Becky
New member
Having just spent the last weekend at the Southampton Boat Show looking at and buying lots of equipment, it was something of a surprise to discover that for the money we spent on an eighteen-year old Moody, we could have bought a brand new Bavaria 36. And to top off this thought, we would still have been faced with the same costs for equipment.
Our Moody has had a full makeover- full osmosis treatment, coppercoat bottom which will not (hopefully) require re-antifouling for ten years, new hatches where necessary, new rigging, new instruments, new prop, I could go on and on.
But she sails like a dream, handled the worst weather August could throw at us with ease, and is comfortable and secure below in rough conditions. I do not regret not buying new. In fact for what we are planning, new wouldn't have been as good unless we spent double and set our sights on a HR, or Naiad.
So why do new yachts sell so well? Is it because most buyers have no intention of sailing them? Someone at our sailing club had boughta 40-something Legend. And I thought that he was a good sailor. So I looked at them at the Show. Lovely at rest in a Marina, but an awful long way to fall in anything of a sea. So is sailing going out of fashion? Are we the unusual ones? Is a sea berth a thing of the past?
It certainly seems to me that this is the coming thing. We will in a few years time just swap marina berths each weekend, using shore power, tv's, central heating, infact all the things we now leave behind when we sail.
And the worst thing for me is that I am slipping in this direction too. I want a nice big genset to allow me to wash my hair at sea, to watch films on the laptop when away from our marina berth, and to run the battery chargers for heat and comfort.
I suppose this fact is what set me off on this thread. Is there no hope for us? Or me at least?
Or, worst of all, is it an age thing?
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Our Moody has had a full makeover- full osmosis treatment, coppercoat bottom which will not (hopefully) require re-antifouling for ten years, new hatches where necessary, new rigging, new instruments, new prop, I could go on and on.
But she sails like a dream, handled the worst weather August could throw at us with ease, and is comfortable and secure below in rough conditions. I do not regret not buying new. In fact for what we are planning, new wouldn't have been as good unless we spent double and set our sights on a HR, or Naiad.
So why do new yachts sell so well? Is it because most buyers have no intention of sailing them? Someone at our sailing club had boughta 40-something Legend. And I thought that he was a good sailor. So I looked at them at the Show. Lovely at rest in a Marina, but an awful long way to fall in anything of a sea. So is sailing going out of fashion? Are we the unusual ones? Is a sea berth a thing of the past?
It certainly seems to me that this is the coming thing. We will in a few years time just swap marina berths each weekend, using shore power, tv's, central heating, infact all the things we now leave behind when we sail.
And the worst thing for me is that I am slipping in this direction too. I want a nice big genset to allow me to wash my hair at sea, to watch films on the laptop when away from our marina berth, and to run the battery chargers for heat and comfort.
I suppose this fact is what set me off on this thread. Is there no hope for us? Or me at least?
Or, worst of all, is it an age thing?
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