New awb's.

[KellysEye]

>I'd be interested to see some figures to support that. Doesn't the average charter boat do six ten miles hops, half of them under engine, every week?

We chartered in the Seychelles, all the Turkish coast, Greece from the Mount Athos peninsular area to the Peloponnese, Corsica and Sardinia, Balearics, Caribbean from Puerto Rico to Grenada and the Bahamas, we visited most those more than once in twenty years. We only motored in calm weather and covered 2,300 nms.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Let me reword that slightly ... if the mass market AWBs don’t appeal, then need to look at boats like HR, Arcona, XC and some Dutch built ones like Sare (or Discovery etc in bigger sizes).

I was invited aboard a HR for an evening a couple of years ago. It was superficially very smart inside, but when the three small children on board had a riotous game of hide and seek, I got to see a lot behind the scenes. Not very impressive at all.

We chartered in the Seychelles, all the Turkish coast, Greece from the Mount Athos peninsular area to the Peloponnese, Corsica and Sardinia, Balearics, Caribbean from Puerto Rico to Grenada and the Bahamas, we visited most those more than once in twenty years. We only motored in calm weather and covered 2,300 nms.

I did say "average". Most hire cars are used for short trips; some are thrashed for hundreds of miles in a day. In your case, 115 nm per week (assuming one week per year) isn't that far from my suggested average of 60 nm per week.

 

[[70521]]

Have to say, we were shocked by the cheap materials and plasticky feel and finish to them. No way would I spend quarter of a million on something like this. Apart from width, boat interior hasn't actually moved on that much in the 40 years since our old longbow was built. The dehler actually had the same cheap faux mahogany melamine bulkheads as the longbow! But at least the longbow had a lot of solid wood and teak inside her,
Lack of storage and design features that seemed to forget the boat might sail, or get wet! No fiddles on tables, no wet lockers.

Delighted to hear somebody else has the same opinion of the modern offerings as little old me.

I am quite sure that modern boats are really designed as "cottages by the sea" where you can take it out for a spot of lunch and not sailing vessels.

 

[E39mad]

To the OP - you have to realise that modern AWB boats are not designed and built for the UK sailing market and waters but for the warmer climates of the world where 90% of your time is spent at anchor or in a marina. For that job and particularly charter work they work very well.

Yes these days they appear to have sharp corners, little or no fiddles or grab handles below and no decent sea berths but they sell in their hundreds whilst the "better built" British boats mostly all went out of business.

 

[Aja]

To the OP - you have to realise that modern AWB boats are not designed and built for the UK sailing market and waters but for the warmer climates of the world where 90% of your time is spent at anchor or in a marina. For that job and particularly charter work they work very well.

Yes these days they appear to have sharp corners, little or no fiddles or grab handles below and no decent sea berths but they sell in their hundreds whilst the "better built" British boats mostly all went out of business.

I suspect you have hit the nail on the head. Different boats for different markets where the modern production line boat is designed to be lightly used by private owners, for day sailing and a couple of overnighters in relatively benign conditions, or where they are chartered and others have quite rightly said have a full back up shore team to right anything that goes wrong quickly.
Whilst for those who expect to do more serious mileage and are not committed to marina sailing and expect their boats to look after them when sailing becomes demanding would be more comfortable with an older, heavier, traditional boat maybe 20 or 30'years old with good equipment specified for the conditions and type of sailing experienced.

Donald

 

[Sticky Fingers]

I ...still have the smile on my face. For the two of us it is extremely roomy, well appointed and comfortable. It has some really nice features, well thought out by the designers. It’s easy to sail short handed, very responsive, a delight to sail. It’s very manoeuvrable in ahead and astern. The space in the cockpit ... is huge and is great for entertaining...

...Getting boat interiors "right" is very difficult as it is the thing that sells the boat, particularly to couples. While the design and performance of the boat is important, in some ways this is a given ... The differentiator is generally the interior, layout, practicality for living on, feel and look.

The use of new materials and finishes is inevitable as natural materials, particularly good quality wood becomes more expensive both to buy and work. Some are better than others, but there is no doubting the level of acceptance in principle by buyers.

As a recent-ish buyer of a new 42' AWB, these two points are dead right. Of course the interior of our boat isn't "solid wood" whatever that might mean in a marine context, but it looks good (to us) and works very well. Mrs Scala loves it. As we sail a bit and lounge around in marinas and at anchor a lot, the relative balance of sailing ability and accommodation is spot on.

I didn't see a single used boat offering better accommodation in a similar length (and I viewed about a dozen over two years). Some extremely compromised. The beauty of eg the HR cabinet work failed to make up for a cramped cockpit and gloomy cabins with minimal circulation room and poor headroom....

 

[pvb]

Last Time I had a good look I thought the Bavaria’s were the best built with very few sloppy finished bits

I thought that, too, which is why I bought one.

but I hate the twin wheel style thing which seems to me just to be a way to fill in all that space the fat arse boats have..

Twin wheels give the helmsman a much better view.

 

[pvb]

Of course the interior of our boat isn't "solid wood" whatever that might mean in a marine context, but it looks good (to us) and works very well.

Well, it's veneered marine ply and solid wood trim, much the same as old boats contained, but more accurately cut out and assembled.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Yes that's right. We spent a bit of money on teak veneers. Didn't like the very dark standard finish or the light oak (too Ikea).

We also took advantage of a factory trip - very interesting for this old naval architect to see how the boats are built. Quite impressive, really.

 

[Tranona]

Delighted to hear somebody else has the same opinion of the modern offerings as little old me.

I am quite sure that modern boats are really designed as "cottages by the sea" where you can take it out for a spot of lunch and not sailing vessels.

Suggest you look at the large numbers of these boats you don't seem to like that are used for long distance passage making. The entry list of the ARC will give you a flavour. The people who sail these boats for example like the many Australians who buy a new boat, keep it in the Med for a couple of years and then sail it home, just go about the job without any fuss. Supporters of the old style seem to spend more time justifying why they own old boats and saying how awful new boats are.

You will find many of buyers of new boats (like some on this thread) have owned older boats - not surprisingly as most are very experienced and have been sailing a long time - and know exactly what they are buying and why they think newer boats are "better". More importantly they have direct experience of both!

 

[Tranona]

Of course. Which is why some figures would be nice.



Not many, but is it enough to cause any reasonably designed boat issues? As Tranona wrote, it seems likely that most wear would be related to person-days, rather than miles.

Well, I gave you some figures. The ones related to Med charters are typical and based on my 7 years owning one. The description of UK chartering is again based on typical usage that I have seen when looking at buying a charter boat here. Sailfree who used to post here a lot owned 2 charter boats (one after the other) and often described the sort of usage they had.

The reality is that to pay their way charter boats have to be worked hard and a working life is around 5-6 years. Not necessarily because they are worn out, but more because older boats are unattractive when customers have the choice of a newer boat at the same price. Some boats of course stay in the business asking lower rates, but most are sold onto private owners.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Suggest you look at the large numbers of these boats you don't seem to like that are used for long distance passage making.

If any of them make it up to the West of Scotland, I'll have a look. Perhaps they are all too busy coasting down the tradewinds for three weeks.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Well, I gave you some figures.

What I would genuinely like to see are figures showing actual use of charter boats, not just how they might be used. Accounts of charter trips in the mags are normally of a series of short hops with long stays in port. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and it is, as you have said, what modern AWBs are designed for. But it would be very interesting to have a mean and standard deviation for hours at sea and miles covered for one of the big charter fleets.

 

[steve yates]

£40k flats mmm please send me the info , I have a few dozen .
I am one who had brought a new 12 mts boat and ended up selling it to buy a much older one ,
not because it didn't sail well or because of the way it was made but because we like the older style yacht .

25k in largs and kirkcaldy, or washington newcastle, 40k in blyth and north shields. Plenty of other places with similar. can only be bought for cash as too low for a mortgage, usually rent for 250-350pm, and in a property crash, they don't actually have much lower in value to fall

 

[steve yates]

I suspect you have hit the nail on the head. Different boats for different markets where the modern production line boat is designed to be lightly used by private owners, for day sailing and a couple of overnighters in relatively benign conditions, or where they are chartered and others have quite rightly said have a full back up shore team to right anything that goes wrong quickly.
Whilst for those who expect to do more serious mileage and are not committed to marina sailing and expect their boats to look after them when sailing becomes demanding would be more comfortable with an older, heavier, traditional boat maybe 20 or 30'years old with good equipment specified for the conditions and type of sailing experienced.

Donald

yep, I think about sums it up. But I didn't realise that, being new to the game and all that.

 

[MoodySabre]

We thought that the nicest on display was the Jeanneau 31.9 at £88k.

The Hanse and Dehler both had switch panels and radios covered by a top hinged door that had to be left open and sticking out in order to use the switches or radio. One had a metal edge specially designed to take your eye out in a seaway. What a stupid design.

 

[ashtead]

I was invited aboard a HR for an evening a couple of years ago. It was superficially very smart inside, but when the three small children on board had a riotous game of hide and seek, I got to see a lot behind the scenes. Not very impressive at all.

I think the point I was making in mentioning the HR was not that they are better built if somewhat slower but that the premium to be paid for a new HR in the 40ft range doesn't to my mind seem to justify the differential even though they have good reviews ,however they appeal to a niche market who while limited in number are able to stretch to the £500k level but that's about double the numbers quoted for the Bav/Ben/jen offerings . Likewise with the Danish and Dutch brands so there are really few choices that sit in between . If you are one of the centre cockpit fans on this forum then your choices are even more limited in the new market. When moving on from our Bav 34 to a larger boat we narrowed down to a Jen DS or a Moody and went for the Moody for a variety of reasons eventually partly because it was perhaps more traditional in style than many others in market but within range budget wise and yet had a host of features which our Bav lacked in addition to extra space etc. That said the total numbers sold worldwide are no where near levels of the other BBJ makes mentioned of course so many out there clearly like the new look as evidenced by other posts here but ultimately its all down to usage really .


I did say "average". Most hire cars are used for short trips; some are thrashed for hundreds of miles in a day. In your case, 115 nm per week (assuming one week per year) isn't that far from my suggested average of 60 nm per week.

 

[ashtead]

We thought that the nicest on display was the Jeanneau 31.9 at £88k.

The Hanse and Dehler both had switch panels and radios covered by a top hinged door that had to be left open and sticking out in order to use the switches or radio. One had a metal edge specially designed to take your eye out in a seaway. What a stupid design.

I would have thought the Hanse would have a radio at the helm but yes its a feature of the design which annoys - our switches while the panel is much the same are behind cupboard doors but at least the doors can be pushed back in (or shut of course)

 

[RupertW]

yep, I think about sums it up. But I didn't realise that, being new to the game and all that.

I think that's a myth and wishful thinking by owners of old style boats. In practice awbs have a far harder life in their early years and are required by the charter companies to be built to withstand the kind of abuse that even liveaboards won't give them, let alone working private owners.

The kind of maintenance charter companies do is all about basic replacement and cleaning of the domestic and engine systems - they don't have the skill and wouldn't have the patience to maintain the fabric of the boat so require that to be functional and able to cope with heavy use.

Then later in an AWB life they go on to private hands and many cross the warmer oceans with everything that can be thrown at them. So I can definitely see the advantage in a heavy conservative boat for crossing the higher latitude oceans although I wouldn't put many UK MABs in that category, but for Channel, Med, Atlantic and Pacific you will meet a lot of happy contented owners in boats which are a pleasure to live on and look after them in horrible conditions too.

[Edit - I am of course an AWB ex charter boat owner having owned MABs before so can fairly be accused of self rationalising my decision but am still very happy with the way the boat has stood up to hard but not mid ocean conditions so far]

 

[[70521]]

Suggest you look at the large numbers of these boats you don't seem to like that are used for long distance passage making. The entry list of the ARC will give you a flavour. The people who sail these boats for example like the many Australians who buy a new boat, keep it in the Med for a couple of years and then sail it home, just go about the job without any fuss. Supporters of the old style seem to spend more time justifying why they own old boats and saying how awful new boats are.

You will find many of buyers of new boats (like some on this thread) have owned older boats - not surprisingly as most are very experienced and have been sailing a long time - and know exactly what they are buying and why they think newer boats are "better". More importantly they have direct experience of both!

If any of them make it up to the West of Scotland, I'll have a look. Perhaps they are all too busy coasting down the tradewinds for three weeks.

Well said JumbleDuck. I wonder what the living space would be like on a tour of the western or northern isles?

As others have said they are built for the Mediterranean market, with some of them being sailed to Australia. Some are used for trips like the ARC, but as JumbleDuck said that is a three week ride on the trade winds.

I still consider the build quality as low. While I understand modern "bag and vacuum" production techniques, and visited yards to see the process in action, even more geekly followed the maths behind the strength/weigh ratios of the hull and the business case for moving to that way of production; the fact I can push the hull and it moves does not fill me with confidence. From what I've seen interior finish is appalling, OK I maybe bias as my BiL is a joiner who specialists in the quality market, but even I can see that its been built to a price.