Westerly motorsailers...your impressions, please...

I have never heard of any Westerly Yacht being described as a motor sailer.
I am mystified.
A motor sailer is a power driven vessel with auxiliary sails.
They are habitually clumsy overbuilt monsrosities that are in the habit of sailing sideways.
To my knowledge Westerly never constructed or marketed such a vessel.
So what's this all about ?
 
chrisclin said:
The boat sailed very acceptably. The pilot house didn't really have any more windage than a full spray hood.
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This is an excellent point.

Personally I use this as an argument against spray hoods rather than for deck houses ! I often think that if sprayhoods and dodgers were solid grp instead of canvas, people would say 'look at the windage on that shocking motor-sailor!' I suspect only relatively modern designs are actually drawn with such things in mind.
 
Thanks for these thoughts chaps. Chris, that was just the report I hoped to hear. No surprise that your Riviera engendered so much instant interest as soon as it went up for sale. Sounds like it does so many things, so well!

VO5, were you kidding? Just Google 'Konsort Duo', then tell me the pictures you see are not of a motor-sailer...

Tranona, you really are a cynic, sir! Whatever is the forum for, if not to discuss and request information regarding the merits/problems/conclusions encountered by other sailors? I hope my analysis of everything that's available prior to making a choice, doesn't make me a troll, however good-humoured. :)
 
dancrane said:
Thanks for these thoughts chaps. Chris, that was just the report I hoped to hear. No surprise that your Riviera engendered so much instant interest as soon as it went up for sale. Sounds like it does so many things, so well!

VO5, were you kidding? Just Google 'Konsort Duo', then tell me the pictures you see are not of a motor-sailer...

Tranona, you really are a cynic, sir! Whatever is the forum for, if not to discuss and request information regarding the merits/problems/conclusions encountered by other sailors? I hope my analysis of everything that's available prior to making a choice, doesn't make me a troll, however good-humoured. :)
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Difficult to take too seriously somebody who admits to having no money, waxes lyrical about electric propulsion, wants to convert somebody else's boat to schooner rig - just a couple of your trolls that come to mind there have been many more.

Of course there is nothing wrong in it, or raising points for discussion, but it is not reality. How can one take seriously somebody who seems to have an old boat with a knackered engine that he can't afford to fix (and hates engines anyway) - but wants advice on boats with big engines likely to cost in the region of £30-50k!

So keep having your dreams and by all means try and share them if you feel the desire, but don't be surprised if folks don't take you too seriously.
 
Konsort Duo dinette...great view, but enough space?

Tranona, let's stick to the theme here. (But, just for you...

Isn't the benefit of the forum, the fact that one needn't be commited unswervingly to a single route or choice, in order to discuss its virtues and detractions? Wouldn't you recommend learning about possibilities before diving in?

"But it is not reality", you say. Damned right, it isn't! Why would I spend my little all without first getting a wide spread of opinions on what works, what different rigs/motors/approaches are possible, what new tech can do, and what may be known that I'd never even heard about except by asking questions here? "Reality" is a rocky road, so I'm looking for a smooth, interesting, original route through. I'm sure you'd say that's sensible. No?

At least half the contributors to every thread I've read, would have gladly benefited from gaining others' views on boats and systems and strategies and savings, if they'd had the information when they opened their wallets.

I'm just enjoying learning beforehand, rather than from bitter experience.) :)

NORMAL SERVICE WILL NOW CONTINUE

I found a good little thread on the Konsort Duo, on the YM forum from last year. Not for the first time, it suggested the dinette arrangement is a bit rigid and undersized. Does anyone know if it could be shifted/adjusted for more comfort?
 
JimC said:
Speaking as a Northerner I couldn't agree more. I've spent enough hours huddled behind a sprayhood in the Irish Sea or the North Channel. If one is daft enough to want to go to sea for pleasure in these latitudes then one might as well have a boat that can keep the atrocious weather out. Things may be different in the sunny Solent.
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It isn't just northern latitudes that would benefit from some proper protection.

I'm just back in northern Italy from helping a friend deliver his Gibb Sea 422 to Corfu from our marina. The weather for a good half of the trip was atrocious and, quite unintended, we ducked into a bay in Istria (we hadn't cleared into Croatia) on the first dark and stormy night with 45 knots of wind on the nose.

Without even a spray-hood waves were breaking at the bow and water was sheeting aft, thoroughly dousing the helmsman and it was cold. It was purgatory to be bucketing along exposed in those conditions.

And exposed it seemed. Climbing up the companionway one is suddenly on a seemingly dangerously open, jerking, highly mobile platform - a far cry from my own cocoon-like cockpit with its surrounding dog-house. As I commented to my friend in the peace and sanctuary of the anchorage once we had reached it, "I know it took me fifty years of different sailing boats for the light to dawn but I have just had the best confirmation of how right I was to eventually get a boat with a pilot house." "Yes," he answered, "I'm now thinking about my next boat."
 
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Thank you, Barnac1e. That's exactly the reason why wheelhouse cruisers ought to be the biggest sellers by far in northern European waters!! Of course, given that there are lamentably few of them, you may just have added £Lots to the value of any that are on sale just now!

Buying a sailboat that needs 2 meters depth at low tide, and won't dry-out upright and offers no more weather protection than a big dinghy, is surely a Mediterranean decision. Why, oh why have so many Brits bought them? (Their owners may be asking themselves the same question as they creep home, chilly and exhausted this bank-hol evening...)
 
dancrane said:
"But it is not reality", you say. Damned right, it isn't! Why would I spend my little all without first getting a wide spread of opinions on what works, what different rigs/motors/approaches are possible, what new tech can do, and what may be known that I'd never even heard about except by asking questions here? "Reality" is a rocky road, so I'm looking for a smooth, interesting, original route through. I'm sure you'd say that's sensible. No?
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You have entirely missed the point. Suggest you re-read the number of diverse posts you have made over the last few months, noting the wide variations in topics, all expressed in in apparent seriousness, then, once they have worked through (usually to a foregone conclusion) up pops a completely different subject.

Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy most of the topics you raise and contribute where I think I have something to offer (for what that is worth), but mainly to feed your interest rather than any expectaion that you have any serious intention of acting upon any of the advice you are given (by me or others).

Keep the daft ideas coming.

BTW wheelhouse options in this size range have been offered by most builders over the years, trying to capitalise on all the supposed benefits, but essentially all have failed. You might ask why? - paraphrasing Peter Poland who tried it with the Horizon 32 - everybody said they loved it, but nobody bought it. Why? they weren't prepared to pay the premium when you could get a boat of similar quality 3-4ft longer for the same price.

It is the same with interiors - we can all find fault with layouts and have plans to completely change them because we think the designers have got it wrong. In reality, designers have got it right in most cases, because they design what people want to buy. Many builders offer choices of layouts - for example there were 3 layouts for the Centaur, but only one was really popular among buyers. Of course if you are fitting out a boat yourself you can choose your own layout - but such boats are a nightmare to sell as you have to find a buyer who has the same ideas as you. The fact that your layout is not commonly available indicates that it is not a good idea - except for you!
 
Sorry, did you say something? Something about...what was it, again?

Dear me, I dropped that tired old subject AT LEAST 15 minutes ago. :D

...actually, I'm not so easily swayed from a theme, and almost all of everyone's useful input is stored between my ears, longterm. Just don't ask me to believe that our yachts' designers necessarily know what we need, better than we who spend time on board.
 
dancrane said:
Just don't ask me to believe that our yachts' designers necessarily know what we need, better than we who spend time on board.
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Are you seriously suggesting that designers, many of whom have been sailing all their lives, plus the collective wisdom of sales people and feedback from satisfied (or otherwise) customers have got it all wrong and only you know what people want?

What is it (apart from dreaming) that gives you such unique insight? Of course people may want different layouts but designers and builders produce what people want to buy, not what non-buyers dream about.

History is littered with failed products designed by people who have very fixed ideas of what is needed, but not shared by others who are buying. As I suggested earlier, by all means design your own layout, but don't expect other people to value it in the way that you do.
 
Well, I almost envy you, Tranona. Almost. It must be a fine thing, to sail aboard one or more (or all) standard-layout vessels, and feel certain that everything is just exactly as it ought to be, for proven reasons which one's rationale can confirm, moment by moment. I envy you, because I don't often feel the same way myself, and thinking differently is certainly isolating. I haven't wholly admired use of space aboard any 'average' boat I've encountered, from the seventies or eighties, or designed and built at any time.

I think the issue is compromise; nobody would have any reason to compromise on the plans for any vessel they could redraw to suit their own use. But manufacturers have to compromise continually, between conflicting ideals, and between their buyers' bizarre dream-layouts (like mine!) and the rather dull, robust mouldings they can replicate cheaply and unfailingly, then drop into hulls in the yard, according to company schedules and costs.

I guess I like custom designs, where the position of everything is more suggested than fixed, and the drawings are only in pencil, for the good reason of their being very much bespoke. I want a Savile Row yacht. I know I'll pay quadruple for it, but then, people who have the choice, do the same for shoes and suits, and invariably, the result beats the Matalan equivalent. I don't like factory-average compromised yacht interiors, and I'd be sorry just to get used to them, by necessity.

I'm surprised if you need any convincing.
 
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Bat21 said:
Yes,The Vancouver 34P excels in all three of your criteria! :@
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Well said, Sir and you can lie her up against a wall anywhere and give her arse a good scrubbing when she needs it. Add seaworthiness, directional stability, strength of hull & rig, non-slapper, won't round-up or need a reef in a "poof" of wind, etc
She's on my retirement plan and I'm happy to wait.
 
Hope not to hijack the thread - perhaps I should start another, but..

I have gone through the same process of wanting a more weather tolerant family friendly yacht. We have just had our first baby, sold our racing yacht (which my wife and I couldnt really handle) and just put a deposit down on a motor sailer.

We were hankering for a moody eclipse but the cost would leave me stretched. Thats when we saw a beneteau evasion 32 for sale which we have viewed, liked a lot and are now in the process of buying.

I cant say I hear angels sing when I look at it but if I think of everything that was unsuitable about my last boat this one seems to tick all the right boxes. My wife certainly loves the wheelhouse. The ketch rig with stackpack and furling headsail is certainly a heap easier to handle than tuffluff and seperate headsails on the old boat.

I was wondering if anyone out there has experience of these boats? (bit late now I suppose!).

I cant imagine it sails great but then its actually got a hell of a lot more underwater than the eclipse with less windage so with a decent bit of wind should give some cruising performance.

be nice to hear from any evasion owners or crew......
 
E39mad said:
LM Vitesse/Vision 33 or 35 worth a look also.

Of all I'd have a Vancouver 34 Pilot although it's another price bracket.

One problem of all/most of these boats is that without any heal you usually need to stand up to see where you're going.
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And need a box to stand on if a Vancouver Pilot :)

The Vulcan is a good sailor with correctly trimmed sails and very comfortable.
The large volume adds to the comfort and a selection of cabins if more than two.

The aft cabin makes a good store and workshop and there seems to be acres of deck to enjoy. I spent many happy hours on Skerryvraig. Speed under sail was never an issue but the jib set up was not correct and she sailed faster with a few turns rolled in.
 
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