The dark side - The pull is strong

Well our rather well known American sailing / sports boat thingymajig is very popular with many but probably not what the O.P's thinking of. (And maybe save us from drifting into a slanging of that particular brand of boat)

One thing is for certain, if you have a fair amount of cash in your pocket you are spoilt for choice for the different blends of boat that you can pick.

If sailing is your bag but you don't like the heeling malarkey and prefer a bit of beam then some of the modern catamarans do look pretty appealing and i've heard many don't need to be sailed too far off the wind either. Not to mention can hitch up their skirts and run at a fair pace too.

Maybe worth considering for a MOBO fan.


Oops, sorry no offence intended :o

Don't think I fancy a multihull though.
 
Don't you mean Red Dwarf Bay? ;)

Red Dwarf Bay
No don't start me on about that one!
So
Yer fancy's a raggy maybe sometime perhaps in the future, later on a bit!
Nowt wrong with that
Havn't read all the replies (lifes to short):rolleyes: but here's me thoughts anyway.
OK, You guys have come a long way in your relatively short boating career.
Mastered the Strait, circumsised Anglsey etc.
Had a few goes on various vessels, which is good.
Experienced planing, semi planing an displacement mobos an some youghurt driving
Oops sorry , sailing:)
All good stuff.
So now its IOM or Ireland an stuff like that, I reckon.
To see how long it takes etc etc.
You have seen how the weather etc knackers the best made plans.
Even with your current very seaworthy mobo it is difficult sometimes to go too far, even spending a week or so down the marina , its a bit restricting sometimes to get much further than the Menai Cut (as L Ship calls it) imagine how much more restriciting it could be in a Flappy thing!
I too look at saily whatsits from time to time.
In fact I had old lifeboat gadgett once with a ketch rig.
Oh yeh, it taught me all about tides an stuff
But we never seemed to go anywhere!:rolleyes:

One day---- yep, one day-- I might consider a Fisher 37 etc etc
Lottery No.s an all that
Me bro had a partneship in one, kept in Lake Ontario the barsteward.
Now that is/was a fine Ship
But
He never used His 'bit' in it cos He was always working
Thats the prob with slow boats if you are still working full time
By the time yer sets sail and gets it all right and the winds , de blah de blah its time to come back!!:D

Then there is the friggin in the riggin , which fer some is 'the thing' tweekin an stuff.

It's deffo a hourses for courses thing/ debate
ME
Aint had enough of mobos yet
Just like the fact that a mobo can go through places like the Swellies any time virtually and go this way and that at a whim kinda.
Yep, I can se the attraction of going with the wind and the tranquility an the skill an all that but I want the scenery to change regularly.
OK Philiz
Lets say you were retired an fit an lots of dosh

Would the World be Your Oyster in an Oyster
Or would you Go down the Nelson type route like Ian Grant has?
I know what I would do!!
Oh Ian
Not saying your retired or have won the lottery by the way
Hope You are keeping fit though?
Spose you are with all the visits to all corners of yer mobo checking sytems/ engines etc etc etc etc:D
 
Yer talking sense, sort of, but the weather seems to stop us going out more than it stops the raggies. And when we go off somewhere and Tom or James are coming along, yes we get there well before them, but they're never all that far behind.
Who knows what we'll do in the future, I'm fancing a raggie in 3 years or so, when we have a little more experience under our belts, but it doesn't mean there wont be a little RIB tucked away somewhere for when I feel the need for speed ;)
 
Although I'm a dyed in the wool moboer, I have sailed in friends' yachts on a few occasions and I hated it for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I've never been seasick on a mobo but the motion of a yacht induces seasickness in me, especially if I go below. The idea of enduring a 15hr cross channel trip wedged in the cockpit due to seasickness doesn't exactly fill me with excitement. Second, constantly having to brace yourself in a world which is leaning at 30deg from the horizontal is a complete pain, especially if you need to take a leak; it's no wonder yacht heads always stink. Thirdly and worst of all, it just takes forever to get anywhere. After hours of being seasick, getting cold and complete boredom. you finally spy land. One hour later, it seems just as far away which I find deeply depressing.
Then there are other issues like the lack of comfy cockpit seats, lack of deckspace for loafing because its all taken up with bits of string and wire and, as already mentioned, the coalhole interiors. IMHO, if you've got the yen to go slower, there's a solution. Just back off the throttles on your mobo and if you can't stand the noise, wear earplugs. Most pleasure yachts spend 95% of their time on passage under motor so what's the difference?

What a brilliant description of sailing in the UK.
Luckily I tend not to get seasick, but I've certainly felt the need to come up into the cockpit for some "air" after long spells hunched over the nav. table down below.
 
What a fascinating and eminently sensible thread.

Having done some mobo, and a lot of raggie, I can agree with most of the opinions.

I had a 'Eureka' moment however a few years ago when I was caused to go on a catamaran raggie. An old one, nothing special. It converted me in one day. I now own it, it has the pleasures of sailing, far better than I did before. I have the pleasures of motoring, not fast, but as well or better than most comparable displacement boats. I'm warm dry comfortable and on the level.

I used to mock the things in the past!

Good luck to all of you!

Mike
 
Yer talking sense, sort of, but the weather seems to stop us going out more than it stops the raggies. And when we go off somewhere and Tom or James are coming along, yes we get there well before them, but they're never all that far behind.
Who knows what we'll do in the future, I'm fancing a raggie in 3 years or so, when we have a little more experience under our belts, but it doesn't mean there wont be a little RIB tucked away somewhere for when I feel the need for speed ;)

Mobos are not all about speed, you can go as slow as you want to. Best thing though is. Yer not living in a coffin. Dont believe you cant go out when raggies can. May be you dont want to. But thats different.

MF cruises all year round, dont think many raggies do.

When we were at the brick works tuther day. I thort of zooming off to IOM, only take about two hours. Debs said no, cos of mucky bottom. We were only making 18 knots.:eek: Cant do that with a raggie.

Cant make cups of tea and bacon butties at 20 knots in a raggie. Dun it loads of times in a mobo, ok 8 knots some times. Thing is, when ever you set off, yer always there by tea time.
 
Not quite sure about this 'living in a coffin' bit - do you mean that we have to go 'down' into the boat? Or don't have massive windows all around? if so - fair comment! ;)

Many Raggies are in the water all year round - had some good sails over winter ... bit chilly sailing though and days are shorter - so are the trips.

Yer - zooming off somewhere at 18 knots .. would be nice .. can't do that with a monohull - a trimaran is more the thing for that - but then they have the same problem as many mobos - once a sea gets up they slow down ....

Can't make cups of tea and bacon butties at 20 knots in a raggie? You can ... but you're likely to be singlehanded in the southern ocean on an Open 60 ... now they're mad! ;) You can, of course, make tea, bacon sarnies and roast a chicken whilst sailing ...

Sailing isn't always about sailing - you can use the engine you know ... of course, it means you have to put up with that awful drone!! :D
 
I think that's part of the problem Haydn, it's just all too easy. No thinking required. As Kwaka said "blast thro the Swellies at any time - go on a whim" - fine, but there is no real sense of achievement in that.

But plan a passage around the weather, the tide gates & a 12 hour passage duration. Then, when you arrive at the IoM, you really feel on top of the world. It isn't just a case of opening the throttles, any idiot can do that, you have utilised the power of nature, you have solved a handful of complex problems & done something that feels worthwhile. I just can't see that level of satisfaction in driving a MoBo.

Philliz, one of the reasons why raggies are more tolerant of rough conditions is that they don't need to plane, another is that the wind in the sails provides an enormous amount of stability, you bob up & down, but hardly roll at all & rolling is the sea sickness killer. OK, it may mean you are at 20deg to the vertical but that's no big deal. Incidentally, anyone cruising at 30deg to vert has left reefing too late. In the same conditions, a MoBo may be restricted to displacement speed anyway & rolling like a pig.
 
I think that's part of the problem Haydn, it's just all too easy. No thinking required.

You haven't tried motorboating in a small boat in rough conditions then. Any real distance in a small mobo takes planning, and handling in rough conditions takes experience or skill or training. Do you think the lifeboats that go out in rough conditions don't need to think, or have no skill?
 
Sailing isn't always about sailing - you can use the engine you know ... of course, it means you have to put up with that awful drone!!

So it's nearly a mobo with extras then??

Think this mobo's having to slow for bad weather is a myth of olden days. I can only think of one or two times Iv'e had to slow down much, then only when right on the nose.
If really really bad, six knots, mostly 8 knots, then back to 16 0r more. Still three times as fast as a raggie.

Never had muich problem with overfalls, just blast through them. Ok theres 20 foot waves, but you can climb over them. 100 Yards and it's all over, stuff going five miles round.
 
Sailing isn't always about sailing - you can use the engine you know ... of course, it means you have to put up with that awful drone!!

So it's nearly a mobo with extras then??

Think this mobo's having to slow for bad weather is a myth of olden days. I can only think of one or two times Iv'e had to slow down much, then only when right on the nose.
If really really bad, six knots, mostly 8 knots, then back to 16 0r more. Still three times as fast as a raggie.

Never had muich problem with overfalls, just blast through them. Ok theres 20 foot waves, but you can climb over them. 100 Yards and it's all over, stuff going five miles round.

All true i'd guess, but coming from a (currently) former MOBO owner, how much has that trip just cost you in fuel?
 
Surely the answer for is one of these http://www.macgregor26.com/. Sail for a while and then when you get pissed off with sailing, wind her up to 20kts:)

The Macgregor 26 will be better appreciated in countries with a large land mass, as a number of retirees (referred to as 'grey nomads') with time on their hands and not too much money in the pockets, look towards them as a caravan/boat, because of their ease of towing and the cavernous interiors.

You can tow them a thousand kilometres a day on a good road, run out to the myriad of coastal off-shore islands, explore inland lakes and river systems that cover large continents, while 95 percent of keel-boaters are still trying to find crew and cursing the weather.

Lets face it, the long distance cruising thing just isn't going to happen for most, regardless of how sea-worthy the big keel-boat is, or how many times you tell yourself that.

They can be bought new from the US cheaply, a local bloke landed one here recently and fitted a new Yamaha 50 four stroke, trailer, duties etc. drive away for under $AUD50,000 (about GBP 28,000).
They are easy to ship because the beam is narrow.
 
I think that's part of the problem Haydn, it's just all too easy. No thinking required.

May be some truth in that. On the other hand. Weve visited Most of the south coast, umpteen times. France, Brittainy, CI's. Quite a few. Scilly isles three times. Birmingham once.
Ireland, I cant remember how many times, maybe about twenty. IOM I think three. Scotland maybe five times. Not counting 25 holidays on the Broads. years of sailing the National Ospray, Mostly up a mountain, but some times at sea.

Sailed a raggie a couple of times, round the Greek Isles. But the wind was always wrong, so motored there, then spent an hour with the sails, going round in circles.


If you can put up with out sleep for a day or two, If you dont mind a cold bum and hard seats for hour after hour.. If you dont mind struggling round bits of string and wire. Buy a raggie.
 
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