Trial sail - when selling a boat

[Seajet]

It did show a certain lack of homework by your chums though as there is plenty of data and reviews which could have warned them !

That said, some chums of mine, both experienced sailors but maybe a touch rose-tinted romantic about it - they'd had a Shrimper whch I think explains a lot - bought a late model, ocean equipped Heavenly Twins, a fantastic boat for exploring the Pacific, very slowly indeed.

Snag was, they wanted something for sprinting around the Solent port to port, the phrase ' screwdriver to bang in a nail ' springs to mind, and of course within the season they'd sold her...

 

[thinwater]

In the process of buying my next boat, offer accepted subject to survey. No trial sail, similar to my other two boat purchases. I can see how she handles from a couple of reviews and speaking to people who have actually sailed the same model. I personally think that is better than taking it out for an hour or two in almost certainly one type of weather (be it windy or flat calm) although it is horses for courses and if people want to and the owner is willing, fine.
Can also see the point of a trail sail in an unusual boat or rare boat. But the large majority of AWB's handle pretty much as expected from the reports on the boat.

Gump (sorry)

I've done 3 test sail/sea trials. In each case I was ready to reject the boat and had made certain the contract allowed me to. In all three cases I specified 20-25 knots on open water. I bought all three, no tire kicker here. But I would have felt that any seller who lacked the confidence in his boat to accept those conditions in the contract didn't want to sell the boat to me. He can sell it to someone else. If all boats are the same, I can easily buy a different one, so there is no reason to accept a poor contract.

The way I see it, the buyer is going to be out the cost of the survey, so there is no fooling around. Would you buy a house from the floor plan and plat if the house were already built. Perhaps you would, but you would be lazy not negotiate the option.

 

[Garold]

Personally if I had never sailed a catamaran before I would have probably charted one for a week to see if it was suitable to what I wanted

She was pretty sure that it wasn't suitable after about half an hour! No need for a whole week of torture.

G

 

[Garold]

It did show a certain lack of homework by your chums though as there is plenty of data and reviews which could have warned them !
.

Describing the motion of a boat is difficult even for the greatest wordsmith. And then it's somewhat subjective too, so perhaps a review by a magazine or another owner could fall short of the requirement.

I was just trying to illustrate that a test sail can be useful to buyers sometimes.