Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance cruiser

Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

petehb said:


And they have been all over and crossed all of the earths oceans. The only downside to the 27 is speed, they are heavy and whilst in a reasonable wind of 20Knts they will tramp along all day at 5knts plus, also they are not exactly close winded but the cutter rig makes them bullet proof.

Beaten to it by Babylon:D
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See post#29. OP has already explained why this is not on his short list - too small and slow, and a 32 is (probably) out of budget.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

Tranona said:
Yes - because he talks sense!
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.........

......." I now sail a modern 35 ft AWB which is a near-perfect daysailer or local cruiser. I would not want to be in a North Atlantic storm in it: in fact it would probably kill me, whilst a smaller older cheaper Rival/Nic/Liz etc design would probably survive."
jwilson



And there am I thinking you were just frightened of crossing swords with him. A touching meeting of minds, I'm filling up.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

doug748 said:
.........

......." I now sail a modern 35 ft AWB which is a near-perfect daysailer or local cruiser. I would not want to be in a North Atlantic storm in it: in fact it would probably kill me, whilst a smaller older cheaper Rival/Nic/Liz etc design would probably survive."
jwilson



And there am I thinking you were just frightened of crossing swords with him. A touching meeting of minds, I'm filling up.
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Good. You are finally recognising common.

I would not choose to to be in an Atlantic storm in either of my Bavarias - but then like most of us I would try and avoid that anyway. However I would think that either of them would survive it far better than I would. Neither would I choose the sort of boat under discussion here for the type of sailing I do. Nothing remarkable or controversial about that
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

Babylon said:
I agree. Much earlier in this thread I suggested the V32 for this very reason, but the OP chose to ignore both my post and my PM
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I know the OP, and he has been around these parts for a lot longer than you or I.

He is not ignoring anything and I suspect he is away doing other things.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

A couple of weeks back I helped someone move a Grampian 34 to Wicor Fareham. That seems to fit many of the criteria: plain GRP decks, super strong rig with self tacking jib, wind vane steering. It was built in 1988 - some time after Grampian stopped trading and seems to be solidly built.

Currently for sale at £16k.

You can get a lot of boat for your money right now.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

Would that be the same one that was on eBay a couple of years ago at £10k? Looked in need of some TLC so hopefully has been tarted up a bit. That one had a saildrive which did put me off, although funnily enough it was such an enticing package overall that it was responsible for kickstarting the search for our current boat, as it made me realise how much boat you could get for comparatively little money.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

I could be wrong about the saildrive, this one was also on Clyde so I am guessing it is the same one. Looked pretty solid and with heaps of bluewater equipment, although buying it through eBay would have meant taking a risk that any of it actually worked...
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

boggybrn said:
Could be. The owner said it had a Z drive. He bought it up on the Clyde, fixed it up and sailed down to the south coast.
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Z drive is sometimes used to describe a saildrive on a sailing boat as the technology is similar to outdrives on a powerboat which are also sometimes termed z drives. In both the drive goes through 2 90 degree changes in direction which looks like the letter Z. If I remember rightly the Grampian was one of the early adopters of Volvo 36hp saildrives.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

chinita said:
I know the OP, and he has been around these parts for a lot longer than you or I.

He is not ignoring anything and I suspect he is away doing other things.
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Yes, I have been away. Sorry.

My thanks to everyone who has offered advice and suggestions. I have lived in the parallel universe of wooden boats and gaff rig for forty odd sailing years so the "mainstream" is new to me although I have of course sailed with friends and done a few deliveries.

I joined the original Scuttlebutt forum in 1998, and this iteration in November 2002, under the name of my ex boat, Mirelle. I switched to using the name of her tender when the good citizens of "The Lounge" were informed by one of the denizens of that place that I was gay and had been seen cannodling with my Pakistani boyfriend. Alas my life is not quite as exciting as that, though the mother of my children is Filipina.

The problem that I keep coming up against is that a lot of boats that are "in the bracket" have had "goodies", like in mast reefing/furling, wheel steering, bow thrusters and such like which have been added by enthusiastic owners, whereas to me, planning to potter off slowly to places where none of these things could be repaired, they are just stuff that I would have to pay for, take out and dump. One fitting that I would view with favour is a Refleks diesel heater, and another is a good wind vane. I would plan on replacing rigging anyway.

One thing about modern sail handling systems (including headsail roller reefing systems) that I have noticed is that when under heavy load the expensive ones work perfectly and the cheap ones give up simply because there is too much friction in the system.

I don't plan to buy a boat yet - I will be doing that during the coming winter, and am happily contenting myself with sailing the family Firefly and the Nutshell tender.

The very interesting question is whether one buys a boat here or as Bajansailor (whom I also know "in real life") suggests,
one buys a boat in the States, where there is a very wide choice. I have plenty of sailing friends in the States who point me to places where one could sort a boat out cheap. Boats in the States seem to sell for 3/4 of the price here but there is 20% VAT payable on bringing the boat into the UK, so one would not want to do that.

List at the moment:

US "dream ships" - Pearson Rhodes 41, Block Island 40. Bounty 2 a possibility, and probably a lot more.
UK sensible boats: Halmatic 30 , NiC 31, NiC 32, Elizabethan 31 and 33, Rustler 31, Barbican 33 but on further reading NOT the centreboard one, Trident Challenger 35, various fin and skeg boats like Rivals etc.

Preference for solid glass over cored, including decks!

And here is a picture of the "ex"

Mirelle1.jpg
[/IMG]
 
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Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

It is not just VAT you have to worry about. You cannot legally import any of the US boats into the EU because they do not comply with the RCD, and in most cases it is not technically possible to make them comply, nor even if you can overcome the technical problems it is not economic.

That in part explains why you see so few of that type in Europe even though they can be bought for a fraction of the price they were when they were more current.

So only viable to buy a US boat if you then sell it outside the EU when you are finished with it.

Not that it will change your mind, but bluewater cruising HRs above 40' are almost 100% in mast furling and have bow thrusters! However, I agree that if you are buying a boat within your budget you are best to aim for basic no frills equipment. Probably your best bet is to buy a boat that has just completed the "dream" and hopefully not too knackered. There asking around £26k was Tradewind 33 that fitted that description for sale recently.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

"Preference for solid glass over cored, including decks! "


Seems eminently sensible to me. If you can also sidestep the myriad, long term headaches connected with bolted on fin keels you are onto a winner.

You will come across cored decks and topsides where you least expect them even on some venerable US designs. Nevertheless with your plans I would shop in the States, there is no point in joining a expensive club you are never going to visit. The other good spots for shopping are those Hurricane Holes, aka Lands of Broken Dreams, like Trinidad. A good spot because every repair facility is at hand with modest labour rates + plus it is nice and warm.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

Tranona said:
It is not just VAT you have to worry about. You cannot legally import any of the US boats into the EU because they do not comply with the RCD, and in most cases it is not technically possible to make them comply, nor even if you can overcome the technical problems it is not economic.

That in part explains why you see so few of that type in Europe even though they can be bought for a fraction of the price they were when they were more current.

So only viable to buy a US boat if you then sell it outside the EU when you are finished with it.

Not that it will change your mind, but bluewater cruising HRs above 40' are almost 100% in mast furling and have bow thrusters! However, I agree that if you are buying a boat within your budget you are best to aim for basic no frills equipment. Probably your best bet is to buy a boat that has just completed the "dream" and hopefully not too knackered. There asking around £26k was Tradewind 33 that fitted that description for sale recently.
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Very good points. But this is a "last boat" and if all goes to plan I shall, like my late friends Ian Wright and Jon Wainwright, drop dead on board her, so her resale value is much less important to me than getting the right boat in the first place!

Blue water 40ft + HRs have never been on the planet that I live on. Lovely, I am sure, but not "really necessary"...

I saw that Tradewind 33 and yes, that's the sort of idea, but in my experience equipment wears out, so one should not pay too much for water makers radars and suchlike. A boat that can stow a rigid dinghy on deck is worth having. As this thread potters along I am gaining loads of helpful information - for instance I now think that encapsulated iron is a bad idea, because if it does get wet corrosion will blow the encapsulation off, whilst encapsulated lead is probably better than external iron. The Van der Stadt Excalibur is an interesting early design but it has a spade rudder... and so on...

There seem to be a couple of distinct price levels - around 20K for most of the boats I am looking at and sub-10K for boats whose owners really want to sell.
 
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Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

adwuk said:
If you are looking at a Nic 32, then how about the Contessa? Here is an example http://www.boating-world.co.uk/contessa-32
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Nice boat, but fin keel. One reason for preferring a long keel type is that boatyards which deal with local fishing boats can cope with them but are often puzzled by fin keel yachts.
 
Re: Looking slowly for the "Last Boat" - budget 15- 20K plus refit long distance crui

I have enjoyed sailing many a BKYC C32 in the Baltic but I think I know which I would choose if hove to in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
 
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