Sailing Yacht brand ranking

dancrane said:
Ah! Fair enough. In fact, your fears would almost certainly be proven right...

...but surely the other edge of that axe is that the bigger, faster boat is likely to be dramatically less pleasant to spend time aboard even when sailing, during typical UK weather?

Hence once again...does the purity of the sailing experience (at its occasional best) take all precedence over virtually-guaranteed comfort, even in the typical British low-season?

I love my Osprey's fine sailing ability, but if I were splashing out on a cabin-boat to spend extended periods aboard, performance would drop far down my list of priorities...

...I'd advise the OP to judge his ideal boat in terms of how determined he is to have the purest sailing experience, versus how comfortable he wants himself and his crew to feel.

Has the OP gone, I wonder? He was definitely a 'new fish', and might have asked his interesting but potentially divisive question, just for the dubious fun of reading the squabbles. :suspicion:
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The OP's original question crops up from time to time here as prospective boat owners come on these forums and ask about boat brands, often couched in terms of the percieved quality of car manufacturers.

What people want from thier boats cover a very diverse range of requirements so a motor/sailor may well be idea of some but from my own perspective I think I would find such a boat rather dull and thankfully the days when I have been on passage in truely dire conditions has been very small. As a rule if the weather forecast is really that bad I will do something else with the weekend. However despite the poor start to last year's season I still managed over 2,200 miles under the keel while being limited to weekends and the normal holiday allowance.
 
Dockhead said:
This logic would apply well to buying a car, but a cruising sailboat is a very different proposition.

A cruising sailboat is not an appliance like a car, which you drive off the dealer's lot and drive for five or six years without doing much but putting in petrol and oil, then sell on when it starts to look a bit tired and the first things start to go wrong. A cruising sailboat is more like a house -- a very complex house, or maybe an office building. It is a collection of different systems, each with its own usable life measured in years or hours of use or both, each with its own predeliction to failure or problems. Unlike the case with a car, a yacht is almost never delivered with everything working perfectly -- snagging and incremental improvements go on for up to a year. If you're lucky, you've got it just about right after a year, but by that time depreciation starts to set in, and the snagging list morphs smoothly into the "to fix or upgrade" list, which every yacht has.

So you should not expect "little repairs or maintenance"; a cruising sailboat is a very maintenance-intensive device, like a very complex house. 8 to 10 years is actually just about the worst age, because a number of major systems can just about last that long but are nearing the ends of their useful lives -- don't ask me how I know this! :) The best age is a year old, or maybe two, or on the other hand, more than 10 years but after a major refit (the cost of which is never recovered by the owner) or bought from an owner who always stayed on top of maintenance, repairs, and replacements. To say it another way -- a 15 year old boat just after a really good refit is generally going to be a much better value proposition than an 8 year old boat whose major systems are mostly still original. I would pay more, actually, but in reality, the price is usually less.

Most yachts have extensive tool kits on board with a full set of power tools; it's not uncommon to find bench vices and drill presses on board, plus large inventories of spares and materials. You would not find such on a car! That's because there's always something to fix, and there is always a list of things to do which you never reach the bottom of (you will learn that you do well to merely keep it from getting longer -- eliminating items as fast as new ones appear). "Refit" is what happens when the list gradually becomes untenable and you just want to make a big push to reset it. Then, after your refit, you end up with a snagging list, and the whole process starts over again :)

I'm just saying this to prepare you for yacht ownership to NOT be like car ownership. You don't have to do it all yourself, but you do need to be ready to fix the odd problem, especially at sea where you can't just call in an engineer. And you do need to be prepared to spend a fair amount of money every year keeping The List under control.

And when you choose a boat, you should be trying to understand where in their useful lives are all the main systems. This is the main thing to concentrate on, not age or mileage like with a car. A boat's hull will last practically forever, but the hull is just the thing to which all the thousands of other bits are mounted, bits which wear out and have to be repaired and replaced constantly.

Good luck!
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Very well put ... I agree with every word.
 
As others have pointed out, pick the style and layout of boat you like. Then check out the builders that make them

Picking brands is a poor second. For a start most yachtsmen probably can't distinguish one modern boat from another. Even after going on board.

Secondly quality of construction is such a slippy thing to get hold of. There are very, very expensive boats that still use balsa in the layup, I would not touch that with a barge pole; yet the quality of their systems and equipment is generally first rate. Some, oft derided, mass produced boats seem excellent design solutions to me, and you could argue that the only thing that sets some expensive yachts apart is the quality of their internal fit.

On the other matter. The great thing about many aft cockpit boats is their flexibility. There is commonly room aft for a full crew, if you race. The cockpit is protected for windward work, which they generally excel at. You can lay out in the sun, when it happens happily protected from the breeze behind your sprayhood. The lighter boat with it's tiller encourages you to go out for the pleasure of it - day sailing or cruising. A lot of sailors come form the sporting end of the spectrum and being out in the fresh air is part of the game they would never want to be without.

The deck saloon is a commendable thing in itself but less of an all rounder, in my view.
 
doug748 said:
Secondly quality of construction is such a slippy thing to get hold of. There are very, very expensive boats that still use balsa in the layup, I would not touch that with a barge pole; yet the quality of their systems and equipment is generally first rate. Some, oft derided, mass produced boats seem excellent design solutions to me, and you could argue that the only thing that sets some expensive yachts apart is the quality of their internal fit.
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There are interplays between quality of design and quality of construction to consider, too. 1970s and 1980s Westelies were very solidly, and in that sense, "well" built, but they had to be because the design process wasn't very sophisticated or in some cases very good. If you weren't sure you slapped on a bit more GRP and crossed your fingers.

A modern Bavaria, by contrast, will be much more lightly (worse?) built, but the design will have gone through very detailed stress analysis and the layup is just where it's needed so the overall structure is much better.
 
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doug748 said:
Secondly quality of construction is such a slippy thing to get hold of. There are very, very expensive boats that still use balsa in the layup, I would not touch that with a barge pole; yet the quality of their systems and equipment is generally first rate. Some, oft derided, mass produced boats seem excellent design solutions to me, and you could argue that the only thing that sets some expensive yachts apart is the quality of their internal fit.
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Another good point. Also it is now fairly well accepted that if you are building a quality GRP hull you should use entirely isopthalic or vinylester resins, yet most builders still only use these for the outer layup, not the whole hull. Penny-pinching where it is not visible, unlike lovely teak joinery and laid decks.

Personally I am not a fan of balsa cores anywhere, and prefer no cores at all in the hull itself, though synthetic cores in the deck moulding make sense. Nor do I like teak decks much, having owned an older boat with one. Saildrives are another idea that have more cost benefits for the builder than the user - yet many "quality" boats now use them.
 
jwilson said:
Another good point. Also it is now fairly well accepted that if you are building a quality GRP hull you should use entirely isopthalic or vinylester resins, yet most builders still only use these for the outer layup, not the whole hull. Penny-pinching where it is not visible, unlike lovely teak joinery and laid decks.

Personally I am not a fan of balsa cores anywhere, and prefer no cores at all in the hull itself, though synthetic cores in the deck moulding make sense. Nor do I like teak decks much, having owned an older boat with one. Saildrives are another idea that have more cost benefits for the builder than the user - yet many "quality" boats now use them.
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Oh, I'm not about that. Foam cores add significant stiffness in the topsides.
 
Sail Yacht brand ranking

It's like anything in life that works out ''balance'', how good you are at finding a yacht with the right balance of strong construction but not to heavy,
good performance but not too uncomfortable, well bespoked yacht but not for the reasons of having problems, not too new but still a modern displayment yacht that will hold it's value, not too expensive but still a poplular brand, not too small that it feels like a caravan on sea & makes your wife and kids so seasick it becomes your hobby alone but not too big that you can't short hand, etc, etc. I viewed yachts for sale actively for the last 13 months before settling on a 2006 Hanse 46 travelled all over Europe and found the UK market had the best looked after second hand yachts, least sun exposed, best maintained by quality workmanship, most loved and maintanance funded. The best quality and spec'd up yacht I saw was a Hanse 531 with Waterside boat sales in Port Solent - that yacht was virtualy brand new had been refit with no expense spared from top to bottem and had a brand new hull spray plus was all spec'd out watermaker, generator, osmotech installed bowthruster by sidepower new sails ORC rated and MCA coded the works, like a radio that had been stripped and rebuilt to new spec - was our first choice but was unfortunitly was just outside our price range so we 'balanced' with a smaller cheaper model that won't be as comfortable for the family in the carribean but more than adequite for the Solent.
 
Thanks very interesting points.
It has been interesting to follow the replies to my original question. I can't say I'm any wiser except as some of you say, it seems brand loyalty exists within motor boating but less so in sailing.

To answer some of you, as said, I have been boating since I was born and spent every summer of my first 15 or so yrs on a Nauticat 44 (first ever built of that model), today I own a Fairline T34. I also recently got my sailing tidal Day Skipper as I want to charter bare boat yachts to try out a few sailing yachts as I have finally convinced my wife sailing is not boring:) she hates golf by the way.. So NO I'm not new to boating as some of you keep saying in your replies, I'm just trying to figure out what to change my Fairline Targa 34 too and so far not really figured that one out..
Hanse seems ok but some of you say it is of poor quality, I don't like French builds so leaves me very little choice for 120k, maybe I need to up my budget to get something nice and of course need to sell my Fairline as well

boatman2014 said:
It's like anything in life that works out ''balance'', how good you are at finding a yacht with the right balance of strong construction but not to heavy,
good performance but not too uncomfortable, well bespoked yacht but not for the reasons of having problems, not too new but still a modern displayment yacht that will hold it's value, not too expensive but still a poplular brand, not too small that it feels like a caravan on sea & makes your wife and kids so seasick it becomes your hobby alone but not too big that you can't short hand, etc, etc. I viewed yachts for sale actively for the last 13 months before settling on a 2006 Hanse 46 travelled all over Europe and found the UK market had the best looked after second hand yachts, least sun exposed, best maintained by quality workmanship, most loved and maintanance funded. The best quality and spec'd up yacht I saw was a Hanse 531 with Waterside boat sales in Port Solent - that yacht was virtualy brand new had been refit with no expense spared from top to bottem and had a brand new hull spray plus was all spec'd out watermaker, generator, osmotech installed bowthruster by sidepower new sails ORC rated and MCA coded the works, like a radio that had been stripped and rebuilt to new spec - was our first choice but was unfortunitly was just outside our price range so we 'balanced' with a smaller cheaper model that won't be as comfortable for the family in the carribean but more than adequite for the Solent.
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Have you thought about catamarans? Nice combination of performance, shallow draft, roomy accommodation (especially on bigger ones as you edge over £100,000)...

...and much of what the average motor-boater might find irritating about the lines and compromises of a sailing boat, are entertainingly different on a cat.
 
yacht said:
.... I don't like French builds so leaves me very little choice for 120k....
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With that single statement you have just dismissed a very substantial number of yachts of varying ages/designs/levels of quality. Are you really saying you can't find any French boat that you like? There are a lot of them. Ok, so your typical Beneteau may not have the same build quality as one of the Scandinavian brands, but your 120k was never going to buy much in that segment of the market.

If French boats are out, do you also intend to exclude certain German brands too (i.e. Bavaria)?

... and just to pick up on some of the comments by Boatman 2014, I don't think you can take the quality of a 50+ footer as representative of the quality across a whole brand's range. Probably fine to do so with the "quality" brands, but I doubt a sub-40 footer from one of the volume brands is built to the same quality as their flagship model.
 
Valid point by Angele, I agree with that synopsis, 50+ another level of quality all round. Worth the extra £20K or so uplift to break into if you've got it!
 
boatman2014 said:
Valid point by Angele, I agree with that synopsis, 50+ another level of quality all round. Worth the extra £20K or so uplift to break into if you've got it!
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If you are talking about the difference between a 40 footer and a 50 footer, I think you'll find it is a tad more than £20k.....

I'm quite happy with my 40 footer. Plenty of room for me and my crew. Actually, more than adequate. If I ever do buy another boat I may go down the size range, but possibly look to the Scandinavian brands.
 
OP-If you have some leaning towards Hanse boats, but swayed by possible build level/quality comments, you might look at the new Hanse Moody range of boats. Not really linked to the old Moody marque of course, but are designed by Bill Dixon, who did all of the Moodys since the mid 80s to cessn in 05 and a really creative designer. The marque in Hanse's hands is aimed at a lower production volume higher quality build and fitting out. Not very taken by the patio-door monohull Cat DS45, but do like the 41 Classic and had a good look at one of those at the Soton Boat Show last year and genuinely seemed a good quality boat. New would be well outside the quoted £120K budget, but some of the early ones might be reaching down now toward that level on s/h market, or in the next few seasons.
 
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Yes, I was really impressed with the Moody 41 Classic. Nicely screwed together, not trying to fit too much into the space, and very "old money" feel.

Definitely worth a look.
 
RobBrown said:
New would be well outside the quoted £120K budget, but some of the early ones might be reaching down now toward that level on s/h market, or in the next few seasons.
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There are none currently for sale on Yachtworld - and it is difficult to imagine a boat that cost new well over £300k falling to £120k in the near future. Anyway the OP is looking for a 40' boat!
 
Bobc said:
Yes, I was really impressed with the Moody 41 Classic. Nicely screwed together, not trying to fit too much into the space, and very "old money" feel.

Definitely worth a look.
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I agree with the "old money" feel. For a production boat from the boating equivalent of Ikea (i.e. Hanse) it does seem pretty good.
 
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