Comfort at Anchor

[zeehag]

every manufacturer of affordable boats, and some not so affordable, has been panned by someone at some point. if we all took it to heart we would be at war.

[sequitur]

Originally Posted by mohave_steve

- I didn't intend to start a brand based argument. I had simply heard many less than positive comments regarding quality & safety regarding one manufacturer. Sorry....

Hearsay is cheap.

Originally Posted by mohave_steve

With few exception I have not sailed anything yet that I would find suitable for liveaboard. I have to confess to a bit of "oldstimer" as well. One boat we chartered several years ago had a wonderful layout and I would love to look at it again. Dang me ! I can't remember who built it

Since it was a charter with a wonderful layout, it was likely a Hunter.

[mohave_steve]

Originally Posted by Bash

I'm having a hard time believing this. You start a conversation by shagging a particular brand, and then claim that you didn't intend to start a brand-based argument. That's a bit disingenuous...

...and then we find out that you live far from the coast and don't actually have the time to sail.

Uh huh.

How's the comfort level at this point?

Bash....

Your handle fits you perfectly..

Have a nice day.

[mohave_steve]

Originally Posted by sequitur

Hearsay is cheap.


Since it was a charter with a wonderful layout, it was likely a Hunter.

Possible but I don't think it was. The interior finish was unlike any Hunter I have ever seen.

[zeehag]

i found the most comfortable boats when at anchor or on a mooring are the heavier ones. sailing--depends on what you seek in sailing boat. if you are not gonna sail--- big bed. if you are--- depends on the kind of sailing you are going to do --i find my formosa absolutely perfect for my needs-- handles big water and big winds nicely and has a big enough bed for me and extra room leftover. she is heavy enough to not bounce in a rough anchorage.
good luck finding what makes you happy. is why i suggested to sail everything--of course you cannot sail everything there is to sail. but you can get a big chunk of that done by hanging out where there are boats that do go sailing--m0st folks need or want crew-- figure out what kind of boat pleases you and go from there.

[Randyonr3]

Steve
to throw my two cents in..
When we started shopping for our boat, almost 15 years ago, we had a certain layout in mind,
The wife wanted a good sized kitchen, I wanted a deticated Navagation station, and for sleeping, we chose the pullman berth, as its pretty much equal in size from head to foot..
And a bathroom (head) and shower enough where it was a deticated to one room and large enough to where we didnt feel cramped as we planned on cruising and living aboard..
We also figured we'd want the largest boat we felt comfortable and I say again Comfortable enough to handle in all sitituations..
We set our sights on a 38 foot range with room to move up or down a couple feet..
Now understand, we Had NO PARTICULAR BRAND in sight when we started looking..
When looking at boats, the layout was the first concern and if it didnt have the one we wanted, we scrached ity off the list..
Our search lead us down to two boats, The Hans Christian 38 MK ll and the Beneteau FIRST 38.. and oddly enough, the two boats are on the oppisite sides of what someone would like ..one designed heavy and the other a mid weight or what some would call a light weight..
so we started doing our research, and the MKll was ahead of the FIRST for some time until we started reading the books and watching the videos of a family of 5 who traveled around the world on a FIRST 38..
So now we swapped back and forth for weeks between the two,....
which one did we want as they are about both equal.........
Thats when the FIRST 42 we have now came on the market and a simple look at the layout and the boats history, We bought the boat........
And catch this..
We bought it sight un-seen, except for the photos.. we knew what we wanted, and it became avalable.. I had never sailed it, or even been on one when we sent the check off..
Its been almost 10 years now, we've loged a few thousand miles and have traveled from alaska to mexico, back and forth a couple times, and have never regretted the choice we made..
With One exception, Every now and then I see a 38 MKll, decked out in all her finest brightwork, plowing her way throu the water, and I wonder what If I would have seen a prestine HC 38 MKll instead of ther FIRST 42 for sale..
I probably would have still loved her just as much and defended her and my desicion to purchase her equally..

hope what I did to make my choice helps you in making yours......

[sailorboy1]

And it depends on how you are going to use the boat MOST of the time! Instead of the conditions that may exist once in a while.

As a percentage how offen is the your boat going to be in a rough anchorage/mooring?

What are the normal conditions for where you are going to sail, light wind/wave or heavy wind/waves?

etc etc etc.

[Cheechako]

Well... in the past I had no more problem with Hunter than Bene or Catalina etc. Some good some bad. But based on the defensive responses here.... maybe I've missed something! Someone who is confident in themselves or what they have usually wouldnt feel the need to defend so voraciously!!

[sailorboy1]

Guess that means all those who defend the Hickley's etc have questions.

Maybe some just get tired of others who never have been on their boat telling them what their boat is.

[engele]

I wasn't aware that Hinkley had built up a poor reputation (seems like a cheap shot to me. I also wasn't aware that Hunters and Hinkleys were comparable boats despite the wide variation in cost)?

Whether Hunter's quality has improved probably won't be settled for another fifteen years. In the meantime a lot of defensive Hunter owners are going to keep trashing heavier boats when someone says they want that instead of a Hunter, just to make themselves feel better and the whole "Hunters suck" thing will get rehashed over and over regardless of current build quality. Can't we all just get along?

[engele]

By the way. I can totally understand the fatigue of seeing your baby trashed all of the time, but on the bright side it does mean you got more for your money.

[jr_spyder]

My wife and I completed a similar quest to Steve's in Aug when we bought our dream boat. We had been planning and saving for this for over 15 years, and got very serious with the search early last year. In the other many years we did not own our own boat but sailed and raced on family boats, friends boats, and did a fair number of bare boat charters. Our savings plan was actually calculated by the question: "If we owned a boat what would the moorings costs be this year" - and put that much away. Our goal was to match our target retirement date of next spring, and we really thought we'd have a semi-custom "perfect" boat built for us so needed the lead to time to select the boat and have it built. Over the years we took lots of notes and pictures and had lots of discussions of course, including some level of critical commentary probably about every single boat we stepped on. None are perfect.

As this was all dream world the first thing we did in our "get serious" phase was to go visit the Hinckley factory in Maine. It is truly amazing to watch them build boats and the passion they put into them. For the record, I'm also impressed by visiting a Ford assembly line. Of course Hinckley makes a virtue out of moving slowly and carefully - because they have to (make it a virtue) - this is not a commentary on if that's better. I'm no expert on boat building, but their Kevlar/Carbon based SCRIMP hull process was very cool, and their attention to detail throughout was extreme.

That being said we found the designs of their sailboats behind the times. We love the classic look of the long overhangs, but ultimately that makes for a much smaller boat on the inside, and especially small cabins in the aft cockpit designs. Modern production and semi-custom builders have better layouts in my opinion. Our "build us a Hinckley" dream was diminishing, but not dead. It seems that's a trend for their sailboats as they haven't built a new one in several years, although their powerboat line seems to be going strong.

Ok, what next? The most valuable thing we did was go to the Newport boat show in the fall of last year and spend one day crawling through new boats, and another day crawling through the "brokerage show" of used boats. That was really the best thing, and the experience of seeing so many fantastic "used" boats on the market, of course priced well below a new boat of similar style/quality, made us wonder why we would even consider a new boat. Again, lots of notes and pictures and discussion. We also found a favorite, but probably more importantly met a broker on that boat that we really clicked with and started working with. It turned out he was part of the Little Harbor brokerage, which is part of Hinckley. So we were staying in the same league that we dreamed about, but with older boats.

We got very hot and bothered over that one boat over the winter, but called off everything in January when I got a lousy medical diagnosis that pretty much stopped everything. Happily I got through that and, as one does, examined my life and decided to retire immediately and start the boat quest anew. Having been up and down a couple times now, and with a lot of time on my hands, we slowed down our passionate side and got more practical in our search, using that same broker. We revisited all the boats we liked from the Newport show last year, plus looked at new ones that came on the market. Notice I didn't say we sailed on any of them - that just couldn't be arranged and many were not in the water. By now we really knew what we wanted, knew what compromises we had to deal with, and had seen enough to have a top pick. It was a Little Harbor 46. We had it put in the water but on our planned sailing day there was no wind. Arrg. Next we spoke with several owners of these boats, including an early owner of this very boat, to learn how they were used, how they sail, etc. The broker was excellent at hooking us up. We had to go on that, and finally made the call. Phew.

I guess this is a long story, and I've enjoyed reliving it (pardon my indulgence if I've gone overboard). It was fun, agonizing, confusing, exciting, scary, daunting, tiring, etc., for months. But I would do it all over again to find what has turned out to be really the boat of our dreams, even with it's flaws and imperfections. Thankfully she's a joy to sail, handles big winds and seas well, and yes, is very comfy at anchor.

JR

[boatman61]

I find the most comfortable boat is.....
the one I own at the time... so thats 12 differnt marques.... so far..

[1Sunseeker]

I fight the battle of looking for a comfortable sleep every summer on my 32' Kettenburg sloop. The original foam that came with the boat was a disaster and accented my bad back. I have replaced and upgraded the foam twice without joy. I am thinking of a large air mattress that will allow me to roll up the forward edges to fit the V-berth. I once replaced my waterbed bladder at home with an air mattress and was very pleased. Are there any experiences out there with air mattresses? My boat is in Everett, WA and sailing is in the San Juans and British Columbia.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

A large bed is important if you are going to live on the boat for any period of time.
When at anchor even a slight roll (which is wonderful for rocking you off to sleep) means you tend to spread your arms and /or legs out to stabilize your body. This means that you need a larger bed than in a house, and many boat berths fall woefully short of this criteria.
You can still get this on many smaller boats. On a 25 foot yacht I owned I managed to enlarge the bed by leaving out the toilet. The bed is used 8 hours a day, sometimes more, the toilet, hopefully, considerably less.

I sleep quite well in a smaller bed.