"Starter" boats?

[maby]

I've a mate whose first (and only) boat is a 39 footer with huge topsides. He can't go out unless he can organise crew.

I go out in my 24 footer a lot more than he does, 'cos I dont need anyone else, and take great delight in having a boat that cost less than a decent second hand car - to buy and to run.

While I'd like a bit more space, I appreciate the fact that when things go a bit wobbly bits up, a shove or a heave usually brings thing back to where I want them. Mate's boat just shoves back.

Oh, don't get me wrong - you can have a lot of fun in a small boat and it is the right choice for many people. For most people, the correct starter boat is something under 30 feet, but there will be people who know from the outset that they want to live aboard and will need the extra space. My point is that the supposed difficulty of handling relatively large boats can be a bit of a myth. We've gone from a 27 foot "starter boat" through a 33 footer to the current 43 footer in the space of less than five years. The 43 footer has exactly the same number of sails and the same number of ropes as the 27.

OK - everything is heavier, but the winches are bigger and electric, so the weight really does not matter. I've not tried single handing it yet, but I suspect that it would be no more difficult than the 27. It's so much heavier that when you stop it, it takes a long time to start movig again - ok, it would be be a lot further from the helm to the midships to get a line on, but the little 27 could have drifted a long way in the time it took me to get forward - the 43 will just sit there.

I'm glad we learned on the 27 but, in retrospect, the 33 was a mistake. we already knew we were going to want something up in the 40 foot range and we ended up only keeping the 33 for just over a year, losing quite a lot of money in the process.