Adams 40 rudder setup safety

[Boracay]

It really can be a total pain to travel to look at a boat.

I'd strongly suggest looking at every local boat that comes even close to what you want.

[GILow]

Good point on the travel, not least of which, it is really hard to haggle effectively when the dealer knows you've already spent $300 on air travel to have a look!

But given that we did like the Roberts design (VERY ROOMY, just a bit big for us to handle comfortably) and we clearly like Adams 40's, are there other boats that anyone would recommend?

My logic is that whatever we buy I would hope to have to live with for 10 or even 20 years. So I want to get it right. Buying and selling my way up to the right boat is just too pricey for me, in $$$ and time.

Anything easy to handle, seaworthy and under $120K would be considered. Preferably steel, I have a good set of skills that translate well to steel boats, but I am utterly hopeless with Fibreglass (dexterity problem I think!). I love wood but I know I can't give a wooden boat the time it deserves, and I hate seeing undermaintained wooden boats!

There are just SO few boats for sale in SA. We've seen ONE Adams 40 here, still for sale, but not the mid cockpit design. (We both really love the protected feel in a mid cockpit, my backside feels a bit draughty in stern cockpit boats. Must be a character flaw.) We missed a mid cockpit in SA a while back (6 months ago) but it was not the shoal draft anyway, and a few harbours we really like would be much better with the shoal draft, quite aside from Dad's concerns with fin keels.

I'm half tempted to rent a flat up in Airlie beach for a few weeks and approach some boaties directly. They all seem to be up in Airlie Beach whenever I look.

M

[Boracay]

Now if the Aussie dollar decides to recover the real bargains look to be in the United States.

I'd recon that you'd need to get something in top condition, possibly paying top price.

You'd also need to be able to sail the boat back to Oz. Can't be a lot harder than sailing it from the land of the banana benders.

[GILow]

Yep, some of the US boats have a lovely style too. Brings me to mind of the Halvorsen Cruiser (Above the water line that is, the Halvorsen was no beauty under the water line, I rather wish I hadn't seen one out of the water.) Halvorsens remains my all time favourite boat, despite the fuel consumption and the horrible handling in anything over 10knots of breeze.

If I was going to go offshore I'd favour the Kiwi boats. I found a reference to the online kiwi trading site in one of the forum threads and some of the boats in there are terrific. Not only that, but they actually seem to know how to take relevant and high quality photos of a boat.

(Is it just my imagination, or do 90% of the Australian boat sales site have photos taken by either something akin to a box brownie, or if you are lucky, an old mobile phone? Sometimes the pictures are so bad I can not actually work out what they are trying to photograph.)

Either way, I'd need a professional crew for the trip, I don't have remotely enough experience to do either. My logic with buying in northern QLD (aside from availability) was to sail the boat down in the shelter of the reef to Brisbane, and depending on how the shakedown of new owner and boat went, either truck it to Adelaide, or sail on with or without a professional skipper. (Incidently, this was suggested by a trucking company when I was phoning around for quotes on trucking a boat from Airlie beach. Full points to them for that!)

M

[Boracay]

... I could not get their slide show to load to look at the photos...

I did find some interesting boats. I know some are not in your price range or are not centre cockpit or are too big or whatever but they should give a good idea of the local market. There might be more boats in Qld. or NSW. but the prices might not differ by all that much, and you might be the only buyer in SA...
1982 Adams 40 $97,000 Reference DPLBo40935
1985 Adams 42 $195,000 Reference TA62383
1988 Van De Stadt 43 $189,000 Reference 5CP-077-189

This boat is listed as sold on Yachtpoint but not on the Broklers website.
Looks like what you want. If you havn't seen it already I'd go and look at it.
1995 Adams 40 $130,000 Reference ag-19782 - SOLD?

[GILow]

Hi Boracay, we went and had a look at the 1982 for $97K about two months ago, ok boat, fair price, but it needed some work (start again on the interior IMHO, though the hull seemed ok), but mainly it was the wrong layout.

The '85 42' is too much for me to even look at. No point, I'd just get some unreasonable expectations, forbidden fruit if you know what I mean.

Van De Stadt is a good idea, I'll look for some more of those, but the ones I have seen, like that one, are a fair way over my budget. We had a late 60's 30 foot Van De Stadt for about ten years. Seaworthy, but boy did it heal over. Really odd, by the time you had 10 knots of breeze, it was healling over at 20 degrees, then it would stay like that right up to 40knots with the same sail. I assume they are all like that? Mind you, it FELT safe, I had one knockdown in it (Port Phillip Bay, NASTY bit of water that!) and it came back up like a rocket. Stayed dry inside, even with everything open.

The one that shows as sold... good point, I noticed that it was still showing as available on the broker site, but I didn't bother calling them. I suppose I should give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll call them tomorrow. Silly really, it's been like that for at least two months now. Maybe it IS still for sale.... It's right at the top of the budget, but I reckon it will be a buyers market soon. Sadly. Sounds a bit predetory, I know, but that's life. I'm not out to rip anyone off, but I fear there's about to be a few distressed sales soon.

Mind you, some of the brokers... I went to look at something advertised as a 42 foot Roberts early in the year, it turned out to be something like a home built Alan Payne 36. When I asked him why he had put it in as a Roberts, he said he thought it must be a Roberts, it was home built. (And boy did it LOOK home built. I reckon it was the builders first time with a welder. EVERY seam I could see had been run continuously, end to end, without any stabilising tack welds. Wrinkle city! My overalls have fewer creases.)

[Wotname]

GILow, I don't intend to hijack your thread but would you mind telling me what model Van de Stadt you previously had. I am interested as I am refitting a VDS super dogger and would like to find out more them. PM me if you prefer.