Going to try the dark side

ProDave said:
Buy a boat that already has a valid BSS certificate. A contuinuous cruising licence is a bit cheaper than other licences. Max length 55ft if you want to explore all the waterways.
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Nope. I'll be buying a bespoke build when the time comes. And I don't expect it to be continuous, since I'm hoping to continue to sail for many more years.

Actually, 57ft is "go anywhere" and 62ft is fine for all of the main linked network apart from the Calder & Hebble and the Huddersfield Broad Canal and some of the more remote extremities (e.g. north of York or the Derwent/Pocklington Canal).

See here: https://www.abnb.co.uk/submenupages/57ft%20myth.html
 
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Angele said:
Nope. I'll be buying a bespoke build when the time comes. And I don't expect it to be continuous, since I'm hoping to continue to sail for many more years.

Actually, 57ft is "go anywhere" and 62ft is fine for all of the main linked network apart from the Calder & Hebble and the Huddersfield Broad Canal and some of the more remote extremities (e.g. north of York or the Derwent/Pocklington Canal).

See here: https://www.abnb.co.uk/submenupages/57ft%20myth.html
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The "go anywhere" length is open to debate. Leeds & Liverpool is another one with short but broad lochs, and you hear some stories of people pushing it to the limit and the boat will only fit diagonally and then only one way round in the loch. There are also a few Fenland lochs that are short I believe.

I will be looking for no more than 55ft to be confident it will fit anywhere.
 
davidej said:
This encapsulates it

Sailing is about the journey

Moboing is about the arrival.
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NO NO NO. Sailing to me is about the journey, the arrival, the destination, the accommodation onboard and the social side. Problem we have is we both work fulltime and probably will for the next 15 years at least, this means our time is limited to weekends and annual leave shared between sailing and other types of holiday. I've lost count of the amount of cruises either long or short that have been scuppered by the weather with us holed up in a marina somewhere, usually cold.
When I'm older and have more time I may very well return to sailing but at the moment with time limitations I've found i want to go somewhere, and get back again, it invariably means motor sailing, unless we don't go very far of course but we like exploring new places.
 
It has occurred to me to buy a modest motorboat. I've nearly bought various small yachts, but my tenuous financial position always made a pure sailing boat look like a costly summer toy...whereas a boat whose weather-protection allows comfortable all-season use, starts to look like good value. But I'm sure I'd miss sailing - especially downwind - so a motor-sailer is the obvious solution for me.

If sailing were only ever downwind, which of us could foresee getting too old or weary to enjoy it?

To my mind, that's what a decent motor-sailer accomplishes. There's pleasure available, sedately helming indoors, head to wind, free from pelting rain or freezing gale, while doubling the VMG of boats under sail...and you can still sail downwind, all the way back...

...the pity is that sailors don't embrace the compromise, so designers give us sleek deckhouse cruisers which sail upwind, but can't easily be steered from below. The 50:50 philosophy is to enjoy both sail and power. I reckon a displacement motor-yacht must be a wonderfully relaxing vessel, rarely troubled by the weather. The true motor-sailor is that, but with the option to sail too.

Where's Rotrax? :confused:
 
Dancrane,

Do have a look at Nauticat pilot house yachts. We sail an N39. When it’s no longer fun outside because it is cold/wet we transfer helm control down below and steer from the dry and warm. Perfectly possible to sail from the pilot house in comfort. Good all round viz from below. The Nauticat motor sailor boats offer the same comfort but lesser sailing performance for those lovely days when you fancy being out in the sparkling spray. Ideal northern latitudes boats which is of course what they are designed for. We’ve found ours perfect for West Scotland cruising.
 
Thanks Robih, I have always admired Nauticats, especially the older ones with the taller, more prominent coachroofs.

It's only the cost which prevents me enjoying the benefits you describe. The nearest thing I've seen to an affordable one was a very tired old N33, with expensive woodwork maintenance, imminent.

I quite like the OP's Nimbus motorboat, though I'd definitely get sick of the inescapable engine noise when there's a decent breeze blowing the same way I'm steering, bringing the inevitable reflection that a sailboat could have swished along in effortless silence.

Definitely a matter of range and timing though - the Nimbus will doubtless cruise at treble the pace of a similarly sized sailing yacht, enabling weekending to numerous ports that could only have been part of a week's cruise under sail.

Whether a brisk, noisy and fuel-hungry weekend run farther afield provides more fun or fulfilment than a shorter passage under sail, each man must judge for himself.
 
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dancrane said:
Whether a brisk, noisy and fuel-hungry weekend run farther afield provides more fun or fulfilment than a shorter passage under sail, each man must judge for himself.
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Indeed so:

N39undersail.JPG


You know you want to........
 
Motor boating and sailing are equally enjoyable in my view but we all enjoy different things and there is no right and wrong in any of it. We do both and came very close to buying a yacht this time round but recently bought a sports cruiser for the river and sea locally and will sail via charter somewhere warm or maybe in the Solent every now and then.

It always makes me smile when people in both camps extol the virtues of their chosen means of getting on the water, often citing what they perceive as the (awful) downsides of the other side and making assumptions about people who do the other thing.

The irony is that there are many similarities to both such as enjoying being at sea, enjoying the excitement of a new destination and the sociability of the whole thing. For every perceived upside of one there is the same for the other. The same can be said for the downsides.

Thankfully we don't suffer from any prejudices and get the best (and the worst) out of both :)
 
Robih said:
You know you want to........
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You're right of course, I would want to. Although...

...on a day like today, I'd like a Hunter Delta...

...then from November 1st till the end of April, I'd have more fun rumbling around in a hard-top Hardy 20...

...neither boat is new, or flashy or expensive, but each is better (more fun) than the other at certain times of year.

But any decent motorsailor costs more than both combined. :rolleyes:
 
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dancrane said:
You're right of course, I would want to. Although...

...on a day like today, I'd like a Hunter Delta...

...then from November 1st till the end of April, I'd have more fun rumbling around in a hard-top Hardy 20...

...neither boat is new, or flashy or expensive, but each is better (more fun) than the other at certain times of year.

But any decent motorsailor costs more than both combined. :rolleyes:
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Wise words.......
 
Greg2 said:
Motor boating and sailing are equally enjoyable in my view but we all enjoy different things and there is no right and wrong in any of it. We do both and came very close to buying a yacht this time round but recently bought a sports cruiser for the river and sea locally and will sail via charter somewhere warm or maybe in the Solent every now and then.

It always makes me smile when people in both camps extol the virtues of their chosen means of getting on the water, often citing what they perceive as the (awful) downsides of the other side and making assumptions about people who do the other thing.

The irony is that there are many similarities to both such as enjoying being at sea, enjoying the excitement of a new destination and the sociability of the whole thing. For every perceived upside of one there is the same for the other. The same can be said for the downsides.

Thankfully we don't suffer from any prejudices and get the best (and the worst) out of both :)
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Absolutely.
Pure sailing is extremely rewarding but I couldn't combine this with cruising, ie wanting to be at a certain destination by a certain time and back again in time for work on Monday morning as invariably it meant putting the engine on and I have to say an 200hp inline 6 sounds and feels far more pleasant at 6 knots than a 20hp twin rattling away beneath your feet.
 
Perhaps it's a pity that the only really successful move into water-ballasted (and thereby, dual-purpose) boats has been the widely scorned MacGregor 26.

We very often hear sailing yacht skippers boasting about how their slightly higher average passage speed allows significant extensions to passage planning, and to the avoidance of, or escape from bad weather...

...if a bigger, more conservatively styled, less-conspicuously cheap and damned ugly, water-ballasted sailing cruiser with a big-enough auxiliary were in production giving a planing speed of over 15 knots, the buyer's cruising range would be doubled or trebled.

Several light displacement, asymmetric-kite performance yachts seem to offer planing-speed potential under sail as a selling point, but I can't think of many which were designed to allow planing speeds under power too, or given an engine which made that possible.
 
Dan,

you're being very kind, I know you like to ' think outside the box '.

However if you had a close look at a MacGregor you'd probably be sick !

The things are god-awful, the worst of both worlds; there are two at my club; one has been left ashore while the other one skates about on the mooring while all the real boats stay steady - we have all noticed this and reckon heavy weather would be suicide.

Their promotional film looks like way lower windspeeds than claimed - I doubt someone with the taste to go for an Osprey would like it given a close up look...
 
Well, I did say something like if a less damned ugly, more conservatively-styled water-ballasted yacht were designed...

...so I hope my post didn't suggest I was tempted specifically by the MacGregor 26...I'm pretty sure it didn't!

But I think the enormity of their sales figures shows that the idea justifies further development. People like to go fast even on a boat designed to be able to sail too. The Mac26's skittishness when unballasted (and imperfections when in ballast under sail) really ought not to be the last word written on the concept.

I agree they're rotten to look at...I guess selling so many, must have discouraged the builder from evolving the design too far from the original...thus, we who don't like the styling, haven't budged in our disapproval either. But the concept...I'm sure it has legs.
 
dancrane said:
It has occurred to me to buy a modest motorboat. I've nearly bought various small yachts, but my tenuous financial position always made a pure sailing boat look like a costly summer toy...whereas a boat whose weather-protection allows comfortable all-season use, starts to look like good value. But I'm sure I'd miss sailing - especially downwind - so a motor-sailer is the obvious solution for me.

If sailing were only ever downwind, which of us could foresee getting too old or weary to enjoy it?

To my mind, that's what a decent motor-sailer accomplishes. There's pleasure available, sedately helming indoors, head to wind, free from pelting rain or freezing gale, while doubling the VMG of boats under sail...and you can still sail downwind, all the way back...

...the pity is that sailors don't embrace the compromise, so designers give us sleek deckhouse cruisers which sail upwind, but can't easily be steered from below. The 50:50 philosophy is to enjoy both sail and power. I reckon a displacement motor-yacht must be a wonderfully relaxing vessel, rarely troubled by the weather. The true motor-sailor is that, but with the option to sail too.

Where's Rotrax? :confused:
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Just got home from experiencing exactly what you describe-1100NM so far this year. Had to return home to get First Mate in to see the Consultant about her new hip, and to visit Czech for an old friends 90th Birthday party.

Not sailed much, but motorsailed most of the time.

Cherbourg-Studland last Monday, 9 hours on the button. Very light winds from the West, 3 KTS under full sail. Add 1500 RPM, 6.5KTS. Under 3.5 litres per hour over the last 121 hours of engine use, including using the genset and Webasto.

15 to 20 knots true on the beam and we can sail really well.

Not had too much of those ideal conditiond this year...............................

Saw a boat I did not know existed in Dartmouth earlier-a Gibsea 100 Motorsailer. Looked a nice boat, it certainly went well.
 
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