What boat for £10k

potentillaCO32 said:
One of grp's problems is that it isn't biodegradeable which gives a boat a big problem at the end of it's life.
This is not a problem shared by wooden boats as they are biodegradeable.

However, this is also why you should never buy a wooden boat.
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Wooden boats are all too often biodegradable during their lifetime. I sail with a guy who’s living is made on that fact.
 
I watch them launch all the wooden boats on the lake where I live, some, not all, spend the first days sunk and tied to the jetty .... over winter, the wood has dried and shrunk, so they let in water until the wood swells again and seals ... then they get pumped out and put on their moorings.

Maintenance is bad enough on any boat, but a wooden one needs immediate attention every time the varnish gets dinged - because every scratch, bump, or ding has the potential to go through the varnish/paint and let water into the wood resulting in discolouration or water ingress - they really do biodegrade while you sail them. A gelcoat scratch can be left to the end of the season.

Go GRP if your priority is sailing with family IMO.

https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/twister-28-for-sale/822358
https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/westerly-longbow-for-sale/817354
https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/jaguar-27-for-sale/768407
 
sigma38dave said:
5 minutes on internet research.. I’ll offer this just under budget,

Sigma 36 For Sale - £9,999

Interior is a bit shagged but recent engine, rig, sails etc.

The lack of varnish shouldn’t detract from actually sailing it and it’s already in the Solent.
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THat is a lot of boat. New mast and engine. There must be something going on there to be so cheap.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
I watch them launch all the wooden boats on the lake where I live, some, not all, spend the first days sunk and tied to the jetty .... over winter, the wood has dried and shrunk, so they let in water until the wood swells again and seals ... then they get pumped out and put on their moorings.

Maintenance is bad enough on any boat, but a wooden one needs immediate attention every time the varnish gets dinged - because every scratch, bump, or ding has the potential to go through the varnish/paint and let water into the wood resulting in discolouration or water ingress - they really do biodegrade while you sail them. A gelcoat scratch can be left to the end of the season.

Go GRP if your priority is sailing with family IMO.

https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/twister-28-for-sale/822358
https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/westerly-longbow-for-sale/817354
https://yachts.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/jaguar-27-for-sale/768407
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That’s quite extreme. We don’t leak at all at launch, generally. But it has to be said, that at absolutely any time, something horrible and structurally dangerous could happen that would cost thousands to rectify. And if not rectified in short order, the boat is worth nothing.
 
If you like the idea of a Centaur, which are good, solid boats, and, while they're never going to win any races, they do sail better than some would have you believe, I understand that Rappey of this parish has a Westerly Chieftain in pretty good order for sale. It's a Centaur with a centre cockpit, and a tiny aft cabin with two berths, which might be ideal for a couple of kids to hide from the old folks
 
Tranona said:
Read what the OP wants and then tell us why you think that boat is remotely suitable
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No you tell me why it won't

It will accommodate a family of 4 comfortably, it's within his budget, It will with the caveat I gave and assuming the advertisement is representative it will certainly be capable of sailing in the Solent this year and going further in years to come.
The one thing that he hasn't mentioned is can he afford the berthing costs for any boat in the Solent unless of course he has access to a "cheap" swinging mooring as even a 29 foot in a marina will consume the purchase price in 2 years.
 
Fr J Hackett said:
Unless he is a joiner / carpenter the very last thing he should be looking at.
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I’m sorry, but I think this is going too far and getting a bit silly. You, “Potentilla” with his post 20, above, and “Baggywrinkle” with his post 24, above, have triggered what I hope will be a polite and I hope a useful little rant:

I can understand people who have only had plastic boats feeling a bit inadequate in the company of people who have wooden boats, but they really don’t need to.

For the first century and a half of our sport almost all boats were wooden and most of the always numerous smaller boats were always maintained by their owners, who had no woodworking skills.

All the old sailing handbooks - Worth, Cooke, Hiscock, etc - have a chapter on maintenance. Just a chapter. No big deal. By definition, anyone could do it and anyone still can.

Let me illustrate this:

Here is the second page of the index of Claud Worth’s “Yacht Cruising” - first published in 1911 and the “bible” for all those who messed around in small boats until Eric Hiscock wrote his own book.

IMG_7298.jpeg

and here is the same thing for Eric Hiscock’s “Cruising under Sail:

IMG_7299.jpeg

It’s in “Miscellanea”!

No big deal.

You never see anyone ever saying that only aviation technicians should own OVNIs, or only builders should own ferro boats, or only welders should own steel boats.

When plastic boats were first fighting for market share, in the sixties, they were “mass produced” by bigger organisations than the small family run boat builders who made most wooden boats and they used the power of the corporate world to advertise and to persuade the pundits that plastic was “maintenance free”. We all know that is nonsense and yet all the owners of plastic boats who have no experience of wooden boats will gather round to dissuade people from trying something of which they have no experience and about which they are unqualified to comment.

For most of my sailing career of almost sixty years, it has suited people like me to go along with this twaddle because it scared people off wooden boats so that people like me could buy them cheap, but it is now getting to the point in Britain which it has reached in the USA where wooden boats are somehow abnormal.
 
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As a wooden boat owner and maybe semi pro fixer upper, I am in the baggy a nd hackett corner. Its a whole heap of occasionally lovely grief. I 100% love my XOD but it horrifies and terrifies me at the same time. A wood boat in top order, Ok. A 40+ yr old wooden boat could be facing a huge list of unknown and unseen horrors. Serious gluttons for punishment apply within. Others, run screaming for the hills
 
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