Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Having no choice but to steer always and only from a baking, sunlit cabin, reeking of the galley (or of other things) isn't something I'd be willing to pay for; but nor is adopting motorbikers' bravado about 'the right sort of clothing' because the only helm is outside.
So I'd definitely want the option to benefit from an outside helm...it seems the least we can expect. I was interested by the very old Princess 33 when it became available with a tiny flybridge, a change from which it never went back.
Sailing yachtsmen's acceptance of their self-imposed exposure is lazily excused by their need to haul-out anyway in the low season, a period which is extended for as long as the weather is at its least agreeable, rather than the time any maintenance might require. I always felt that boats are costly enough to need to maximise their value - including by being useable all year, in comfort.
One thing I don't understand though, is the flybridge motorboat owners who presumably enjoy their protected inside helm and also the flybridge for fair-weather days...but then, they enclose the flybridge, too...
...when the sun comes out, do they then perch on top of that, with an autohelm-remote controller in their hands? I suppose the idea is to turn the flybridge into a sort of convertible conservatory.
The non-flybridge, sliding-hardtop designs seem very intelligently considered, if most of the roof is genuinely retractable. Vastly better to let the noonday sun and ventilation into your walled, glazed living-room, than to endure a windy picnic outside.
So I'd definitely want the option to benefit from an outside helm...it seems the least we can expect. I was interested by the very old Princess 33 when it became available with a tiny flybridge, a change from which it never went back.
Sailing yachtsmen's acceptance of their self-imposed exposure is lazily excused by their need to haul-out anyway in the low season, a period which is extended for as long as the weather is at its least agreeable, rather than the time any maintenance might require. I always felt that boats are costly enough to need to maximise their value - including by being useable all year, in comfort.
One thing I don't understand though, is the flybridge motorboat owners who presumably enjoy their protected inside helm and also the flybridge for fair-weather days...but then, they enclose the flybridge, too...
...when the sun comes out, do they then perch on top of that, with an autohelm-remote controller in their hands? I suppose the idea is to turn the flybridge into a sort of convertible conservatory.
The non-flybridge, sliding-hardtop designs seem very intelligently considered, if most of the roof is genuinely retractable. Vastly better to let the noonday sun and ventilation into your walled, glazed living-room, than to endure a windy picnic outside.
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?, whether in its home marina, a port of call or at anchor! You could call it a floating island (and you can call a caravan a mobile hotel). But my boat does less than twenty knots, there’s no thrill. Mind you I never even reach the speed limit in my car anymore.
