cyberkryten
New Member
After several years of paralysis just looking at boats (and mostly lurking on here), we finally made a decision and bought something!
We started off by looking at the 40-50ft premium boats, but as we weren’t spending millions, it meant something 10-20 years old. After looking at quite a lot, we could see ‘potential’ in some of them but realised that we’d end up spending a huge amount of money on a total refresh of the interior fabrics and covers and would also want to totally replace the entire electronics setup for something modern. That didn’t really appeal - buying a boat and then it needs a couple of months of work to get it ready, especially as we’re total novices.
So this year we switched focus to looking for something brand new with a warranty.
We went to Swanick in May for a good look around, but made sure we stayed focussed on the smaller boats - at previous shows we’ve accepted offers of hospitality at the big premium stuff and there’s nothing worse for looking at small boats than starting off on a brand new mega-yacht!
My wife’s total veto was a decent freshwater toilet - ‘bucket in a cupboard’ was most definitely not acceptable and that ruled several otherwise decent options out. We still couldn’t really decide but did have a couple of possibles. Summer came and went, with us once again going back into the loop of bigger/older and making no decisions.
We looked at some more older boats around the same price point and once again none of them really seemed right.
As a final “Let’s find something or give up” we made our way to Southampton in September and looked back around everything we’d seen earlier in the year. It was a very cold but beautifully sunny day, which really helped us decide that we wanted an enclosed, heated, helm cabin so we can use it year round (that’s the plan, at least).
With a more critical eye, we found issues with pretty much all the boats on our list - but the problem is, with no experience and no real idea of how much we’d use the boat, we struggled to decide what we actually need?! Clearly everything we looked at had compromises, nothing was perfect but we decided we’d probably use it more for day trips with occasional nights onboard, and if we wanted to stay somewhere longer we could always stay ashore (the rationale being that it was far cheaper to pay for a few nights here and there than for bigger/better cabins we’d probably hardly ever use).
Eventually, we found a stock boat, available with a deal (and help getting a berth) but still the ability to make some changes and add some additional non-standard items. After some back and forth on specs, colours etc we agreed a deal and then went on holiday for a month leaving time for the extras to be fitted and tested.
So, that’s how we ended up in Lymington two weeks ago to take ownership of “Champagne Four Two”, a new Merry Fisher 895s2 with Twin Yamaha 250s, lots of kit, a heater, inverter, radar and the amazing joystick controller. We spent a couple of hours being shown all the controls/systems which was a real learning experience - there’s a lot of stuff we had no idea about. The next two days were spent onboard our boat, with us both doing the PB2 course and we’re now on the water and ready to figure out all the stuff we don’t know and need to learn!
VHF course is booked for January, and I’ll probably get another day or two of training locally as these tide things are a bit confusing! Whilst I’m used to wind/weather planning (as someone with a PPL), I'm not used to the ground moving up and down and in different directions based on the time of day!
I guess we’ll find out over the next year or so if we made the right compromises and whether we bought the right boat - hopefully we got it mostly right!
So, new boater tips are welcome, suggestions of stuff to buy (or not buy, though we've already got safety gear, galley stuff and most importantly, some cushions!) as well as any suggestions of places to go for lunch over the next couple of months from Lymington that aren't too challenging as we figure out how everything works.
We started off by looking at the 40-50ft premium boats, but as we weren’t spending millions, it meant something 10-20 years old. After looking at quite a lot, we could see ‘potential’ in some of them but realised that we’d end up spending a huge amount of money on a total refresh of the interior fabrics and covers and would also want to totally replace the entire electronics setup for something modern. That didn’t really appeal - buying a boat and then it needs a couple of months of work to get it ready, especially as we’re total novices.
So this year we switched focus to looking for something brand new with a warranty.
We went to Swanick in May for a good look around, but made sure we stayed focussed on the smaller boats - at previous shows we’ve accepted offers of hospitality at the big premium stuff and there’s nothing worse for looking at small boats than starting off on a brand new mega-yacht!
My wife’s total veto was a decent freshwater toilet - ‘bucket in a cupboard’ was most definitely not acceptable and that ruled several otherwise decent options out. We still couldn’t really decide but did have a couple of possibles. Summer came and went, with us once again going back into the loop of bigger/older and making no decisions.
We looked at some more older boats around the same price point and once again none of them really seemed right.
As a final “Let’s find something or give up” we made our way to Southampton in September and looked back around everything we’d seen earlier in the year. It was a very cold but beautifully sunny day, which really helped us decide that we wanted an enclosed, heated, helm cabin so we can use it year round (that’s the plan, at least).
With a more critical eye, we found issues with pretty much all the boats on our list - but the problem is, with no experience and no real idea of how much we’d use the boat, we struggled to decide what we actually need?! Clearly everything we looked at had compromises, nothing was perfect but we decided we’d probably use it more for day trips with occasional nights onboard, and if we wanted to stay somewhere longer we could always stay ashore (the rationale being that it was far cheaper to pay for a few nights here and there than for bigger/better cabins we’d probably hardly ever use).
Eventually, we found a stock boat, available with a deal (and help getting a berth) but still the ability to make some changes and add some additional non-standard items. After some back and forth on specs, colours etc we agreed a deal and then went on holiday for a month leaving time for the extras to be fitted and tested.
So, that’s how we ended up in Lymington two weeks ago to take ownership of “Champagne Four Two”, a new Merry Fisher 895s2 with Twin Yamaha 250s, lots of kit, a heater, inverter, radar and the amazing joystick controller. We spent a couple of hours being shown all the controls/systems which was a real learning experience - there’s a lot of stuff we had no idea about. The next two days were spent onboard our boat, with us both doing the PB2 course and we’re now on the water and ready to figure out all the stuff we don’t know and need to learn!
VHF course is booked for January, and I’ll probably get another day or two of training locally as these tide things are a bit confusing! Whilst I’m used to wind/weather planning (as someone with a PPL), I'm not used to the ground moving up and down and in different directions based on the time of day!
I guess we’ll find out over the next year or so if we made the right compromises and whether we bought the right boat - hopefully we got it mostly right!
So, new boater tips are welcome, suggestions of stuff to buy (or not buy, though we've already got safety gear, galley stuff and most importantly, some cushions!) as well as any suggestions of places to go for lunch over the next couple of months from Lymington that aren't too challenging as we figure out how everything works.
to the windex!
