first time buyers

[Guest]

We are thinking about buying our first yacht. New yachts being considering Legend 326, Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 32 and Bavaria 32. Sailing will be with a young family in and around the Solent at weekends and school holidays with pontoon moorings at a local marina. Second hand boats considered Hunter Channel 31 and late Moody 31's. Any advice or comments would be very welcome.

Thanks

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[Sybarite]

Once you have decided on your budget check out some European prices. I feel that you can get a lot more for your money in say France than in the UK.

John

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[graham]

They will all do the job .A good second hand Moody or Hunter will be of better build quality and likely to come with a lot of the extra bits and pieces you will need.

Dont under estimate the considerable cost of bringing a new boat into commision .

Electronics,Warps fenders ,All the domestic junk, dinghy outboard etc etc can add up to a significant extra cost .

Some Hunters are home completed from kits so quality could vary.I believe they have an inspection process so the Home completed boats still meet with RCD approval.

Best of luck with the new boat whatever you choose.

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[Birdseye]

As another poster put it (rather inelegantly) "if it flies, floats or f***s, rent it dont buy it" and there is a very good argument behind what he says. ownership brings aggro as well as fun.

hunter kits are structurally complete, so its only the cosmetics and possibly things like engine installation that need concern you. i bought my first boat fro a guy who had home completed, and clearly enjoyed boat building more than sailing. it was beautifully finished and barely used.

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[Hurleyburly]

Why the obsession with new(ish) boats, I viewed a cracking Moody 346 at the weekend. She was 15 years old with oodles of space, a calorifier, fridge / freezer and a huge after cabin to stow the kids in. Owned by a surgeon and didn't look like she'd been used more than 3 weekends a year. Also fitted out in solid teak.

I priced up a Bav 32, commissioned without liferaft, electronics, dinghy, flares etc she was £58,000.

The Moody £51,500 with room for negotiation.

My mind - bin the Bav.

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[ThomasHome]

We bought a Bav 32 last year at the boat show, there are many who find fault with mass produced boats but our boat has great acomodation down below and sails very well, we can't fault it. There are a fair few at our marina and have yet to meet any owners who are unhappy with their boat.
We looked at buying abroad but ended up going to Opal, if you are going to get a Bavaria its worth buying it from someone localy, as with any new boat you'll get a fair few niggles in the first year and it pays to have someone who'll fix it in a day or two.

Good luck

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[ROSSCO]

How old are your children ?- we bought our first boat a new Bavaria 31, 3 years ago when our children were 6 and 7 years old. We had 2 very happy seasons sailing on her , mainly in the Solent but also North France,Brittany and the Channel Islands in the summer hols. We then moved upto a Bavaria 36 this year as needed separate cabins for the kids. Given the choice I would go the same route again. The peace of mind having a new boat and knowing if anything goes wrong Opal will fix it, is certainly a comfort and the price will knock spots off the competition. There will be plenty of people on this forum telling you Bavaria's etc aren't built as strongly etc as Moody's,Westerlies . I took a bash on the side of my boat 2 weekends ago from a tough little motor boat, I had a friend on board at the time who has an older boat and he went pale saying that his boat would have had a gaping hole in the side of it after a hit like that. We looked over the side and there was not a mark (have checked it since and there is some microscopic scratches to the gelcoat, which will come out with a little t-cut). The motor boat didn't come off quite so well.
Bavarias are not as well finished as moody's etc but I didn't buy a boat to be 'lovingly cared for and maintained' I bought a boat to go cruising in comfort safety,which is exactly what I got at a reasonable price.


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[poggy]

The good thing about high volume production using a fixed process is that the quality can be built in time after time without relying as much on the individuals building it.

I can't see anything wrong with production boats.

Look at TVR cars, expensive and hand built but the quality doesn't compare to a production car. Before I get abuse for TVR bashing we had one and I do like them, but you need to be prepared to do the odd repair.

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[Chris_Robb]

and the Moody will still be around when the Bav has well an truly cracked up

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[jonjo]

Re: 4 months later

> We looked over the side and there was not a mark

Best wait 4 months before declaring your boat 100%. I pranged my racing boat once and it took 4 months before a wide-area pattern of gel coat crazing showed up.

Did you get his insurance details?

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