Continuous Cruising

The Taiwan built ones were very good. Initially when they moved to China the standard dropped but apparently picked back up after a few years.

Agree with what you say about the engine room. There seem to be so many boats where proper servicing is virtually impossible so checks and servicing gets missed. I'd hate that, the feeling that something could go wrong and I'd be able to do virtually nothing to put it right.
 
Elling E3 was one of my first thoughts too but looking at it again, I'm not so sure due to the saloon being below decks. I know the OP said that trawlers didn't seem good value but I would definitely favour something with the saloon being at deck level so something like a Beneteau Swift Trawler might be worth a look.

The OP also isn't keen on conventional fly bridges but perhaps something like a Broom might be a good choice. Loads of space in an aft cabin and perhaps a saloon that isn't compromised by a helm station.
 
petem said:
Elling E3 was one of my first thoughts too but looking at it again, I'm not so sure due to the saloon being below decks. I know the OP said that trawlers didn't seem good value but I would definitely favour something with the saloon being at deck level so something like a Beneteau Swift Trawler might be worth a look. The OP also isn't keen on conventional fly bridges but perhaps something like a Broom might be a good choice. Loads of space in an aft cabin and perhaps a saloon that isn't compromised by a helm station.
Click to expand...

Trawler values: It turns out that comparing trawlers to Dutch steel boats is a bit of a nonsense so I was wrong to compare the values. Still looking at the latter BTW.

Beneteau Swift: have been aboard a Swift Trawler 34 and my wife likes it. Doesn't tick all the boxes but I can certainly see why they have been a commercial success.

Deck level: Our current yacht has both galley and dinette at deck level (no saloon as such) - the views are good - can't see the point of burying ourselves below decks when the entire reason we go boating is to be in beautiful places.

Fly bridge yachts: We don't mind fly bridges, lots of advantages to those, and yes the Broom range is a possibility. Probably going to look at some in 2 weeks or so. However fuel consumption can be an issue with those. We know a couple who had a series of Brooms and gave up in the end - bought a slow trawler instead.

I think our problem is partly that most boatbuilders have to fit a guest cabin into their boats to attract the average buyer. What would probably suit us would be a 40ft displacement boat with hull speed of 8.5knots; cockpit, saloon, galley and lower helm all on one level, a single large master cabin, one heads/shower, and a proper engine room with a single engine and space for the ancillary equipment. An ordinary bed settee bed settee would suffice for the very occasional guest.

Still hunting!
 
Could you live with 8 knots all day every day for the rest of time?

I could until we wanted to out-run a bit of weather or wanted to cover a bit of distance at the expense of some diesel. The discussion has been done to death on here already but it is possible to run a planing flybridge at hull speed. Our P50 burns around 15 ltrs an hour for 7-8knots. Over 1,000 NM with a 10% reserve. Use a bit of tide and the numbers are astounding. The problem is when push comes to shove I can't live with the handcuffs of 8 knots for ever.

What I will say is your quest for an engine bay that you can dance round would be somewhat hampered by.a pair of 700 brake CAT C12 lumps :)

Henry :)
 
henryf said:
The problem is when push comes to shove I can't live with the handcuffs of 8 knots for ever.
Click to expand...

Agreed. With the price of diesel in Italy last season at north of €1.80/litre, we did a lot more D speed cruising than normal but I found it stultifyingly boring for long cruises. In the end, I made a pact with myself to do half of every trip at D speeds and pedal to the metal for the other half and sod the cost. This season of course, the cost of diesel has dived so it will be a higher proportion of pedal to the metal for me. Yee ha:D
 
henryf said:
The discussion has been done to death on here already but it is possible to run a planing flybridge at hull speed. Our P50 burns...
Click to expand...
Yeah, done to death as you say, but I still can't help smiling when folks used to criuse with planing boats consider displacement speed as a sort of second best, meant to save fuel at the expense of getting bored to death.
Imho, what pleasure boating is all about is enjoying cruising in comfort as much - if not more - as getting anywhere. Lower fuel burn is just a nice by product: a win/win situation, so to speak.
But if I should (as I actually did, for the first half of my boating "life"!) consider the boat as a mean for going places, I'd definitely go for an express cruiser of some sort, without even considering to use her at D speed for anything else than maneuvering.
Otoh, nowadays, I can't live with the handcuffs of ANY boat speed, for really going places.
I actually find somewhat restricting even the 500 kts of jetliners...
...but since the Concorde was unable to redefine the industry standards, we must live with that, I reckon! :D
 
At the moment we are limited to relatively short periods on the boat through work and school. This more than anything dictates our speed. To sit at 8 knots you need good weather, being thrown around for 8, 10 or 12 hours isn't fun. With the work / school restraints removed you can seek out weather windows but even then things change and it's nice to be able to dodge the bullet.

This is an interesting topic for many of us who have the dream of more long term cruising at some point in the future.

I'm also interested to read the motor cat feature in this months magazine.


Henry :)
 
Yup, I perfectly understand the wish to cruise reasonably fast when one must deal with time restrictions - as I said, that's something I also had to live with for many years.
But re. being thrown around for 12 hours, actually for any given LOA I would be happy to do that (with a stabilized, heavy, full D hull - hence without being REALLY thrown around a lot), rather than hanging on for dear life for one third of the time at three times the speed...
That aside, there's an easy fix to that problem: just leave your boat in a place where you have plenty of beautiful anchorages within easy reach.
I accept that this might involve jumping on a plane, if you are based in the UK... :cool: :p
...actually, I must also fly to reach the old tub, but I think it's worth.
Pays, money, choice springs to mind! :D
 
Crusing speed

Interesting thoughts about cruising speed and of course we are back to trade-offs and compromises again, same as always with boats.

Rather than re-hash old discussions I will just say that our current boat cruises at 5.5 or 6 knots depending on the power setting so 7 or 8 knots is acceptable to us. The only thing that is driving us to a different boat is that we want more space on board.

Our cruising plan is to move the next boat from one nice harbour/estuary/archipelago to another and then use the tender for exploring. We will certainly be buying a nice tender and that may well be a lot faster than the main boat. Our favourite activity is walking so we will be choosing places where the tender will take us to nice walks. The boat might stay in the same area for a whole summer. And we will also be visiting city centres - London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm for example. We are perhaps a different kind of boater because for us the next boat will be a floating apartment. The fact that it moves slowly does not matter to us in the slightest. In fact the nicest "cruise" we have done so far this year was an hour spent drifting down with the tide from Dell Quay to the Birdham Pile in the spring sunshine, sails furled and engine off, watching seals catching and eating fish. I think we may have been doing one knot. Bliss.
 
there are one or two Canados 60 on the market,
within your budget, and lots of space, for sure in the engine room ;-)
well build boat,
probably a bit bigger then you wanted, but she has higher displacement speed 8..9 kn
retrofit stabs is doable (I did it)
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1993/Canados-60-Fly-2797690/France#.VUh_ok1CSUk

Don't let you put off by the handling or manouvring,
imo the bigger the boat, the more easy it is !

At the time I was ao looking at a trawler style of boat, and finally ended with a Canados 70s,
still very pleased with that choice,
the best of both worlds imo,
 
BartW said:
there are one or two Canados 60 on the market
...
retrofit stabs is doable (I did it)
Click to expand...
B, in fairness towards the OP, I'm pretty sure that CMC would NOT recommend the installation of their stabs on a 60 footer, because as you surely remember your '70 was considered by them the minimum size for their electric stabs.
There are still alternatives of course (gyros, hydraulic fins), but your installation is by far the most sensible solution for retrofitting.
Shame that they are not interested to build anything smaller...
 
"I think our problem is partly that most boatbuilders have to fit a guest cabin into their boats to attract the average buyer. What would probably suit us would be a 40ft displacement boat with hull speed of 8.5knots; cockpit, saloon, galley and lower helm all on one level, a single large master cabin, one heads/shower, and a proper engine room with a single engine and space for the ancillary equipment. An ordinary bed settee http://www.willowandhall.co.uk/ would suffice for the very occasional guest."

You could easily turn the guest cabin into an office

http://www.boarnstream.com/classic-line/43-classic-line-ok
 
Back to square one

Erik C said:
They have been around forever and are a well respected brand. You can see a lot of their models on their YouTube channel. I saw you wanted to visit city centers so watch your height!https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCezr4RPLN_kZzkEp_bS2E7A
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. But I think we are back to square one.

I have just had a long conversation with a broker who has several Dutch steel boats we wanted to go and see and after listening carefully to my description of what we want to do (eg: round the Norfolk coast to Wells-next-the-Sea, spend a summer in the Western Isles, visit relatives in Southern Ireland, cruise to the Stockholm archipelago...) he has firmly advised us against this type of boat. He says he would not want to be caught out by bad weather out at sea in any of the Dutch boats he sells. He says they are strong well-built boats but they are not designed for that. They are OK for nipping across the channel when there is no risk of a blow but apart from that they should stick to the inland waterways.

Can't ignore advice like that.

So it's probably got to be a trawler, with stabs. And accept the height limitation.
 
That is absolute nonsense coming from that broker. Most Dutch boats are Ce B class and can be made A class at additional cost.

A: OCEAN,
Designed for extended voyages where conditions may exceed wind force 8 (Beaufort scale) and significant wave heights of 4 m and above but excluding abnormal conditions, and vessels largely self-sufficient.
B: OFFSHORE,
Designed for offshore voyages where conditions up to, and including, wind force 8 and significant wave heights up to, and including, 4 m may be experienced.
C: INSHORE,
Designed for voyages in coastal waters, large bays, estuaries, lakes and rivers where conditions up to, and including, wind force 6 and significant wave heights up to, and including, 2 m may be experienced.
D: SHELTERED WATERS,
Designed for voyages on sheltered coastal waters, small bays, small lakes, rivers and canals when conditions up to, and including, wind force 4 and significant wave heights up to, and including, 0,3 m may be experienced, with occasional waves of 0,5 m maximum height, for example from passing vessels.

It might not be comfortable but you won't be sinking anytime soon. Using common sense there are very few places you can't go, some members of this forum have delivered Dutch boats to the med and have posted videos of the trip showing they encountered some weather along the way. The height of a trawler will severely restrict your inland options and deny you some fabulous cruising grounds.
 
Erik C is perhaps being a little harsh, I am a fan of Dutch steel looked at a few myself before we bought the Broom, reality is that brands like Aquanaught and Jetten are gorgeous but they are full displacement and sounds like the broker was just being honest about what you really need. A boat at that speed will roll that is just a fact, others will advise re stabilisers etc etc but there is a reason why marinas on the south coast hardly contain any steel boats, it's horses for courses, if I was planning on lots of inland waterways with a few coastal hops then steel would be a serious consideration
 
great thread and far better info than the one I started about 12 years ago with exactly the same requirements and cruising plan as you OP.
Dutch steel was also my first thought but rightly or wringly I was deterred by the offshore rolling spectre and fear of perpetual 8 knot cruising and finally went for the aft cabin semi displacement option in the form of a Haines Atlantic 38 with potential 15-16 knot cruising. Can honestly say that the low speed was something I came to enjoy greatly and happily spent 8 to 10 hours on passage. We started on the upper Thames and ended up years later in Corfu without ever exceeding 8 knots other than to give the engines a blow. The broom style combination of low air/water draught and s/d stability opened up virtually every inland waterway combined with safe offshore cruising. The huge living space, length for length, kept us comfortable for month long cruises.
Your plan of not having a permanent base but finding somewhere to rest up temporarily at the end of a cruise also worked very well, although not without its occasional challenges. Go for it!
 
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