haydude
Well-Known Member
You will be lucky to find a 10yo Jeanneau 45.2 in decent conditions for less than £120,000
Which Boat for World Cruising Liveaboard
- Thread starter ESS
- Start date
You will be lucky to find a 10yo Jeanneau 45.2 in decent conditions for less than £120,000
PaulJ
Well-Known Member
STEEL !
When I was preparing for our "Big Trip" lots of people asked why we had gone for a steel boat and my reply was always the same...... "We might hit a container...... We could be attacked by a whale....... Better men than I have hit rocks that shouldn't have been there......."
We have now been going for five years..... 'done the Atlantic, 'done the Pacific, 'spent three off seasons in and around Australia, going to Vanuatu and the Solomons in between and now we have just finished Indonesia and are in Malaysia.......
We have had several close encounters with whales in both the Atlantic and the Pacific and last year we were attacked by a Sperm Whale and still have the dent to prove it. A plastic boat would undoubtedly have been sunk.
This year in Eastern Australia we hit a rock/reef that shouldn't have been there...... at over 4Kts. It did scratch the epoxy coating but that was all. A plastic or wooden boat would have been sunk or severely damaged. Once you get just a little off the beaten track your charts/gps/chartplotter cannot be relied upon and eventually, unless you are able to walk on water, you WILL bump into something!
We haven't hit a container yet but there is still time..... though we did hit a tree trunk in Indonesia this year.
Long-term cruising is not like a holiday hire...... You will be at sea for days and weeks at a time. You CANNOT maintain a lookout for every minute of the day and when it gets dark, it gets VERY dark and sometimes you can't see ANYTHING for many hours. If you are serious about this there is only one choice and that is STEEL. All other considerations are secondary.
I haven't looked at such things recently but I suspect that you will find that a good second hand steel boat will be within your budget and probably it will come equipped for cruising!
Fair winds,
PaulJ
(Back on ybw after a 5yr absence!)
When I was preparing for our "Big Trip" lots of people asked why we had gone for a steel boat and my reply was always the same...... "We might hit a container...... We could be attacked by a whale....... Better men than I have hit rocks that shouldn't have been there......."
We have now been going for five years..... 'done the Atlantic, 'done the Pacific, 'spent three off seasons in and around Australia, going to Vanuatu and the Solomons in between and now we have just finished Indonesia and are in Malaysia.......
We have had several close encounters with whales in both the Atlantic and the Pacific and last year we were attacked by a Sperm Whale and still have the dent to prove it. A plastic boat would undoubtedly have been sunk.
This year in Eastern Australia we hit a rock/reef that shouldn't have been there...... at over 4Kts. It did scratch the epoxy coating but that was all. A plastic or wooden boat would have been sunk or severely damaged. Once you get just a little off the beaten track your charts/gps/chartplotter cannot be relied upon and eventually, unless you are able to walk on water, you WILL bump into something!
We haven't hit a container yet but there is still time..... though we did hit a tree trunk in Indonesia this year.
Long-term cruising is not like a holiday hire...... You will be at sea for days and weeks at a time. You CANNOT maintain a lookout for every minute of the day and when it gets dark, it gets VERY dark and sometimes you can't see ANYTHING for many hours. If you are serious about this there is only one choice and that is STEEL. All other considerations are secondary.
I haven't looked at such things recently but I suspect that you will find that a good second hand steel boat will be within your budget and probably it will come equipped for cruising!
Fair winds,
PaulJ
(Back on ybw after a 5yr absence!)
mike_bryon
Well-Known Member
A sinking is a very rare event. All those miles and you have not noticed that all sorts of people in all sorts of boat made from every sort of material are not enviably sunk before they complete a circumnavigation. By all means sail your steel boat but do you need to rubbish every other sort of craft?
Tradewinds
Well-Known Member
Saw a steel yacht high & dry on a reef in the Red Sea - just the hull - that definitely wasn't going to go anywhere further in a hurry . . .
In reality, with a bit of good fortune, any boat whether plastic, wood or metal is capable of the making long blue water passages or intricate navigation among the coral reefs.
I personally know of one smallish grp yacht that had 2 serious encounters with reefs in the Pacific. It was repaired both times by the local yards in French Caledonia & later Queensland. Came out of it looking better each time - it was almost new by the time it reached the Med
!Tranona
Well-Known Member
It is common for people who take a "non-normal" route to endorse the wisdom of their decision by condemning the majority who take a different decision. They also tend to trivialise the shortcomings and empahsise the good points.
jams
Active Member
Hire my 50' boat for a year for 25k. Then i can afford to go away when you get back!!
BurnitBlue
Well-Known Member
I have two major hangups.
(1) Thunderstorms with lots of flashes and bangs. Steel goes a long way to make me feel secure.
(2) Maintenance. Steel makes me want to give up living after a few days with brushes and chipping hammers.
Oh well, what to do???
