Read the Owners Forums !

[Sabbatical II]

I admit to being a bit ticked off when in a recent post an Amel owner claimed that the Amels were the only boats designed to be ready to cruise the world straight out of the factory. Like many people on this forum we reckon our own boats are pretty good and in fact the diversity of what people sail and like is one of the attributes of the sailing community that I particularly like. So I googled "Amel owners forum" and found out that there were indeed very few poor design features reported. After a fair time on their site, I have concluded that the Amels probably are a very good and well designed cruising vessel.

My point is that there are constant requests on this forum for opinions as to the merits of different brands of boats, some of which I would never consider for ocean cruising. I have found that most of the major production cruising boats have an owners forum which can be surprisingly candid as to the problems and shortcomings of each make and is therefore an excellent resource for information for how the boats are standing up to the test of time. One brand in particular, which promotes itself as the "best cruising boat in the world" has some amazingly disappointed owners.

If you are in the market for a new cruising yacht, Google the owners forum and it will eliminate many of the well promoted brands for you.

BTW, are Amels cheap?

Greg

[Jeannius]

BTW, Are Amels cheap?

They Super Maramu was for what you got. The new 54s are expensive but very complete. They have two complete autopilot setups, the 2nd as a backup in case the first goes down.

I've just completed a round the world event. There were 3 Super Maramus and 2 Amel 54s. The largest representation of one manufacturer in a fleet of 26. The oldest was a '93 that according to the owner was the cheapest he could find and it took him around the world very well.

The 2nd highest group was the Privilege 435 cat. There were 3 of those including mine.