Crusing the med and uk what boat ??

[James448]

Hi I am in the market for a boat of 35-45 feet to go and cruise the Mediterranean. I am thinking that it should be GRP due to low maintenance with the hull. I would prefer a Bermudan rig as opposed to ketch. I have looked at Nauticat 38 which appeal because of large volume and I think that a pilot house is a must for us. The down point of the Nauticat from what I can understand is high centre of gravity, so lots of rolling around possibly poor sailing ability. A positive for me would be reasonably heavy boat so hopefully comfortable at anchor. Can anyone recommend boats of a similar design that would be worth looking at. Formosa 41 has been mentioned possibly something along those lines.A budget of <100£k
Thanks

 

[jordanbasset]

Both are good boats but if you are wanting one which will be for mainly cruising the med I suggest you consider that a lot of the time you will be relaxing in the cockpit and so look at boats which have larger cockpit spaces. Enclosed wheel houses are great in northern climes, not so much on the hot Mediterranean sun

 

[vyv_cox]

Both are good boats but if you are wanting one which will be for mainly cruising the med I suggest you consider that a lot of the time you will be relaxing in the cockpit and so look at boats which have larger cockpit spaces. Enclosed wheel houses are great in northern climes, not so much on the hot Mediterranean sun

Agree entirely. All the enclosed wheelhouse boats I see in Greece have the windows covered in white cloth throughout, which makes a bit of a nonsense of the concept.

 

[Tranona]

The requirements for sailing in northern waters are very different from the Med. Boats like the Nauticat are really not ideal for warm climates where you live outdoors most of the time - and also spend most of the time at anchor or in harbour.

Don't know if you have any experience of the Med and if not worth doing a couple of charter holidays to get some experience of what it is like and why most people choose boats with large open cockpits and access over the transom. If you are sailing from the UK there is an ample supply of such boats here, although most will need some work and modifications to kit them out for life in the Med.

If you just want to cruise the Med there is a lot to commend buying a boat out there already fully equipped. However if getting there is part of your plan then the choice may depend on how you plan to get there as if you use the canals you have the constraint of draft to consider. Other factors may also come into play such as the number of people on board or whether this is a permanent home or only for use in the summer months.

Well worth dipping into the blogs at the head of this forum page as it will give you an idea of how others went about it. There is also masses of information out there in books, magazine articles, youtubes etc to help (or confuse!) you.

 

[capnsensible]

What about Med winters?

 

[sailaboutvic]

What about Med winters?

One word , WET ok two words and can be COLD at time depending where you are

 

[Tranona]

What about Med winters?

That is why I asked whether it was to be a permanent liveaboard or just summer months as this may have an impact on choice of boat.

 

[jordanbasset]

Even if it was full time I still would not go with an enclosed cockpit, but invest in a a good cockpit tent

 

[RupertW]

Completely agree with the advice to blow a little bit of your budget on spending a week in the Med in the Summer before you decide. Having made the transition from UK to Med a few years ago my obsessions and needs are very different to those gained over years of sailing in UK and French waters, often in what I considered to be hot sunny weather.

I learnt that my UK "often sunny" actually in Med terms is "a glimpse of sun" and that pleasure on a boat is all about breeze blowing through it and outdoor but shaded space around the boat all the time. Our lovely table for 8 downstairs is most useful when I lay out all the tools and stuff for a project. But there are many other things to do with being self sufficient and cool that a pilot house boat equipped for the UK will be poor at.

I think a decision on Northern sailing or warm sailing is needed and you get the best boat for that and cope with the weaknesses when you occasionally use your chosen boat for the wrong conditions. For this choice you really don't want to be living with a compromise.

 

[sailaboutvic]

As everyone else have said , foreget about a wheel house and make sure what ever you buy have plenty of opening windows , a spray hood that the center part opens up is a good option as you won't have to keep it down , keeping it down will demolish the windows in time ,
a good Bimini that goes all the way over the spray hood to the back spreaders and right to the side of the boat with sun shade you can drop most of us who on board for long periods very rarely sit in the sun if we do at all .
If you plain to live full time on board a good winter encloser , winter time you make plenty of use for it, we made ours in a way that we can sail why sitting in side and still able to use our sheet , as we sail untill late winter come another few weeks and the summer Bimini will be replace with the winter encloser .
Storage space is another thing to look for in a boat , believe me when I say , you can't have enough storages .
What you look for in a boat your going to use in Northern Europe is very different to a boat to be used in the Med .
This is one thread where everyone is on the same page , if your going to buy a boat for the med , heal what being said so far here .

 

[macd]

I think that a pilot house is a must for us.

No experience of pilot houses in the Med, but I do know this:
We have a cockpit tent which can reach 30ºC on a sunny day in January. God knows what it would reach in July.
We also have a greenhouse in central Italy. Believe me, you would not want to spend much time in it in summer. Even tomatoes die of heatstroke.

 

[blampied]

Don’t rule out a motor boat.
We have recently returned from 5 year live aboard trip in a 33 foot Aquastar.
Got to, France, (down the Seine to Paris and down the canals to the Med, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Italy, Monaco then back via Canal du Midi and back up via the French Atlantic coast)
A motor boat will have a bigger usable internal volume than the same sized sail boat,
(so a 33 motor would be similar in size to 36 foot sail)
With a low motor boat like the Aquastar you have the option of using the canals as well as the open water. (The French canals can offer rediciously cheep motoring, mooring and living)

 

[Sticky Fingers]

...A motor boat will have a bigger usable internal volume than the same sized sail boat, (so a 33 motor would be similar in size to 36 foot sail)

Sorry, aside from cockpit space I have to disagree with this, my experience looking at moving sail to power is that the space used by engines, transmissions and tankage in motor boats makes very significant inroads on the space. Obviously will depend to some extent on the type of mobo and its power plant, low power displacement boats compared to sports cruisers. Inboards / shafts compared to outboards.

 

[Chris_Robb]

From my own experience, I used to have a 40 foot Victory 40 (also known as Trintella lV) It had a fully enclosed cockpit. That was wonderful in northern latitudes, but was just too hot for the Med.

I sold it and bought a Westerly Oceanlord - spent money on Sunshades, ripping the fridge out and starting again (happiness is a cold beer in the med - not a noisy engine charging to keep it cold) Solar Panels - 80 meters of chain and a sensible anchor and anchor winch. Uprating the alternator, batteries, charging systems and monitoring systems, Holding tank etc etc......

I find the centre cockpit work on that size, giving a good, well aired aft cabin.

Your budget must include all the improvements that you must have for extended cruising in the med. say £70K for the boat and 30 for improvements - yes it could well cost that.

And it went down the canals of France easily.

 

[James448]

All very good and much appreciated advice. The boat would be a permanent liveaboard.
I don’t have much experience out in the med so I will look into some cruising and gain experience out there. I can see how a pilot house is so much more suited to northern latitudes and much cooler climates so a point well made. The key seems to be lots of windows for good ventilation and a good draft. A suitable cockpit is clearly a very good point. I’m also unsure about the type of boat that would be comfortable at anchor which seems to be very important as marinas are so busy in summer. Modern Beneteau, Jenneau and similar type yachts seem to be so light and tender that I imagine they must be uncomfortable in a anchorage in any weather. Possibly just ideas of GRP boats suited to the Med with a heavier lay up so possibly a more comfortable boat.

 

[Yngmar]

I’m also unsure about the type of boat that would be comfortable at anchor which seems to be very important as marinas are so busy in summer. Modern Beneteau, Jenneau and similar type yachts seem to be so light and tender that I imagine they must be uncomfortable in a anchorage in any weather. Possibly just ideas of GRP boats suited to the Med with a heavier lay up so possibly a more comfortable boat.

The boat weight does not matter for comfort at anchor. It may have some impact on comfort while at sea though, depending on sea state and weather. For comfort at anchor, the best choice is without any doubt a catamaran, because they don't roll (and don't pitch much, at least at the size of most cruising cats, which seems to be around 40ft). All monohulls roll when taking waves on the beam, and most med anchorages are too crowded to do anything about it, such as deploying two anchors, plus it confuses the weekenders and charterers. If you get a resonant rolling, where the frequency of the waves matches the roll frequency of your boat, you will roll like crazy. This has nothing to do with boat weight, it's just luck of the draw. Many anchorages we've been had one boat rolling way more than all the others, and it was completely random if it was a massive ketch from the 70s or a lightweight charter boat. You can invest in or make a flopper stopper (we rigged out a bucket on the boom end a few times), but the only real solution is a catamaran, with all its other ups and downs. Although eventually, you get really good at reading swell forecasts, interpreting nautical charts and weather predictions and choosing anchorages for comfort based on your experience.

But riding out the odd uncomfortable night with little or no sleep is all part of the cruising game. Might be a sudden squall in the night, dragging neighbours, noise from other boats or ashore, thunderstorms or violent rolling, fishing boat wash, etc. Best be prepared for that too.

 

[duncan99210]

Endorsing what others have said about boat layouts, I’d avoid a wheelhouse boat in the Med. Friends had a Nauticat 33 which was reasonable as a live aboard except for being simply too hot in the summer with only limited cockpit space. We find we spend most of the time in the summer in the cockpit not in the saloon, we entertain there and cook there on the BBQ much of the time.

As Yngmar as said, monohulls will roll in a cross swell, no matter what their build or ballast ratio is. That said, most of the anchorages we favour in Greek waters aren’t overly subject to prolong swells unless there’s a lot of wind about (then all bets are off). Much of the rolling we encounter tends to be the result of passing ships wakes working round the anchorage; often entertaining for a couple of minutes but then calm returns.

When strong winds are forecast then most long term cruisers have their favourite bolt holes to head to and sit things out. For the most part, the winds are such that you’ll sit head to wind and the swell will meet your bow.

 

[Tranona]

I’m also unsure about the type of boat that would be comfortable at anchor which seems to be very important as marinas are so busy in summer. Modern Beneteau, Jenneau and similar type yachts seem to be so light and tender that I imagine they must be uncomfortable in a anchorage in any weather. Possibly just ideas of GRP boats suited to the Med with a heavier lay up so possibly a more comfortable boat.

As already suggested weight is not an issue for comfort at anchor - indeed a deep heavy boat is often narrow beam and slack bilges which can lead to more rolling. If the boats you quote were not suitable then the majority have got it wrong as this type is by far the most popular in the Med. Perhaps it is because the boats were designed for that type of living and not for bashing around in cold northern waters.

Although the Med can be stormy at times (like last week) but most of the time it is benign and the biggest problem is lack of wind, so you also find modern style lighter boats are good at motoring in light winds and also usually have big rigs to take advantage of what little wind there is.

Worth considering the key features for successful liveaboard in warmer climates. Large cockpit, access from the stern, good ventilation, plenty of shade, big fridge, large battery capacity with solar power for charging, large fuel and water capacity, holding tank, plenty of storage, good anchoring gear including windlass, large, easily handled rig, good motoring performance.

You can achieve most of this with most modern boats and some older boats with a bit of work and imagination. However if you are thinking about going further and sailing in more demanding conditions you may also want to shift the focus a bit towards heavy weather performance. This does not mean that modern boats are not capable as the many that do cross oceans will testify, some are not at their best for this.

Perhaps should also say that unless you see taking a boat from the UK to the Med as an essential part of the project it is worth considering buying a boat already there. Often more economical as usually such a boat will already be equipped for the conditions. Having said that it fits many people's plans to buy and fit out a boat here and there is plenty of choice of suitable boats to work with. Worth looking at the blogs on this forum to get an idea of how others went about it and what worked and did not for them.

 

[James448]

Thank you for all the advice. It is a very good point that so many of the boats in the med are of this design so they must be doing something right. The idea of a cat is brilliant but the berthing fees is the problem for me.
I think that finding a boat already out in the area we plan to sail that is well kitted out and just needs some work and fixing up is going to be a good idea. I think the answer is to get out there gain some experience and see what is available on the market.

 

[jordanbasset]

The good news is that in your price range there are lots of suitable boats that are only a few years old for sale in the med