Boat size recommendation. Go large or go home?

[avnbuff]

I have often wondered the same thing.. What is the right size boat? I have lately been helping a friend finish updates on a Hylas 51 which he too may be putting on the market.

The largest boat I have owned was a 35 O'Day and it did very well as a 'BAY BOAT' which meant I was tied to the support of a dock and facilities to keep things in order.

Having experience now with the Hylas 51 I realize just how much 'other' stuff one needs to make 'Living Aboard" work... What I see is lots of 'stuff' taken from the home to the boat... it's mostly useless décor.

ADVICE: Making your boat work means adjustments, while the 33ft beneteau is a good 'bay boat' it lacks many features of a 'deep water' boat. Storage being important. The answer to how much boat is enough: What can you stand? Two of the three below sail more or less without an auxiliary. Think how much weight and space that saves. At what cost.. well stay under 35' and you don't pay as much for sailing the Bahamas or Panama area.

Three experienced (years at it) cruisers have shown me that a mid 30' boat can work for the right persons. Adventures of Tarka, Sailing Oceans, Sailing UMA are all capable and adapted to their boats. Living aboard is for them going for the simple side of live. It is amazingly obvious where they must adjust.

Just remember, the cost of sailing is related to the length of the boat but the boats designed for deep water are capable if you are.

FIRST https://www.theadventuresoftarka.com/ TARKA IS A WHITBY 27' and a tough boat with a really tough skipper.

SECOND https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTm...3IL7Bvtf_7nTLw
How to Sail Oceans is an even tougher skipper on a SOUTHERN CROSS 32'

THIRD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFxTTkSRuJg

two young and strong sailors on a PEARSON 36' are amazingly capable.

[AJ-SeaChange]

We are full time liveaboards on our Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45.1 (46ft).


It is the perfect size for us to handle as a two handed crew. Living and working aboard the size is great too.


She cuts through the water without too much pitching.


We live at anchor 98% of the time, therefore we bought a 38 kilo Mantus anchor, when it's in, it stays in, so worrying about finding a berth is not a problem.

[Zzmeyer]

Really personal decision, but Sailnet did a number of polls that you might find interesting. Roughly half their poll answers had boats 26-35 feet. 90% of those responding said their next boat would be bigger or the same size as the one they have (25% say same size) suggesting whatever you get you may want something bigger later. I did some analysis of three major offshore rallies (ARC, Pacific Puddle Jump, and the Baja Haha, and the median length was about 42 feet (ARC slightly longer, Pacific Puddle Jump the best, I think, in being more "general"). The two big factors are how much you can afford and what you plan on doing with it. I was a bit surprised that only 15% of the responders had boat younger than 20 years. You can get quite a lot of boat if you are willing to go old and have the skills to make it young again.

[MWhite]

If you want to go to the Med consider looking at an Olympic Adventure 47. We live and cruise aboard ours and they are very comfortable boats in every way, until you try to go into a marina. OK, that's going to be true with any big, full keeled boat. But just know that handling a boat that big with a full keel in tight quarters is not for the faint of spirit. Other than that, she's wonderful. They were built in Greece and are designed by Ted Brewer for comfortable blue water sailing. Because they were built there, you'll find a number of them for sale in those waters. Good luck with your plans. Whatever you buy, I hope you will have time to get to know your boat well before you head out. Also, if the only reason you don't like your smaller boat is the master cabin layout, you might consider changing it. Or even sleeping apart on some nights, depending on the situation. A good night's sleep is critical to having a good experience on the water. We remodeled our aft cabin before we left and it's worked out very well. Sure, we'd love to have a 'walk around' berth, but we wouldn't trade our boat to get that.

[Peeew]

My first boat has been a Jeanneau SO 469. 46ft. I wanted (not needed) room for guests and enough system support like electric winches etc to make singlehanding easy. Autopilot helps when I catch a tuna that needs to be cleaned and bagged up. My first real trip was over 4 months at anchor each night and this worked out well for me. Obviously less complicated and smaller boats have some advantages, but this has been really comfortable for me at this later stage of my life.

[2sailors]

My wife and I spent two winters in the Bahamas on a Mercer44. Lots of space and no need to climb over each other unless you want to sleep in the fold-out double. See Mercer44.net

[carraigdog]

A Beneteau 36 CC could be the answer, very spacious inside for a medium sized cruiser and a good size for lower mooring and marina fees

[Chevereone]

I am very happy with my Beneteau 36 CC that I have been sailing since 2002, but now I am thinking to trade in for a 40 foot trawler because I live on board most of the time and in the family we have 40 CC. Do you think is a good idea?? R

P.D. I am in Spain

[tweekes]

Not sailing any more or cruising but I always thought minimum 20' per adult person, walk around berth and a custom inner spring pillow top mattress. Walk out transom nice for dingy and swimming. Generator and AC. Everything else negotiable.

[wingssail]

We live and cruise on a 43ft aft cockpit sloop. We do not have to climb over each other getting in and out of our aft cabin bed.

In 43 ft we have tons of storage (amazing, 15 sails, dingy, motor, workbench, tools, etc etc, all below deck and nothing on the cabin sole) at the expense of having no guest cabin, hence few guests.

I would like a bigger boat, maybe 50', however Judy is quite adamant that she does not want to try to sail a bigger boat. And anyhow, money is an issue, both for purchase and operation, maint, berthing, haulouts, etc.

Even with modern sail handling equipment a boat much over 45' will be a handful in a blow if you find yourself with too much sail up. Even climbing on and off the boat will be tough for older folks. So smaller is better for short handing older folks.

That being said plenty of folks learn to cope with the size and enjoy the comfort and convenience of a bigger boat, and somehow can afford them.

I don't like the looks of a CC for the helming position and steering gear issues (not much feel).

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Zzmeyer

Really personal decision, but Sailnet did a number of polls that you might find interesting. Roughly half their poll answers had boats 26-35 feet. 90% of those responding said their next boat would be bigger or the same size as the one they have (25% say same size) suggesting whatever you get you may want something bigger later. I did some analysis of three major offshore rallies (ARC, Pacific Puddle Jump, and the Baja Haha, and the median length was about 42 feet (ARC slightly longer, Pacific Puddle Jump the best, I think, in being more "general"). The two big factors are how much you can afford and what you plan on doing with it. I was a bit surprised that only 15% of the responders had boat younger than 20 years. You can get quite a lot of boat if you are willing to go old and have the skills to make it young again.

Agreed. When I analysed the Latitude 38 list of circumnavigators, here again I found the median to be remarkably close to this 42' mark. And this database goes back decades now. I was surprised given the apparent increase in LOA that seems to have taken place in the general cruising population.

[JPA Cate]

This got really far off the OP's question. It seems to me, she should crunch the actual numbers involved of keeping their present boat and having to live with climbing over each other to get out of bed (once or twice a night?), vs. upgrading, fixing up, etc., etc.

Honestly, I prefer the aft cockpit, open plan sort of mono. The spaces on center cockpit boats get all chopped up till you get to fairly long, expen$ive boats. The amount of volume dedicated to an area where you are sleeping only, cuts down on very useful storage space. Why dedicate that much volume to where all you do is make love and sleep?



Ann

[sailorboy1]

Even though we have a deck salon type aft cockpit boat with an aft berth that has an awftship queen berth there was still a climbing over issue. We solved it by making a change to a 30+ year arrangement of what side of the bed each of us sleeps on.

[scarlet]

The simple answer is that the best sized boat, is the sized boat that meets your needs. So, what do you need? Here is my example.... My husband has a bum knee and can't crawl on his knees very easily, so, having a master cabin with a partial island berth was a MUST. So, for us that eliminated all catamarans under 40' as none of them we found had that. Since we were going to be cruising on our boat, I needed at least a large enough galley to have a work space on the counter. Some of the smaller cats have none, and you have to do food prep on the table. That's fine for a week long cruise, but for months at a time, with guests? nope. What kind of activities do you want to do while boating? we kayak and paddle board, so there needed to be big enough area to store these items on the side deck and still walk beside them.... So.... this will help you get to that perfect size. We narrowed our potential boats to the 42-45' range, and ended up with a 45' 10" boat. Why that one? because it met our needs, was well maintained, and was in our price range.So, always start with what you need.

[bstreep]

What the heck, I'll jump in.

We own a 47' center cockpit. My wife had 2 requirements for a boat, one of which is on your list: 1) No crawling over each other to pee in the middle of the night and 2) she didn't want to put up the toilet paper to take a shower = separate head/shower.

We love our boat, and are headed south in a couple of months, after a huge refit courtesy of Hurricane Harvey. BUT.

It's my belief that "40" is the perfect size. When you go over 40, things get complicated AND expensive very quickly. 47 is double 40. There are PLENTY of good 40s out there.

My personal favorite, IF you are looking for a coastal cruiser, is a Catalina 400. It's a 2 stateroom, 2 head boat. No, it's not a CC, but the aft stateroom is still the master, and it's VERY roomy. It's a delight to sail, but a bit tender when the wind gets up. It's a good boat for entertaining, and the cockpit is huge. Plus you step off the cockpit sole, right into the water.

On the other hand, if you want one like ours, a "go anywhere" boat (they only built 16), they rarely come up for sale, and when they do, they tend to be rough. BUT, there's a great one for sale in Annapolis. https://www.yachtworld.co.uk/boats/1...sh-47-3572883/