How long did you, or should you, search for the perfect boat?

LittleSister

LittleSister

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It has just come to my attention that Wansworth had already embarked on his (still ongoing) search for a boat way back in September of 2009! At that point he had just dismissed a Snapdragon, and was getting excited about a Colvic Sailer 26.

It is surprising that he still manages to find new (old) models to tease us with, but kudos to him for hanging in there and keeping his nose to the grindstone of his quest for so long.

How long did you spend looking for the right (or even wrong) boat?

How does one decide how choosy to be, when the good is the enemy of the best?
 
I bought my boat about a year after learning to sail.

I'm not sure that there's any such thing as "a perfect boat", as boat design is fundamentally about compromise, but I am very happy with the boat I ended up with (after putting in offers on two quite different ones).

I stopped reading @Wansworth's boat-buying threads after the 3rd or 4th one (that I saw).

When I viewed my boat I liked her more than I had expected to - it was the last candidate in the Netherlands and, having spent 2 or 3 months there, I was ready to leave the country. But there was also an element of "it's spring, I want to go sailing" to the decision - Iris broke the budget by about ten grand, but she too was ready to go.
 
I did not intend to buy my last boat until I went to the LBS in 2003 & the wife sat on an Elan 31 Saw the wine rack in the saloon table & said " This is nice, I would like one of these. Wish we could afford one". My reply was " Well actually we can" & so she went on a spree of booking views of 31 ft boats.
Totally took me by surprise, as she was not & still is not a sailor.
But she liked the wine rack. Trouble is that the Hanse does not have one. But it does have a bigger loo so it won.
 
We knew exactly what we wanted. Made a decision to buy on 16th June last year, found 2 that evening, bought one, took delivery within a month. I doubt there’ll be another, though this isn’t the first.
 
Sometimes these successful , seemingly quick boat buyings are the result of all those years of accrued research one way and another.
So when the right one for you at the right time pops up, “You Just Know”?

A wine rack in a - larger- heads, now that sounds like a Win Win.
 
Blueboatman said:
Sometimes these successful , seemingly quick boat buyings are the result of all those years of accrued research one way and another.
So when the right one for you at the right time pops up, “You Just Know”?

A wine rack in a - larger- heads, now that sounds like a Win Win.
Click to expand...
You wouldn’t buy ours for the size of the heads, but then, you can't fall off whilst hammering to windward. We do have a wine rack though.
 
Chiara’s slave said:
You wouldn’t buy ours for the size of the heads, but then, you can't fall off whilst hammering to windward. We do have a wine rack though.
Click to expand...
Sounds perfect ?
My last boat I bought for loads of sensible reasons -including that the teak deck was starting to look a bit tired and I could see a way of sorting that quietly over the years without losing my shirt in a perfectnew boat depreciation over the years- but superficially, I liked the twin pole attachment on the mast , and the simply massive, solid teak, 6inch turned wooden support under the mast.
If the builder could do that , there weren’t going to be too many accountants penny pinchings going in behind the scenes. Proved ok too?

Enjoy flying to windward , with wine afterwards !???
 
One section of the MoBo market/price bracket only !
................spent 18 months travelling the length and breadth of the UK just looking .
Mostly tired unloved boats on sale with many owners taking advantage of "staycation" prices to bail out of boating completely ?
One or two gems out there but usually sold, before even being listed on brokers websites, all without exception with eye watering averages of a 20% + inflation on pre Covid values.
It was apparent that skippers trading up tended to have looked after their boats , the quitters mostly left them to rot with a quick tart up on the brokers sales pontoon.
After looking at so many overpriced duds , when you do walk down the pontoon and see the right boat at right price and in the right condition, it is a lot easier to make prompt decision and go for it.
Reckon it takes about a year to find out if you have ended up with gem or a expensive hole in the water ?
That only leaves the minor problem of flogging your existing boat and finding somewhere to keep the new toy at a sensible price.

The tale of a secondhand Mobo.
A mature Skipper decides to quit.
The boat, not used for two or three seasons is offered to a skipper who moors nearbye, for around £60K. Needs a bit of work nothing terminal.
Some delay regards the sale and prospective buyer gets fed up and buys elsewhere.
Boat then put on with broker at £85K, is sold and disappears from our moorings.
Some months later appears on a brokers listings at £110K.
Think it may still be for sale.
 
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The to you acceptable compromise, prioritization, desire and resources change more than the boat itself.

It is thus continuous iterations that never really ends.

On my seventh after more than 50 years of owning various makes and models. Apart from the first few dinghies every boat was deemed perfect for the need at the time of buying, but the reality set in and requirements (need / nice) changed.

Still monitoring the market out of interest but have been happy with the current boat now for 11 years. Now and then doing the math on a imaginary replacement, but the sum of all things make me realize that I'm happier with the as-is.
 
We initially looked at a wide range of yachts in the 40 foot category. We then narrowed it down to an AWB boat between 5-8 years old
After more searching we narrowed it down to a Bavaria 38, looked at half a dozen boats before deciding on the one we wanted, a 2003 model
Whole process took about 12 months, which was the time scale to fit into our retirement and liveaboard plans. Never regretted the choice, it was a good boat.
We decided to downsize when we gave up full time liveaboard and the decision to choose a Bavaria was an easy one for us, going for a 33 this time, 2013 vintage, again it was the right boat for what we wanted
 
Perfect boat? Do I have it? No. When I was looking in 2013, I wanted a boat I could singlehand easily. Having been boatless for 21 years, there had been many changes in the designs and building methods.Luckily I have plenty of funds and could have bought a new 32ft yacht, but they just did not appeal. I believed that 35 feet was the upper level on size and thought the Trapper 700 would suit my needs well. However, that boat sold before I could view. At that time there were plenty of boats on the market and selling fast.

There was an open day for secondhand boats at Chatham Marina, so I went and looked at everything in my size range. The only boat I was luke warm about was a Moody 29, but it needed quite a lot of work. The agent said the seller wanted a price close to the asking price, but I valued it at £6,000 less, so did not bother offering on it. This boat had been out of the water for 6 years and was finally sold for a song 4 years later after the cockpit drains became blocked with leaves and flooded the boat. What it cost is storage fees over those 10 years exceeded what the boat was "valued" by the owner, what an idiot.

Knowing what to buy is always a problem. Then one day chatting with my brother, he suggested the Westerly Fulmar. I had never considered any Westerly as I believed they were more floating caravans than good sailing boats. In fact the more I get to know them, Westerly did build some excellent boats that have generally stood the test of time. Thinking about the Fulmar and remembering racing against one, it struck me this was a very good choice. Having sailed and worked on plenty of boats in the past, there were plenty of things that were "right" with the Fulmar. The problem came to finding one. As soon as they appeared on the market, they sold very quickly. One that I thought was overpriced was reduced by £4000, so went to look at it. It was in good condition but had the original Bukh engine. The agent said they had just received an low offer on it, and I decided to offer £1000 below the asking price. Whilst the offer was being relayed to the seller who was currently abroad, the agent contacted the other potential purchaser, who then offered the full asking price. I felt sick when I realised I had lost out as I was driving home.

The result was I had also confirmed the Fulmar was now the only boat on the list. It was there because it has a very good reputation for it's sailing ability, the ¾ rig meant it was very manageable, the interior had a traditional seaman like layout. So now the problem of finding one started in earnest. Every advert I saw for a Fulmar, I contacted the agent or owner. Many of the owners, even though they had sold their Fulmar, were very helpful with advice about what to check on a Fulmar. Then one day I spotted a poorly worded advert, no photo, of a Fulmar on the Medway that was for sale. It was now early December and I wanted to be sailing in 2014. The location meant it was local to me, so no difficult winter delivery trip. When I went to look at Concerto, she was the right boat, but not in the right condition. She had been out of the water for 18 months and the owner had already bought a smaller boat because of his age. Spying an opportunity for a keen price and the work to get her "right" was within my means, I made a low offer compared to all the other Fulmars I had followed. Naturally it was rejected, but just £1,500 more secured her on the condition that when surveyed the price would only change for a major problem, not minor things. I can still remember standing there after agreeing to buy her, feeling pleased and also thinking what have I done.

Once home I dug out the phone number of a well know surveyor I had used in the past when my previous yacht was badly damaged in the 1987 hurricane. Within 2 days he came and conducted the survey. He found she was in a good constructive order, but tired. He was not that impressed with the general condition, but I thought I could make her my perfect yacht as I had the time and the money to do it. There were several things I disagreed in his report, what I would call the general arse covering comments. But there was nothing substantially wrong. So 3 days later I was the proud owner of a Fulmar. I had to join the club where it was standing, but was still cheaper than moving her elsewhere. Then disaster struck, I was admitted to hospital with severe food poisoning for 4 days. I was later told if it had been delayed by another 12 hours, I would have suffered permanent kidney damage. So, it was not until early in the new year could I do anything to Concerto.

For those who have not seen the presentation I made in January 2020 on the renovation of Concerto, have a look as it shows how she was when I bought her and the changes I have made. Then this was further updated in a video when last year she was the Westerly Owners Association boat at the Southampton Boat Show.
https://wiki.westerly-owners.co.uk/images/3/3f/Concerto.pdf
Concerto at the Boat Show 2021

Is Concerto my perfect yacht? It is the best compromise I could have. The work and money I have spent far exceeds her current worth. Do I care? No. She has still cost only a third of what a new boat would have cost me and I have a lot of pleasure in sailing an older boat that people continually comment about the condition. There has been a lot of man hours spent getting Concerto exactly to what she is today and is now very easy to keep maintained to a high standard. Everything I have done was for my benefit and although I have owned her for just over 8 years, I will not sell her until I swallow the anchor. So I will get the benefit of what has changed on Concerto, not a subsequent owner. I expect to keep her for another 10 years. So although not a "perfect" yacht she suits my needs admirably.
 
Jissel, our Snapdragon 24 was the second boat we looked at seriously. Milady fell in love and that was it. I'm not sure I had much say in the matter, though I was, like her, thinking, "Wow, we can afford that??" (Spoiler, we couldn't, and still can't, but somehow manage)

We kept her for 18 years before reduced mobility meant Milady struggled on such a small boat. Now we've got a Catalac, and she'll be great if we ever get her sorted (do one job and two more expensive ones come along)
 
We have bought our boats new, so the decision processes were fairly brief once we had seen what we liked. When I retired we realised that we needed to upsize from our Sadler 29 and went to the Southampton show confident that there would be something we liked, though we also thought that perhaps a 2nd hand Nicholson 35 might be our sort of thing. In the event, we wandered round the show looking at some dreadful boats in the 34’ size range, all of which had one or more features we couldn’t live with. As we wandered past the HR stand we were invited on board, even though I assured the agent that it would be outside our budget. The boat fitted well and had everything we wanted, but the surprise was that the price, with a load of extras, was less than the similar Westerly Ocean 33 which hadn’t suited us, the reason being that Ericsson had gone bust the day before and the Krone had fallen.

We could have bought it on the spot but thought that would be silly, so we went off for lunch and hurried back to sign the deal, ordered a load of more extras and consumed two bottles of Champagne with the agents. We collected the boat the following May, while club mates who delayed their order to have a trial sail six weeks later ended up having to wait a further year for theirs.
 
LittleSister said:
It has just come to my attention that Wansworth had already embarked on his (still ongoing) search for a boat way back in September of 2009! At that point he had just dismissed a Snapdragon, and was getting excited about a Colvic Sailer 26.

It is surprising that he still manages to find new (old) models to tease us with, but kudos to him for hanging in there and keeping his nose to the grindstone of his quest for so long.

How long did you spend looking for the right (or even wrong) boat?

How does one decide how choosy to be, when the good is the enemy of the best?
Click to expand...
I bought a boat in the Uk and then sold it just before the dreaded covid
 
LittleSister said:
How long did you spend looking for the right (or even wrong) boat?
Click to expand...

Looking around the Hamble area used boat shows when SOTON show was on, we just stumbled across boats we liked better than the one we had at the time and bought them on the spot. This of course left us with two boats for a while each time but fortunately never had a problem selling quickly. We've had current boat (most likely our last) for 19 years.
 
I remember tracking around used boat shows at Swanwick and being depressed by some of the sights we saw and prices being asked for tired 15 year old boats so with little knowledge although having spent years sailing a family Westerly we went to see Opal marine. With intention of buying a small Hunter legend -anyway after much discussion signed up for a slightly larger Bavaria 34 and very happy with her from 2001 for 14 years. On changing there was really little new or newish around but we wanted more space and looked around 40ft. When you have a certain price an age in mind,particularly new boats the choice is actually limited if you also rule out more sporty boats and budget doesn’t run to a Swedish market price or a lifting keel say from Chi. Had our current boat for 7 years and don’t think we would change until perhaps we have to enter the mobo world due to advancing years and downsize to say 35 ish feet. Doubt the budget would stretch to anything new though and I think we might be in the aquastar or nimbus world in says 10 years time.
 
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