How big is BIG enough?

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zambant

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Now the reason I have posted this here is that the folks in this forum have always been most helpful and honest.

Time has com to ditch the wife and go livaboard.

I will need a sailing yacht, bilge keel, big enough for myself and my 13 yr old daughter and occasional visitors.

My budget is £40k.

So what do you good folk recomend I should buy please?

Thanks

John
 
Not clear if you'll be living permanently on board, or just at first? Best choice of boat, depends how bottomless your pockets are, re maintenance/berthing: if you'll mainly be on board for extended periods, then the bigger she is, the less the chance of cabin-fever.

Westerly Riviera is slightly over your budget, but well worth looking at, and one of the bigger bilge keelers available. Nice bright saloon, weatherproof steering position, and mademoiselle will have her own private cabin & loo. Here's a good one:

http://westerly.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=220110

I almost envy you for escaping! :)
 
With that kind of budget you have a huge potential choice in the 28-36ft range, both aft cockpit and centre cockpit boats. Liveaboards often find centre cockpit boats more attractive as they separate living from sleeping accommodation better. You could get a number of different Westerly boats in that price range or even a Moody 34, some of which are bilge keel. If you relax that constraint the choice expands.

Suggest you put your criteria into the advanced search on www.yachtworld.com and see what comes up.
 
Don't want to be a bit of a damp squib with technicalities here but if you are "ditching wife" are you hoping for custody of 13 year-old daughter or to have here just as a visitor?

Will you be cruising or marina-bound?
 
Lakesailor said:
Don't want to be a bit of a damp squib with technicalities here but if you are "ditching wife" are you hoping for custody of 13 year-old daughter or to have here just as a visitor?

Will you be cruising or marina-bound?
Click to expand...

We are going to job share our daughter 50/50 and are going to live close to each other. This means that I will be marina bound during the week but will be sailing weekends and holidays.......
Thanks for replies
John
 
You will be choosing just as the weather is warming up - if you are planning long-term liveaboard, give thought to a comfortable existence in the depths of winter next year. You'll need decent heating, a decent amount of water storage, somewhere to hang wet clothes and, if possible, a reasonable size holding tank.

Speaking from experience, it's not uncommon for the hoses on marina pontoons to freeze up for several days at a time in the middle of winter and lugging buckets of water from a tap far away on a cold, wet night to do the washing up is a real pain. Similarly, most marinas get really up-tight about sea toilets being flushed into the basin and hiking down the pontoon at 3am for an unexpected poo is seriously unpleasant - and, I assume, something you would not want your 13 year old daughter doing alone!
 
Not kidding! One of the best in my view. Look at the interior layout:

http://www.theyachtmarket.com/boatimages.aspx?boatID=191865&inum=2

It's unusual to find a boat this size dedicated to making two people (or two couples) really comfortable. Most 35-footers claim berths for six or seven sharing one loo, in a sea of each other's dropped socks.

A shame more boats' designers don't focus on the elementary luxuries of space and privacy. The Riviera's arrangement may not be well suited to extended offshore work, but I don't see how Zambant's situation could find a better solution.
 
I think that 30 ft is really small to live aboard with a child. havent done it myself but have friend who lives aboard withe two young girls (and wife).

It might seem ok for a low-maintenance male on his own but think TV, computer, school uniform/ extensive wardrobe, toys etc etc not to mention possible friends to stay.

Assuming it is going to be static, you need to think floating caravan -eg old barge, fishing boat or similar with space.
 
:eek::eek: Davidej, with those gloomy words, you've nearly sunk the happy idea that chaps like Zambant float their dreams on.

The sailing-liveaboard plan must be based on two things - some mobility of one's home location, and a love of sailing.

Buying a barge or floating caravan, one might just as well be in a static caravan ashore! Most of the reason for Zambant's question must relate to his plans to explore, actually enjoying the sailing. So it must be a halfway-decent sailboat.

And the fact that it's just he and his daughter, makes the couple-with-two-little'uns nightmare, entirely irrelevant. His ideal scenario is perfectly possible, without buying the artless, shapeless practicality of a roomy ex-commercial hulk.

Besides, learning a certain minimalism of personal effects, is something any young girl will later thank her dad for...

...my SWMBO...Good grief! She could fill all five bathrooms of a Lagoon 62, with her unnecessary lotions and potions. :rolleyes:
 
dancrane said:
:eek::eek: Davidej, with those gloomy words, you've nearly sunk the happy idea that chaps like Zambant float their dreams on.

The sailing-liveaboard plan must be based on two things - some mobility of one's home location, and a love of sailing.

Buying a barge or floating caravan, one might just as well be in a static caravan ashore! Most of the reason for Zambant's question must relate to his plans to explore, actually enjoying the sailing. So it must be a halfway-decent sailboat.

And the fact that it's just he and his daughter, makes the couple-with-two-little'uns nightmare, entirely irrelevant. His ideal scenario is perfectly possible, without buying the artless, shapeless practicality of a roomy ex-commercial hulk.

Besides, learning a certain minimalism of personal effects, is something any young girl will later thank her dad for...

...my SWMBO...Good grief! She could fill all five bathrooms of a Lagoon 62, with her unnecessary lotions and potions. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Wow - thanks for those kind words - for a brief moment I got deprssed - but I have put th knives away and looking as to how to stretch my budget....

JFDI I say - whats the worst that can happen?......PLEASE DO NOT AWNSER

So back to the question - any other ideas please anyone???
 
maby said:
You will be choosing just as the weather is warming up - if you are planning long-term liveaboard, give thought to a comfortable existence in the depths of winter next year. You'll need decent heating, a decent amount of water storage, somewhere to hang wet clothes and, if possible, a reasonable size holding tank.

Speaking from experience, it's not uncommon for the hoses on marina pontoons to freeze up for several days at a time in the middle of winter and lugging buckets of water from a tap far away on a cold, wet night to do the washing up is a real pain. Similarly, most marinas get really up-tight about sea toilets being flushed into the basin and hiking down the pontoon at 3am for an unexpected poo is seriously unpleasant - and, I assume, something you would not want your 13 year old daughter doing alone!
Click to expand...

So what's the cheapest way to heat a boat - excluding solid fuel and old boats :cool:
 
dancrane said:
:eek::eek: Davidej, with those gloomy words, you've nearly sunk the happy idea that chaps like Zambant float their dreams on.

The sailing-liveaboard plan must be based on two things - some mobility of one's home location, and a love of sailing.

Buying a barge or floating caravan, one might just as well be in a static caravan ashore! Most of the reason for Zambant's question must relate to his plans to explore, actually enjoying the sailing. So it must be a halfway-decent sailboat.

And the fact that it's just he and his daughter, makes the couple-with-two-little'uns nightmare, entirely irrelevant. His ideal scenario is perfectly possible, without buying the artless, shapeless practicality of a roomy ex-commercial hulk.

Besides, learning a certain minimalism of personal effects, is something any young girl will later thank her dad for...

...my SWMBO...Good grief! She could fill all five bathrooms of a Lagoon 62, with her unnecessary lotions and potions. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'd love to think you are right but sounds to me like a prescription for a girl to want to spend her weekends withe her mother
 
davidej said:
I'd love to think you are right but sounds to me like a prescription for a girl to want to spend her weekends withe her mother
Click to expand...

Depends on the young lady herself. If she's mad on sailing, she'll enjoy the most rewarding performance boat Zambant can locate for £40K. If she enjoys the envy of her schoolfriends, she'll prefer a slick, luxurious boat like the Riviera, to any roomy old barge.

If she's inactive and untidy and sulky, no boat of any design will suit; and Zambant would be wise to cut and run! :eek::rolleyes:
 
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