Help - You talked me into it!

Re: Yacht or floating cottage?

err..Andrew, it was me. not NAS who made that comment. And AlexL has answered eloquently on my behalf. With such a bewildering variery of boats, there has to be some order to the sort criteria. In our case, Sort 1 = budget (but we all cheat a bit, don't we..tee hee!), Sort 2 = can we live on this? Sort 3 (by now a short list - hopefully!) = are we happy to sail this?
Other people may wish to approach things differently - which is how it should be

John

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Addendum

Storage, light and airy, etc is all very good, but many people don't use their boats for much more than weekend camping 50 weeks a year. so space, etc only really gets used on summer cruise. For 50 weeks a year you are paying for LOA, and other stuff you're not using. So its an alternative to buy a small boat that sails like a witch and is relatively light on the pocket, and during your cruise spend money from time to time on an hotel room.

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Re: Addendum

absolutely - I was commenting on my own criteria - obviously others may have a different view and different priorities.

On Hotels : It was, however, nice staying on our boat in St Katherines Dock for a couple of nights at 20 odd quid a night, under the shadow of the tower hotel which is 200 odd quid a night. tee-hee.

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Addendum to Addendum

Ken,

In our case, it's more to do with beam than LOA, and how the space is used. F'rinstance, looking at a Beneteau Oceanis 311 and a Moody 31 at the weekend, the Moody won hands down because of (what seemed to us) to be a better use of the internal volume. There was also a Victoria 30 (IIRC) which was, I guess, a good foot narrower in the beam than the Moody - and boy was that visible.

Chacun a son gout....

<hr width=100% size=1>Fabricati Diem, punc
 
I think it is a myth that at some point in time boat building standards were forgotten in the pursuit of achieving a price point.

No doubt when the first new Contessa 32's started scooting around the Solent 34+ years ago, owners of Nicholson 32's muttered something about the new light weight design that was built down to a price and lacked a proper long keel.

10 years later the Contessa 32 owner looked at a passing Westerly Fulmar 32 and doubted the wisdom of bolting a large fin keel to the bottom of a hull that lacked the inherent wine glass hull shape of his boat.

By 1990 when the Fulmar had gained the general respect of the yachting community its owners probably criticised cheap plastic French things with their sandwich hulls, broad sterns and interior floor mouldings stuck onto the hull.

Finally by around 2000 almost everyone took pot shots at the latest mass market designs with their even broader sterns and stubby fin keels.

If you listen to too many opinions you will end up building your own steel yacht and then spend most of your time afloat wallowing around waiting for a force 5 to get you moving.

The GRP yachting industry has taken a few questionable detours in terms of design and construction in the last 40 years but in general material science has advanced.

Some isolated points:

Be wary of some mid 90’s cruiser designs, keels becomes noticeably shallow in this period and when coupled with an overly broad stern the result can be a difficult to handle hull.

Before putting the Hanse range on your short list check out their top sides finish, there was a bad example exhibited at the SBS this year.

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