. Beneteau saw off the competition by building to a price and marketing a fantasy (EDIT: YouTube sailors are also marketing a fantasy - they earn money from viewer numbers, so show what their audience wants to see). You can buy a Beneteau £20,000+ cheaper than the competition, and most people cannot justify the price of a quality bluewater yacht (which is more expensive still). I think Beneteau want to foster happy customers and that these boats are designed to serve the first buyer well, but after 10 years he's ready to replace it and buy the latest model; once the boat reaches this age the maintenance load increases significantly (and you have to be able to fix the boat yourself when you're a cruiser). 3/4 of the Bene-Jene's I sailed on were shagged out, and they were not that old (one was only 10 years old, and leaked horribly).

I'm not impressed by the people who tell me "this is a great bluewater boat" when I know they don't do any bluewater sailing. I admire far more my current neighbour who has a sporty little boat and says, "yes, I love it - I pop across the Channel and have breakfast in Plymouth".