Sail or Motor?

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paddy01

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This one could go either way so felt this might be the best section for it :)

I am looking at buying a boat but find myself going back and forth on sail or power.

I have a background (although no formal qualification) in sailing and other wind sports, and would view myself as competent for inshore waters in either power or sail.

My basic requirements whether power or sail are:

1. Comfortable for 2 adults and 1 or 2 children for day sailing. No overnight required.
2. Must be towable and launchable using a regular (think Ford Focus) family hatchback.
3. If sail then facility for a get you home outboard if the wind dies.

The reason for my indecision is that my heart says sail, particularly as my son (10) has recently learned the rudiments with his school, however my head says we'd likely get more actual use from power. By that I mean we could go further on a 'day' basis with power versus sail + small outboard.

A typical day on the water in either case would be leave and return from home, heading off and anchoring or beaching for picnic and then return. Therefore some useful storage space needed.

Boats on my mind are:

Sail
- Laser 16
- Hawk 20
- Mk2 Wayfarer

Power
Rib or otherwise in the 5 to 6M range with outboard. Thinking day boat rather than cuddy style and the cuddy for day sailing would be largely a waste of useable space.

Budget wise at this point anywhere from £5k to £10k

Anyone else tackling this quandary and fancy sharing how you dealt with it?

Cheers
 
An interesting dilemma, @paddy01.

My sea time started in the 80s/90s with a 5.6m rib. It was a club diving platform and I towed it regularly and anywhere from the SW, Wales, Northumberland, East coast Scotland and The Clyde. By mid 90s I’d taken a liking to sailing and after a few inland dinghies I bought an 18ft trailer-sailer. I’ve since never looked back ?

Of your list, I quite like the Hawk 20 but doubtless others will be along soon with differing opinions and other suggestions.

Whichever you choose, I’d be sure to get full buy-in from your family. When looking at boats, I do believe that first impressions and your intuition are important.
 
Interesting question.

Are you packing the boat up at the end of every day and taking it home or to storage?
If so then rigging and derigging a yacht including securing everything for the road probably makes it all a bit too much trouble especially if you aren't that sold on sailing in the first place.

A rib or similar offers the possibility of inflatable toys as well and better for a bit of fishing as well, all good boys activities.

Another vote for the Hawk though if that way inclined, certainly don't go bigger than that. I have a 22 foot yacht on a trailer and a friend has a 17 foot and the difference in rigging time is considerable. I wouldn't consider day sailing mine. Even when we take his out it's for a weekend.

A Hawk all up on its trailer is about 1200kg which is quite alot and probably near the limit for a Focus.

Get the rib and join a sailing club if you want to go sailing.
This looks a right laugh:
Rib Boat Avon SR 5.4m Twin Honda 50hp outboard | eBay
 
paddy01 said:
This one could go either way so felt this might be the best section for it :)

I am looking at buying a boat but find myself going back and forth on sail or power.

I have a background (although no formal qualification) in sailing and other wind sports, and would view myself as competent for inshore waters in either power or sail.

My basic requirements whether power or sail are:

1. Comfortable for 2 adults and 1 or 2 children for day sailing. No overnight required.
2. Must be towable and launchable using a regular (think Ford Focus) family hatchback.
3. If sail then facility for a get you home outboard if the wind dies.

The reason for my indecision is that my heart says sail, particularly as my son (10) has recently learned the rudiments with his school, however my head says we'd likely get more actual use from power. By that I mean we could go further on a 'day' basis with power versus sail + small outboard.

A typical day on the water in either case would be leave and return from home, heading off and anchoring or beaching for picnic and then return. Therefore some useful storage space needed.

Boats on my mind are:

Sail
- Laser 16
- Hawk 20
- Mk2 Wayfarer

Power
Rib or otherwise in the 5 to 6M range with outboard. Thinking day boat rather than cuddy style and the cuddy for day sailing would be largely a waste of useable space.

Budget wise at this point anywhere from £5k to £10k

Anyone else tackling this quandary and fancy sharing how you dealt with it?

No quandary for me: Wayfarer every time. You can sail, motor, fish, cruise, race, and trail it behind the Focus. It's much more stable than a Laser 16 but still a lively sailer and goes well with a 2 to 3 HP outboard on very little petrol. Still, to each his own :)
Click to expand...
 
No quandary for me: Wayfarer every time. You can sail, motor, fish, cruise, race, and trail it behind the Focus. It's much more stable than a Laser 16 but still a lively sailer and goes well with a 2 to 3 HP outboard on very little petrol. Still, to each his own :)
 
Thanks for the replies, useful food for thought.

I must admit top of my list for sail would be the Hawk 20, however as highlighted this would be pushing the limits of what is viable to tow/rig and day sail.

Options would be if I went larger either power or sail then to be kept on (likely) drying mooring on the Exe during the summer and stored privately during winter. Although also viable if larger then for a weekend could be launched on a Friday and kept on a marina visitor berth for a weekend.

I'm beginning to think the the actual answer might be, have both :)

Wayfarer for sail which can be reasonably towed / rigged for a day sail, or kept at local sailing club plus a slightly smaller 4 - 5m rib for benign days when we might just want to zip along the coast to a bay (Oddicombe bay being one of my favourite spots), drop the hook and relax or play with towables, paddle boards etc.

Wayfarer (mk2) also seem plentiful and of course a good deal cheaper and easy to move on if we did want to go bigger later. Cost/money not a primary factor though.

I also take the point about making sure the family are 'aboard' with this idea.

Again, thanks for the replies so far and by all means keep them coming, I value all shades of opinion.
 
ridgy said:
A Hawk all up on its trailer is about 1200kg which is quite alot and probably near the limit for a Focus.
Click to expand...
I think this is going to be the limiting factor - most Focus Estates seem to have a 1200kg limit.

Your heart seems to be saying sail, but your head says motor, and motor is certainly more practical, but likely to cost a good bit more to run. Since boating is never a sensible thing to do anyway, I'd follow my heart
 
I personally would not take my family on the sea with a sailing boat that was not self righting. Apart from the obvious safety aspect it also avoids the need for wetsuits.

A cabin is desirable if only for somewhere to put a porta potti. I'm sure your wife would agree and gives a bit more shelter, you get very wet very quickly on a dinghy in any sort of waves. Which is fun for an hour but children get cold very quickly, or mine do anyway.

While you may not plan to sleep on it now, actually its a great little adventure to go out and anchor up somewhere for just 1 night when the kids are that age. Kids go inside you sleep in the cockpit with a tarp over the boom.
Basically camping. Your wife can have a girls night out.

There you go now you need 3 boats, the rib, the small cruiser, and maybe a Laser 2000 for a bit of racing and high speed fun.

Where do you mainly plan to do this boating?
 
ridgy said:
A cabin is desirable if only for somewhere to put a porta potti. I'm sure your wife would agree and gives a bit more shelter, you get very wet very quickly on a dinghy in any sort of waves. Which is fun for an hour but children get cold very quickly, or mine do anyway.
Click to expand...
Very true, but will the OP find something suitable within his car's weight limit?

If the OP is thinking of leaving the boat on a mooring, it would open up a whole range of small cruisers and a bilge keeler would be fine on most drying moorings. Some friends have a 24 footer that came with a trailer. It's far too heavy to tow with their car, but they hire something adequate to bring the boat home at the end of the season, and at that size, one could find a separate head, which the lady of the house is likely to appreciate, and proper cooking facilities, which she might not...
 
Is there a local club with a class sailing dinghy racing and the apri making friends etc could be good for your kids not too far in the future,and or course you don’t have to race unless it’s one of those modern boats like a Fireball?
 
Don’t forget that when you have launched your boat you have to find somewhere to park your car and trailer, you need to establish that there is a useable slip or easy access to the water if intending to launch anything larger than a small dinghy.
If you are looking for something more substantial than a Wayfarer or similar, look at a Leisure 17 for towing around, it would be below the maximum towing weight of a Focus, it doesn’t take too long to set the mast and as long as there is a decent slip they are not too difficult to launch. We used to tow a 17 behind a Mk1 Cortina.
 
My RIB is 6m and, on it’s trailer, it’s huge, and heavy. Similar to that Avon. I tow with s 3 litre diesel Quattro, you couldn’t tow it with a Focus. The 4-5 metre size will be the biggest you can manage. The engines ate 200kg alone, and the trailer is about 500.
 
There were a bunch of Cornish Shrimpers in our marina a few weeks ago. Lovely boats. The crew slept on board with a boom tent. I'd love one of those and so would your boy I expect.
 
CapPugwash said:
There were a bunch of Cornish Shrimpers in our marina a few weeks ago. Lovely boats. The crew slept on board with a boom tent. I'd love one of those and so would your boy I expect.
Click to expand...

Good luck finding one for 5-10k though. And they're more SUV towing than Ford Focus.
 
Firstly thanks again for the input, all useful.

Bit of additional background information to answer some of the questions raised.

Main area of sailing would be Exe estuary and surrounding coastline. There are available all state of tide launching facilities and trailer parking options.

My own sailing background is dinghy racing (mumble mumble a couple of decades ago mumble) - Cadets, Mirror, National 12, Scorpion, Enterprise and others.

Latterly windsurfing and kitesurfing in more recent years. Dinghy racing was mostly through Exe sailing club.

Have done a small amount of cruiser sailing as crew and have also done the occasional powerboat trip along the Jurassic coast.

I think the conclusion I'm beginning to arrive at is, just buy a Mk2 Wayfarer (with outboard) and get on the water with the family. Which was my initial instinct before the what if's and man maths got in the way :)

Assuming the family (this is not meant to become a solo venture) take to it then I can easily look at something bigger later to be kept on a mooring and keep the Wayfarer anyway.

Cheers
 
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