Cruiser/Racers

Have to agree with all others who have sad get out sailing...

VERY quickly you will become one of the antagonists on here saying what I have is best :eek:

OK Another idea for you:
Bavaria B1 for racing urges Or similar.

Then a "Fast" cruiser for cruising, you could pick up an old X boat or similar for 30-70k in reasonable condition...

I do not own either, although do like look and price of B/One...

Regardless of final choice get yourself sailing as much as possible its what its all about...

Then you to can be a boat bigamist :D:D..
 
bitbaltic said:
Ahem.

As the proud owner of a well loved and well found 301 I take a little issue with the boat being so easily dismissed with reference to a slightly later, dissimilar Hanse from the 31 series. I was quite surprised that the 301
Anyway, I think that if we could both you and I would trade up to that Swan 39 you were cruising in company with, despite it being a bit small for a near 40 footer and discontinued long ago!
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In its day the 301 was considered an excellent boat & still is. For its size it is suprisingly quick. However, one cannot deny that it is much smaller than a 311. When i went to buy the dealer lined up a 301 & a 311 & immediately the 311's size won the day.
As for wanting a swan 39- well no actually-I do not need a bigger boat for my single handed sailing & on the odd occasions i go 2 up the 311 is more than ok. Plus it is a pretty quick boat. Must admit that if the old hanse 34 series was still made i would have one of those & if i really was serious about racing the old 37 series is extremely fast

As for a trimaran- berthing would be a pain in marinas. I do not know of any multihull racing locally. I do not believe they are as seaworthy size for size. The motion is different but not so good in a sea as a mono- that comes from an owner of a large multi hull who sailed from Uk to the med-. There is a local lightweight tri of same length as my boat & upwind I always seem to beat it simply because it does not point so high. Off the wind I admit I do not see it for dust. A lightweight tri of same length as my boat has no more room. True big cats are enourmous but smaller lightweights are not,

Just my opinion & i have probably upset the multihull lads. Sorry but to each his own!!
 
I suggest you buy one of these:

http://www.j24class.org.uk/?s=links

The racing will be very competitive. Once you are in a postion to roughly see the first three boats finishing, then I would start considering your next purchase. You may never manage to do that well, either because you hate it or are not very good. Whatever the outcome, you will be in grand positon to update your thoughts. You will have not have mortified yourself greatly or wasted a boat load of cash.
 
dt4134 said:
Having agreed with BitBaltic above, I don't however agree that his recommendation of a Centaur is at all suitable for you given what you've posted here. It is a slow cruiser that is a good beginner boat for family sailing in reasonably sheltered water, but it'll teach you bugger all about racing and you'll almost certainly find it extremely frustrating.

Even if you decide initially to buy a cruiser and race on OPB's, you'll want a fast cruiser.
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Oh i wasn't recommending a centaur as such. All I was getting at is that, if you have a huge budget and can't sail, then financially it makes sense to first buy an inexpensive yacht and learn to sail it before getting the expensive boat say six months later. A centaur is a boat one could own carefully and sell at no loss six months later. Or you could buy an Achilles 24 or similar and happily bash it about before writing off the 3k it cost you six months later. Either way is much cheaper than taking out a 120k tri and damaging it directly through lack of experience. The bill for almost any repair will exceed what you would have spent on a basic boat to gain the necessary experience.
 
vjmehra said:
I'm looking at 30ish foot cruiser/racers to compare, so far I've started looking into the following:

Elan 310
Jeanneau Sunfast 3200
Beneteau First 30

Are there any other similar boats (I'm presuming its fair to say these 3 are like for like), I should look at?

Also, comparing polar diagrams, the First 30 one I've seen only shows TWS up to 20 knots, I'd be interested to see a diagram up to 30 knots, does anyone have a link (the other two polars go up to 30 and 35 respectively)?
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Are you looking to go fully crewed or shorthanded racing?
 
bitbaltic said:
Oh i wasn't recommending a centaur as such. All I was getting at is that, if you have a huge budget and can't sail, then financially it makes sense to first buy an inexpensive yacht and learn to sail it before getting the expensive boat say six months later. A centaur is a boat one could own carefully and sell at no loss six months later. Or you could buy an Achilles 24 or similar and happily bash it about before writing off the 3k it cost you six months later. Either way is much cheaper than taking out a 120k tri and damaging it directly through lack of experience. The bill for almost any repair will exceed what you would have spent on a basic boat to gain the necessary experience.
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I agree with that advice.

As I said I think a Centaur would frustrate the OP but I might think Impala or Sonata as a cheap Solent round the cans racer where he could learn to race against good opposition without breaking the bank. By the time he's beating them he'll know exactly what he wants in his next boat.

And even if they are a bit MAB for cruising, cruising boats are readily available for charter on the south coast.
 
Daydream believer said:
In its day the 301 was considered an excellent boat & still is. For its size it is suprisingly quick. However, one cannot deny that it is much smaller than a 311. When i went to buy the dealer lined up a 301 & a 311 & immediately the 311's size won the day.
As for wanting a swan 39- well no actually-I do not need a bigger boat for my single handed sailing & on the odd occasions i go 2 up the 311 is more than ok. Plus it is a pretty quick boat. Must admit that if the old hanse 34 series was still made i would have one of those & if i really was serious about racing the old 37 series is extremely fast

As for a trimaran- berthing would be a pain in marinas. I do not know of any multihull racing locally. I do not believe they are as seaworthy size for size. The motion is different but not so good in a sea as a mono- that comes from an owner of a large multi hull who sailed from Uk to the med-. There is a local lightweight tri of same length as my boat & upwind I always seem to beat it simply because it does not point so high. Off the wind I admit I do not see it for dust. A lightweight tri of same length as my boat has no more room. True big cats are enourmous but smaller lightweights are not,

Just my opinion & i have probably upset the multihull lads. Sorry but to each his own!!
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Now that's more like it ;)

The 301 is a small boat with low freeboard and narrow beam. In my marina she sits at the end of a pontoon of similar length boats, most of which make her look tiny for a thirty footer. It's always easy to point her out to others on the pontoon, though; she's 'the one with the very tall mast, there on the end'. :p

I wasn't getting into a spat about the 301 vs other Hanses or recommending one to the OP (the fewer people that know about the 301 as a quick boat the better as far as I am concerned, and she's no Anderson 22 after all ;) ) just saying that the fact they are smallish hulls and no longer in production is not very relevant to the racer, as opposed to cruiser, part of the 'cruiser/racer' mix.

Cheers

(ps when I bought her I did make sure to tell swmbo- who was not involved in buying the boat as it is very much mine and I pay it's bills- not to expect it to be big as '30 ft sounds a lot, yes, but wait till you see the inside'. We'd done all our sail training on a 37ft Bavaria)
 
dt4134 said:
I agree with that advice.

As I said I think a Centaur would frustrate the OP but I might think Impala or Sonata as a cheap Solent round the cans racer where he could learn to race against good opposition without breaking the bank. By the time he's beating them he'll know exactly what he wants in his next boat.

And even if they are a bit MAB for cruising, cruising boats are readily available for charter on the south coast.
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Agreed. There would be resale in one of the racy hunters so he wouldn't lose much, if he only kept it for a matter of months as he learned the mechanics of yacht sailing it doesn't matter if it doesn't suit his other needs, and his budget is so big that he won't need to wait for it to sell before he goes for the bigger boat as the capital tied up in it won't be enough to impact his plans. Sounds like a win win situation to me.
 
vjmehra said:
Shorthanded/doublehanded ideally!
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If you are racing shorthanded then you need to find the balance as to whether the individual boats are set up for short-handed racing, there is a big difference between five crew to weather and two crew to weather. So check that the boat is rigged for shorthanded and not fully crewed racing. You may also want to check IRC ratings (I think this quite important and i suspect you may find that the Beneteau brands might fair better)

These are all good boats however you could also consider:

http://www.jboats.com/j97/
http://www.jboats.com/j105/
http://www.akilaria.com/950_specs.htm
http://www.pogostructures.com/en/structures/the-early-designs/pogo-850/

I think you might find that the Js have less depreciation than the others.
 
Goacher actually went on my boat & still made a pigs ear of it. Then denied anything was wrong. I have had to keep the genoa which cannot be sheeted in correctly but he took the cruising chute back after several months. It was so wrong as to be totally unusable
 
Legend 29??

Before everyone laughs at the Legend suggestion.... I am suggesting a Van de Stadt Legend (British). We downsized and bought a Tyler-moulded one a year ago - best boat we have had! It is 40 years old but sound - is just great to sail and goes upwind like the clappers. We have had our best-ever results in very competitive Solent club racing and there is adequate accommodation for cruising too, though not as roomy as more modern designs of course. Expect to pay £10-15K and do some work / modernisation. Finding one may be tricky as not many were made.
In my opinion, for someone starting out and wanting to do some racing and cruising as well this is a great size of boat, as can easily be handled by one or two but can take crew of four.
http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gifhttp://www.ybw.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
 
Re the legend
The link does not work on my Ipad so I may be wrong so forgive my memory- it is an age thing!!
If I am not mistaken Tyler had the mould made but did not start production straight away. A rep from Beetle resins- John Dungey- borrowed the mould & built the first one. Name was Ocean Beetle. I crewed it in races for 3 years but with little success until Tyler came for a sail & agreed to supply new sails etc & sponsor the boat in the round Britain race. Circa 1981 . John Dungey had one crew , also called John, but I forget the surname. They actually won on handicap but hardly any mags bothered to report the success. I think line honours went to one of the well known boats like the tri Toria or cat British steel but do not quote me
The boat sailed at Burnham for the first few years of its life but I do not know what happened to it or whether Tylers actually built many, if any
 
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dt4134 said:
I'd say keep thinking about buying your boat for now and get yourself onto some racers in the meantime. The Hamble Winter Series and Warsash Spring Series both provide decent racing. Having done those you'll at least have a much better idea of what you're getting into. No doubt, you'll also get extra input from the crew and owners of the boats you race on. You'll also be able to observe how other boats perform and something that whizzes past you might take your fancy (although do bear in mind that the crew can make as much as about 25% difference).
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This is spot on, IMHO.

The fact that there are so few multihulls around, especially racing, is sufficient evidence to prove that they are not a good option.

You can't race the family cruising boat seriously, especially in IRC. Its a bit like taking the family Mondeo estate onto a race track. You need to decide to buy a boat for racing and kit it out accordingly, or buy a cruising boat and settle for club handicap racing (Not all clubs use the PY system)

To the OP, you will learn so much so quickly by getting on other boats as a crew. There is racing in the Western Solent , mainly from Lymington, in addition to Hamble and Warsash as mentioned.
 
vjmehra said:
Yep, I think the best thing to do would be to get something not so shiny and new to begin with :-)

That aside, out of curiosity has anyone any experience of these:

http://www.columbiayachts.com/yachts/c_Sprint.php

They look very interesting!
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What, about that, fits with getting something not so shiny and new to begin with?

Sail an industry leading performance yacht, plane downwind at speeds over 20 knots
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I come back to you saying you haven't much/any sailing experience. Do you really think you can skipper and shorthandledly crew a boat planing at 20kn on a downwind run? I'm no racer but I can sail and that would give me the willies.
 
No not yet, I was just curious about the boat, as I'd never heard of it before.

I think from the advice everyone has given I am now 90% sure I will buy something older and easier to handle initially, rather than jumping in at the deep end!

But I am still curious to know whats out there for the future :-)
 
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