Quote:
Originally Posted by NevisDog
Hope you're enjoying your stay in Tassie! During your forced idleness, I wonder what guidance you might offer those of us currently seeking a 35-40ft vessel suited to SW Pacific cruising - wood composite compared to figlass, things that break in out-of-the-way places, the tradeoff between motion comfort/safety and speed... any other advice to prospective purchasers?
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G'Day, ND,
Of course we're enjoying Tassie! Replacement
parts ordered,
delivery today (?? depending upon the diligence of the couriers) plenty to keep us occupied. Now anchored in Little
Oyster Cove (off Kettering) where the
chandlery is, the sun is s hining and the
water is all still in liquid state. Life could be one hell of a lot worse!
Advice? That' a big ask, but to touch on a couple of the points you raised:
When we set out looking for a different
boat (our old IOR one-tonner didn't have accommodations for
kids and grandkids to visit) I wasn't thinking of timber composite at all. But after three years of searching, when this
boat came to my attention, it ticked 20 out of 21 specific criteria that we'd established, so we swooped on it... and in t he nearly 13 years we've owned her, I've become a real fan of the construction. Extremely strong, pretty light, attractive aesthetically, fairly easy to
repair, no
osmosis or
corrosion issues, and a great way to build a one-off design. While I prefer strip planked, cold moulded (called triple skin some places) is also very good. Depends somewhat on what timbers are available to the
builder... I'd do it again in a heartbeat!
Out of the way breakage? Yep, gonna happen if you do enough miles and years of cruising. Take spares (never the right ones), keep critical things simple and strong, be ready to improvise if required, and so on.
Maintenance helps avoid these issues, but things still creep in below your
radar. This recent traveller failure was an axle bolt in one of the sheaves in the traveller car... crevice
corrosion inside the sheave area where
inspection is difficult. Who'da thought?
We could have continued on sans traveller if
repair was not do-able but cchose to fix it now.
Speed vs comfort? A very personal choice, and a pretty subjective one. We have chosen a somewhat high performance design, and are willing to take the motion that she provides... which is not so bad to our tastes. YMMV.
So that's enough idle thinking, but I'm happy to answer more specific questions if they arise.
Jim