Hylas vs Oyster

[Bazzas Boat]

I am now in the market for a replacement boat. I want quality and I want to have a boat that will also have a resale value. My thoughts of 2 boats to compare are Oyster and Hylas. I have looked at Oyster in UK, toured the 2 Oyster factories and I am impressed with the UK craftsmanship and detail. I am due to inspect a near new Hylas, do not think that I will go to Taiwan to inspect the factory though.
Can anyone advise on the hull construction and strength of the Hylas?
I will post again after my inspection. I will be crawling all over the Hylas!

[ippocampus]

Originally Posted by Bazzas Boat

I am now in the market for a replacement boat. I want quality and I want to have a boat that will also have a resale value. My thoughts of 2 boats to compare are Oyster and Hylas. I have looked at Oyster in UK, toured the 2 Oyster factories and I am impressed with the UK craftsmanship and detail. I am due to inspect a near new Hylas, do not think that I will go to Taiwan to inspect the factory though.
Can anyone advise on the hull construction and strength of the Hylas?
I will post again after my inspection. I will be crawling all over the Hylas!

We have a new Hylas 56 love it! Where are you located?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

The answer here is simple... Amel. ;-)

The Super Maramu would be on my list as well.

[Kenomac]

If money is not an issue, buy the Oyster.... you'll have no regrets. A 54ft Oyster isn't too much boat for two people with all the automated systems onboard. Electric furling mast, hydraulic jib furling etc. The Oyster brokerage is also a delight to work with. I single hand our current 45 ft Hunter all the time and expect our new Oyster 54 to be even easier.

[speciald@ocens.]

I have a 58 Taswell AS for sale and just reduced the price 100k to get rid of it. The two of us lived aboard for 7 years and have retired from sailing and moved ashore for health reasons. The boat has all the bells and whistles - 30 g/hr watermaker, LeisureFurl boom, electric winches, etc,etc. Its in Fort Lauderdale, listed with David Walters. Taswell was the house brand for Ta Shing the builder of Mason, Norseman, Taba, Tashiba and now builds the Nordhavn trawelers. It is the most respected Tiawan buiders - much better than Queen Long that builds the Hylas. This boat will sail past the Hylas and Oyster as shown by our mutiple first in class and first overall finishes in the Carib 1500 and Atlantic Cup. I had sailed on both Hylas and Oyster before buying my first Taswell - a 44AS and never regretted my choice. See the boat on YachtWorld.

[gkrasnov]

Hylas. Did tons of research, including massive refernce checks, and am going for new build hylas 63. Quality very comparable to oyster, but at an entirely different price point due to far east labor cost. Oyster does include as standard many niceties. But you can also get them all from hylas as options, including just about any interior design. And when u add these options, hylas price still comes in way lower, apples-to-apples. taswell would be high on my list too if they were still building sailboats... Passport is another one to think about. Great quality at an awesome price.

[speciald@ocens.]

A few years back 3 Hylas 54's including a brand new one lost there rudders on the same passage to the Caribbean. There was no reinforcement in the lower half of the rudders and Hylas initially would not replace the rudders until the editor of water sailing">Blue Water Sailing got involved. They advertise in his magazine. I worked with the father and son that sell the Hylas and they impressed me sa car salemen - there was a base price + options that would increase the price greatly like buying a new car. I wouldn't suggest buying a new boat in this market as there are plenty of boats out there selling at a discount.

[Hannah on 'Rita T']

Speciald, I am interested in your wheel/binnacle configuration. Can you tell me why the wheel is forward of the binnacle. Thanks,

[YADO]

Good question. I saw Special Delivery at the Annapolis Show and didn't notice the wheel. It's built around the binnacle and surrounds the pod, the hand hold is closer so you don't have to reach over the wheel and you don't have to reach around or over the wheel to access the instruments.

That appears to be a lot of boat for the money and I'm curious; what is the price of a new, comparable, Hylas?

[sailstoo]

Go made in America, go Hinckley!

[CarlF]

I would also look at the "new" kid - Discovery. Ron Holland design is comfortable and fast. Have done well in the ARC's. Last time I checked they were substantially cheaper than Oyster for a very well equipped, top-drawer boat.

http://www.discoveryyachts.com/

Carl

[mauibound]

Go with Hylas. I own a Hylas 56, they are fast and comfortable. I believe that good service is key. Hylas is based in Marblehead, MA and the owners Dick and Kyle Jachney are easily accessible. They have top notch sub contractors in Ft Lauderdale that do all the commissioning. They know the boats, all models, inside and out and again are easily accessible. Also if you check the reputation of Queen Long, where all Hylas are built, you will find they have a stellar reputation. The Hylas owners group is a world of help. Not sure about the Oyster, you may be on your own Oh, the interior is top quality and the storage is perfect for a live aboard.

[Black Diamond]

I own a Hylas 49. We had it built in 2007 and I went to Taiwan to tour the plant and see how they build them. I also called Sparkman and Stephens in NYC to discuss some parts of the design to see how they thought it should be built. S&S had nothing but good things to say about Queen Long Marine.

Simply said, the plant does great work. They have some really nice interior craftsman and the fiberglass/hull work is solid. The Hylas 49 is different than the 46,54, 56 and 70 in that those are German Frers designs and have a much different underwater shape. The 49 (Olin Stephens design) is (opinion) a much better heavy weather boat with a more sea-kindly motion. The flatter bottomed Frer's designs will pound a bit in a chop. The Frer's design also carry far more beam aft and therefore have a bit more volume below for living space. The 46 has got quite a bit of boat below deck for a 46 footer.

The boats are semi-custom, meaning that we could change most anything below without affecting structural bulkheads or the basic boat. The layout of showers, cabinetry, galley equipment, etc is up to the person building the boat. That means that you could tell them to do some really DUMB things. Normally Joseph or Michael (owner of Queen Long builders and the plant manager) will talk you out of these dumb ideas before things get too far, but there are some boats out there that did some strange things. Don't assume they are all the same. Some of the basics (like tankage) can be allocated differently from owner to owner. For example, on the 49 you have 5 tanks to allocate between fuel and water. Boats with watermakers often allocate just 2 tanks to water and 3 for fuel while boats without watermakers do the reverse. Lots of boat-to-boat differences can exist. All the boats come over to the US with gelcoat white hulls so the awlgrip colors you see can be done by many different shops. Mine was done in RI with multiple coats of primer and awlgrip inside a climate controlled paint shop, while many commissioned in Florida were done outside with just 2 coats. Again differences to check.

In general I find the construction quite good, and the little things for cruisers mean a lot. There are redundancies everywhere (water pumps, fuel filters, etc.) to make things easy when the inevitable happens. There are things to aid maintenance (oil change pumps and clearly labeled manifolds for tanks and pumps) everywhere. Its a dry boat, and I have not had any problems since taking delivery in late 2007. Mine is cutter rigged, but not all are. Another thing to check. In a blow, staysail and main are wonderful to keep comfortable.

Regarding Oyster, its a fine boat and in some areas they use more high quality deck gear (cleats, etc.) than Hylas, but the half million dollar difference between a Hylas and Oyster of similar size is not (again opinion) materials. Its largely labor cost and some exchange rate that during the 2000-2008 time frame mattered more than it does now.

I agree with the comments on the Discovery 55. That's a nice boat as well.

My $0.02.

Rick
S/V Black Diamond
Hylas 49-057
Portsmouth, RI

[goboatingnow]

You can't beat good English craftsmanship.. nuff said, This side of the pond there are very few "far east" stuff at all. Tends to have a bad rep.


PS, I wouldn't buy an Oyster, too expensive. Id buy an Amel. ( buts thats just me), alternatively consider a Malo

Dave

[ippocampus]

Dave, different boats for different folks! enough said!
I never visited the oyster factory and i must say oyster boats have a great reputation...
if you want to pay that price for that level boat....if we wanted to pay that kind of money we would have commissioned a Hoak designed vessel. We have a friend who was considering Oyster (money was no object) but visited their factory and decided against it.
We are boat snobs and looked at thousand of boats, classic and non, priced between 1m and 4m before we commissioned this one.
Commissioned a Hylas instead. We are happy we did.
Our German Freres designed vessel is all we want for now and extremely fast for a blu water boat. Queen Long did truly a magnificent job, they quality of the construction is not to be categorized "far east" stuff...maybe you should take a closer look and abandon preconceived ideas!
Happy sailing!