Fr J Hackett
Well-known member
Come now, they are perfectly serviceable by anyone with a modicum of basic engineering skills, getting the parts may require some patience and or ingenuity or better than basic skills.
Favourite boats I haven't tried
- Thread starter dancrane
- Start date
Come now, they are perfectly serviceable by anyone with a modicum of basic engineering skills, getting the parts may require some patience and or ingenuity or better than basic skills.
flaming
Well-known member
It's B obviously, not the best looking boat by any stretch but at least it looks like it was at least designed in its entirety by the same person.I do believe you, but I don't see that such high performance objectives account for inclusion of these styling cues in the bulk of most yards' output - displacement cruisers.
Cruising yachtsmen are happy for racers to argue over handicaps, influence, pay for and flit about in whatever designs they think will win - it doesn't make those styles relevant or significantly beneficial, or pleasing, at cruising level. So where that style appears in cruising boats, it's much more fashion than function.
I don't believe the unfortunate bloating of cruiser hulls is in consequence of the pursuit of performance, it's just to introduce caravan accommodation inside. And it doesn't take a salty, last-century perspective to favour the designs from those days. Ask any non-sailor you know, which 35ft yacht they think is more attractive, A or B? I've labelled them, so you don't confuse the second pic with an iced cake.
A
B
A looks like the job of drawing the underwater lines, and the job of drawing the above water lines were given to different people who thought they were designing completely different sized boats.
doug748
Well-known member
Here is Pete Goss explaining why he chose a Garcia:
fredrussell
Well-known member
Agree with Flaming, B by a country mile! What is A, just out of curiosity?
Kukri
Well-known member
A is a Tradewind 35, designed in its entirety by John Rock and a well liked long haul cruiser from the 80s.
A friend had one for some years, including an Atlantic circuit; won’t hear a word against them.
I would say that the original YM review which described the feel of the helm as “like a LandRover’s clutch” is accurate, but she certainly isn’t going to break anything or drown you
no idea what B is but some sort of AWB
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Kukri
Well-known member
Come now, they are perfectly serviceable by anyone with a modicum of basic engineering skills, getting the parts may require some patience and or ingenuity or better than basic skills.
Apply to the Joint Services Adventurous Sail Training Centre, Gosport. Don’t tell John Morris or Captain Sensible.
It had been completely botched, bolt heads rounded, bolts missing, metric shaft forced into an Imperial housing in the upper gearbox, etc.
Fr J Hackett
Well-known member
Apply to the Joint Services Adventurous Sail Training Centre, Gosport. Don’t tell John Morris or Captain Sensible.
It had been completely botched, bolt heads rounded, bolts missing, metric shaft forced into an Imperial housing in the upper gearbox, etc.
Well you will go buying army surplus stuff.
what did you expect.
Bobc
Well-known member
Having recently had the pleasure of sailing on a Dazcat 1495, and experienced sailing at 20kts from Plymouth to Fowey, I would really love to have a ride on one of the big offshore trimarans. For those who don't know what the Dazcat is, see below (made in Plymouth).
dancrane
Well-known member
You never know, you may be right!
You undermine the huge value of current knowledge if, while advocating its strengths, you jettison (or fail to recognise) the waning aesthetic likeability of the products. It's unfortunate if you compromise your undoubted knowledge of sailing by approving on principle of such visual horrors as are now commonplace. I know very well that there are fine-looking modern yachts - I mentioned the Moody aft cockpit earlier. It has a broad stern, nearly plumb bow and twin wheels; not a production yacht from the last century, but not awful to look at.
Size has plenty to do with it. Maximising living space (especially headroom) in a small yacht is hard, and the temptation to sell a certain size of boat to as many customers (usually charterers) as possible by making it as internally capacious as is possible rather than visually appealing, has bloated forms which might have been pretty.
No charter company gives a damn how closely its yachts resemble caravans, if that choice reduces their costs and increases the number of paying customers that can technically be accommodated. The question of whether the result is a source of pride and pleasure to view or own, doesn't survive the economic test.
I like overhangs. They may be a throwback to old handicapping rules, they may reflect narrow beam, tiny accommodation plans and terrible cost-inefficiency, but they are graceful and widely recognised as beautiful, without any explanation or justification. If you freely piss that overboard, you lose what cannot be made up for in pursuit of affordability or roominess.
Talk about thread drift!
Thanks BobC, we're back on course with the Dazcat, I hope...modern, but not bland or bloated.
For weekending fun on a budget, I always wondered about the humbler Woods Strider 24.
flaming
Well-known member
And you fail to recognise that your opinion on that aesthetic likeability is not universally held...
For weekending fun on a budget, I always wondered about the humbler Woods Strider 24.
I have sailed one of those. Went quite nicely, except on a beat. So of course I was faced with an up channel delivery against the wind.
dancrane
Well-known member
I think Richard Woods posts on here from time to time, so I may PM him. I'm wondering how much fun the Club version forfeits with its reduced sail area...and how alarming the race-bred centreboard version is by contrast.
The Club version was reviewed in YM or PBO 25 years ago (possibly rather more) and it plodded round Plymouth Sound, not topping ten knots.
The Club version was reviewed in YM or PBO 25 years ago (possibly rather more) and it plodded round Plymouth Sound, not topping ten knots.
Stemar
Well-known member
In the argument over new and square and old and rounded, ISTM that we easily forget that the equivalent of DanCrane's Boat B at the time of his Boat A is probably a Centaur, a comfortable, safe boat for coastal sailing and the occasional trip across the Channel. Boat A was designed for blue water sailing, probably with a small crew, where restricted space below was seen as an advantage - lots of hand holds and less distance to fall when you're running before a storm. B is designed to go from marina to marina and have lots of room for entertaining. I doubt she'd be the first choice for many people setting off round the world. She's a lot bigger than a Centaur, because all boats seem to be bigger now, but both were considered decent family cruisers of their time.
Comparing A & B is like comparing a Land Cruiser with a Lamborghini. They both have an engine and four wheels, but little else in common because they're designed for different purposes.
Comparing A & B is like comparing a Land Cruiser with a Lamborghini. They both have an engine and four wheels, but little else in common because they're designed for different purposes.
doug748
Well-known member
I have been searching for two days to recall the name of these Dutch boats, lovely things:
North Cape, a range up to 40 ft some of the bigger ones in steel. Roomy, shallow draft; relive the Riddle of the Sands:
North Cape 31 Azur – NAZ-schepen
.
North Cape, a range up to 40 ft some of the bigger ones in steel. Roomy, shallow draft; relive the Riddle of the Sands:
North Cape 31 Azur – NAZ-schepen
.
Baggywrinkle
Well-known member
With so many pretty MABs too old and tired to economically re-fit (osmosis, rotten bulkheads, leaking seals, rotting balsa cores etc. etc.) ocean voyagers have little choice but to look at more modern boats. Look on YouTube for a guy rebuilding a Warrior 38 called Athena, "Sail Life" is the channel ... it is frightening what he found when he started taking the boat apart. Transom not properly bonded to the deck, rotten balsa core over the entire fordeck, chainstays bolted to rotten plywood bulkheads with some of the nuts corroded through .... leaky windows, hatches etc. The boat looked OK when he picked it up in Scotland and sailed it back to Denmark.
In the bad old days you needed lots of handholds because the cabin floor was about as wide as your wellies and your head hit the cabin side as soon as she started to heel ... with modern boats, they sail more upright and you have standing headroom throughout, so you've got space to stay upright - but there are still plenty of things to hang on to - they`re just not on the cabin roof any more bacause with the advent of standing headroom, small people can't reach the cabin roof. My handholds are by the steps into the saloon, by the chart table and then along the cabin side above the linear galley.
Anyway ... back to the OP, I'd quite like one of these personally, an Oceanis 423 from early 2000s ...
In the bad old days you needed lots of handholds because the cabin floor was about as wide as your wellies and your head hit the cabin side as soon as she started to heel ... with modern boats, they sail more upright and you have standing headroom throughout, so you've got space to stay upright - but there are still plenty of things to hang on to - they`re just not on the cabin roof any more bacause with the advent of standing headroom, small people can't reach the cabin roof. My handholds are by the steps into the saloon, by the chart table and then along the cabin side above the linear galley.
Anyway ... back to the OP, I'd quite like one of these personally, an Oceanis 423 from early 2000s ...
Yellow Ballad
Well-known member
To get back on track
A friend has a really good R31 and it's lovely to sail. You go below and it feels like home, not a weekend boat, I think it's because it's so well kitted (decent spars with fully battened, slab reefed main, fridge, heating, hot water etc). If I'm honest I come back home and it makes my boat feel like a day sailing dinghy but it also cost 3-4 times what I paid for my Ballad. I'm sure if I sailed older, tired examples I would feel better.
There's pictures of it here if you want to ogle
Rustler 31 for sale - Yachtsnet Ltd. online UK yacht brokers - yacht brokerage and boat sales
A friend has a really good R31 and it's lovely to sail. You go below and it feels like home, not a weekend boat, I think it's because it's so well kitted (decent spars with fully battened, slab reefed main, fridge, heating, hot water etc). If I'm honest I come back home and it makes my boat feel like a day sailing dinghy but it also cost 3-4 times what I paid for my Ballad. I'm sure if I sailed older, tired examples I would feel better.
There's pictures of it here if you want to ogle
Rustler 31 for sale - Yachtsnet Ltd. online UK yacht brokers - yacht brokerage and boat sales
dancrane
Well-known member
johnalison
Well-known member
I have viewed this thread as asking what style of boat have I no idea what it sails like but would like to know? Although I've not sailed either, I've a good idea what sailing a 45' Bav or Cornish Crabber would be like, though I have not sailed on either. On the other hand, I can't really work out for myself what sailing a larger Spirit Yacht or foiling Moth would be like, so that would be an interesting experience. I can tell you what sailing on my friend's 46' centre-cockpit Island Packet is like, though. One clue is the fact that the owner's wife spends most of the time at sea watching satellite TV.
Kukri
Well-known member
I’d like a spin on someone else’s big Fife... just for fun.
I had a few days on an 87ft schooner in the Med once. ‘It was sailing, Jim, but not as we know it...’
I had a few days on an 87ft schooner in the Med once. ‘It was sailing, Jim, but not as we know it...’
gregcope
Well-known member
Yes. I su subscribe and have been reading them.
