Undecided Cabin Cruiser or Sailboat

[jmcdboater]

A lot of data to sort through here to get to a decision.

DON’T let the decision get bogged down in all the bull…..

My wife and I lived aboard a SeaRay 440 Motor Yacht on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. Our smiles still have not gone away, we’ve agreed the type of vessel would not have changed how much we enjoyed it, it simply would have been different inconveniences, and we were determined That would not stop us from our dream. It’s all a state-of-mind!

[mako]

I like @TrentePieds' categories - seems like a survey. I would say:

A) ... a permanent, or at least long-term home trawler

B) ... principally for short passages constrained by time powerboat - high powered and fast

C) ... for making long passages Sailboat of course unless you are wealthy enough for a big trawler

For your situation I would recommend getting yourself a (roughly) 36' tri cabin trawler. There are hundreds for sale everywhere. Something from the 1980's in decent (but not spectactular shape) you can buy for the cost of a car. If you don't enjoy living aboard just get rid of it and no big financial losses. Give the live aboard life a try.

[GrowleyMonster]

FIRST, take a class or two. I don't know what it is called now but formerly it was known as the USCG Power Squadron beginning boater thingy. A class will introduce you to a lot of things that currently you do not even yet know that you must learn. Like my pet peeve, without a very sound and in depth knowledge of which, you are a deadly menace to yourself and to others if you are ever in charge of any vessel within normal visual range of another vessel. This is Rules of the Road, or Rules, for short. It is composed of U.S. Inland Rules, and COLREGS, or International Rules. Please, if you are contemplating ever being the person in charge of a boat that is not tied securely to a dock or out of the water on a trailer, LEARN them and I do mean learn them excruciatingly well. Beginner boater classes barely touch on Rules. You will have to do your own due diligence here. You can download the actual text here: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/sites/de...s/navrules.pdf

However it will require more than just the bare text of Rules to actually really learn Rules.

Baby steps is the way to get started with the owning of boats thingy. I sincerely recommend starting with boats that do not live full time in the water. A dinghy. A trailer sailer. A slip can be quite a drain on the pocket and very hard to get, just starting out, depending on where you are. Being able to drag your Queen Elizabeth III out of the water and park it in your driveway will save you a lot of money and a lot of worry. And yes, having lived on both motor and sail boats, I recommend sail for what you want to do. The ideal liveaboard given a particular size is probably going to be a houseboat. And it would be okay for short excursions to the barrier islands and such, but it would be perfect as a dock queen. It is almost literally a house that floats, and in a pinch can be pushed around with a propeller that is turned by some mechanical contrivance or another. Houseboats of course do not do well offshore, so no long range cruising unless it is by ICW or rivers. The thing is, if you find a cheap one, it probably has no engine or no working engine or one that can logically be predicted to no longer be working at some time in the near future.

A big trawler or even fairly small one can be quite spacious below, and have all the comforts of home up to and including washer/dryer, bathtub, central air, etcetery etcetery. A small trawler might give you an hour of slowish cruising for a half gallon of fuel, but a large one, not so great, and at near hull speed, even less so great, and if it is not a true pure displacement type trawler, getting up on plane will cost you quite a bit in fuel costs. But a teeny tiny one running at 4 or 5 kts will sip fuel. However, while the small trawler will be much more survivable at sea, it will absolutely not be comfortable. The boat can probably take it. You probably can't. But a microtrawler is great for inland cruising or short excursions or hops on the outside.

Big sailboat or big trawler either one would be perfect at sea, though you will want fairly deep pockets for the trawler. If you double the square root of the waterline length, you double the hull speed, the speed at which a displacement hull starts trying to climb up over its own bow wave and hemorrhaging fuel due to the incredible inefficiency at that speed range. Stay down around 75% of hull speed or less, and the slower the better, and you cut fuel costs astronomically. Hull speed formula is not precise for every single hull shape but the usual formula for hull speed in knots is 1.34 x Square Root of the Waterline Length. This applies to both ordinary sailboats and ordinary pure displacement trawlers. Of course with the sailboat, if you have sea room, even upon inland waters, you will probably not worry about fuel economy anyway because you will be sailing.

Cabin cruisers, cuddy cruisers, express cruisers, etc differ from trawlers in that they are meant to be able to run in planing mode, and require less fuel to get up on plane, while a pure displacement hull would nearly be breaking the laws of physics to do so with an engine that would fit in the boat and not sink her. Still, planing sucks a good bit of fuel. Also such boats are fine for a short excursion offshore, say for tuna fishing or whatever, but worse than a proper trawler for offshore cruising both in comfort and survivability in any sort of weather. The good news is on reciept of an unfavorable forecast, you can probably skedaddle back inside, if you didn't burn up all your go fast fuel just to get out there in the first place.

With a powerboat of course you are 100% dependent on your engine. With a sailboat, you depend on your sails but you have a backup with most boats, the diesel or the outboard if it is a small boat and so equipped. The problem with a larger sailboat of course when mucking around in shallow water is you can't muck around in shallow water. Your draft must never exceed the available depth of water. If you want your draft to be shoal friendly, you need to keep the boat size under 30' or so. Anyway, a smaller boat is much easier for a single person sailing solo to handle. My last boat was a Cal 2-27 built in 1976 originally with an Atomic 4, which is a gasoline engine no longer built for many years now. It is one of the roomier sailing boats in the under 30 foot range. I paid $2k for the boat esentially ready to sail except for the dead engine that had spent some time submerged post Katrina. I bought an outboard mount and a 8hp Tohatsu and went sailing the next day, and moved aboard straightaway, as I had been couch surfing and motelling when not on a ship. I would NOT try to live aboard any sailboat under 25' though some have done so. A couple would find it very cramped. It's close cousin, only slightly narrower and less headroomy is the Catalina 27. Both of these boats can be found pretty easy in the $0 to $5k range in various states of sail readiness or lack thereof. Be advised that free boats actually are not cheap at all. Just sayin. A pretty nice example ought to run you arount $10k or a bit more, with a diesel that runs. These boats have a fin or modified fin keel and so the only reason the draft is tolerable at all inshore is that the whole boat is small. There are other boats that draw less water while being a bit bigger, because they have full keels, such as the love it or hate it Westsail 32, AKA "Wet Snail 32". Detractors say it will barely get out of its own way and that there is no point in even trying to sail to windward. Fans point out that they are tough boats with a good bit of room below, very comfortable, and extremely salty looking, and that "Gentlemen never sail to windward", anyway. Plus, you do have the diesel. They can get you in nice and shallow, yeah. Or you can really go off the deep end and get yourself a McGregor 26, sort of a Franken-boat that is maybe an exception to the rule that sailboats are great offshore, but is ideal for inland or lake sailing, is trailerable, shallow draft, has a centerboard that you can raise, and water ballast, without which your draft is even more obscenely shallow. You can beach such a boat on mud or sand, if you don't mind scouring off the bottom paint. Typically you push these boats with a 50hp or so outboard. Water ski behind a sailboat? Uh, yeah, just don't let your friends know you do it. Another boat that is disappointing in almost every metric except that it is shoal draft, roomy below for its size due to lack of an engine, and usually comes with a trailer. You can cruise but meh. It would suck. But for inland cruising, hmmm... maybe not so bad. A quick crossing to the islands, nice. Bass fishing? LOL yeah okay but/or redfish or speckled trout fishing or floundering, better. A cruise down the ICW and then across to the Bahamas, when you have a good weather window? Yeah, okay.

So I have to echo, there is no perfect boat or even a truly satisfactory boat for all your usage scenarios. But the best bang for the buck that will check at least a couple of boxes is a small sailboat between 26' and 30' long. Just be a good sport about camping out, because that is what living on a small sailboat will feel like, at least at first.

Your very first boat should probably be of a size and type that it is simply not possible to live aboard other than maybe an overnighter. And if you can get some time in, crewing for others first, so much the better. When you are ready to ditch the training wheels and get a big kids' boat that lives in a slip, you will know.

Learn how to maintain and repair small marine diesels and outboards, two stroke old school carbureted, and modern four stroke electronic ones. Extra points for learning how modern electric propulsion systems work, too. Learn wiring and electricity, so you can maintain and troubleshoot AC and DC wiring, panels, generators and alternators, shore power cables and connections, and so on, without killing yourself. Learn damage control. If you hit a submerged rock and tear a foot long hole in your bottom, will you sink, or can you stop the water coming in and get it back on the outside of the boat? Firefighting and prevention. CPR and First Aid. Rigging, sail repair, splicing all manner of ropes, knots, cordage selection and replacement, blocks and tracks and stuff, anchors and anchor chain and windlasses and stuff, or doing your anchoring with rope rode and "Armstrong" heaving, and then there is piloting and navigation, two completely separate things, and no, looking at a GPS or a chart plotter does not constitute being a Navigator. Navigation is when you are out of sight of land and all markers, bouys, landmarks, lights, or other navaids. Piloting is when you are using those shore based and near shore marks and other things to get your boat safely from point A to B, avoiding hazards like rocks, wrecks, shoals, etc. Carpentry is a necessary skill. Yeah, maybe the boat is fiberglass, but you still need to be a carpenter. Plumbing. Light metalworking and fabrication. Stoves, heaters, etc but especially those that run directly from hydrocarbon fuels such as propane, which is extremely dangerous in the hands of idiots and requires some knowledge to use safely. Safety. Lifesaving. Signaling, Radio procedures. MARPOL regulations and other laws and regulations that apply to your and your yacht. How to find stuff in the CFR's so you can make sure you are in compliance. Documentation and insurance issues. And puh-LEEEEEEEZE become a whiz at using and applying the Rules of the Road. Don't be that guy. LIVES are at stake.

Read. Read some more. Especially anything by Brian Toss or Nigel Calder. Amazon is your friend. Start accumulating your nautical library now. Apart from those two authors, also pick up "The 12 Volt Bible", a hard copy of Rules, "Bowditch" or “The New American Practical Navigator", which you will find dry reading but is THE most authoritative authority on Navigation and is a required pub on all US flag ships, "Sailing for Dummies", and there are others but this is a good core. You might consider Chapman's, and Dutton's. Oh, and any decent study guide for the Rules of the Road element for USCG Deck Officer License examinations. Other study guides will also be of great benefit. There is no reason not to know pretty much everything a professional is not required to know and demonstrate proficiency in, before getting a license. Yeah, it's called "pleasure boating", but you still gotta know stuff. A bit of salty lingo to toss around, a fancy hat, blue blazer, and a pair of Topsiders just isn't enough to make you a skipper.

[Leighpilot]

If you’re asking about sail or power , well then it’s power for you. If you have to ask , you ain’t for sailboats. And don’t get an express. They have no space and burn tons of fuel. Get a trawler. Loads of space , economical on fuel and about as seaworthy as you’ll find in a power boat.

[ccanupii]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

I'm not sure what gonesail means by: "also the big tides can overwhelm small sail boat"

TP

So, not as extreme as some places, the Georgia coast is a nightmare for all boats. You can take the off shore passage if the weather is good. The tide range is between 6 to 9 feet in some places along the coast. This can leave you with just 2 feet of water in a marked channel. Large shipping lanes don't give you access to quiet anchoring areas.

Taking the ICW route in a M/Y with a 4 foot draft was all about the timing of the tides.

I say nightmare, because resources for assistance and services are few and far between on this stretch of the ICW with lots of places to get stuck.

[ccanupii]

Georgia coast - motor day cruiser, ICW and Bahamas - either, The Caribbean - sail.

Both take a lifestyle change to live on. Both are a pain in the rear sometimes. Both can be expensive and cheap to repair. Both make you feel like you waited to long to make the decision when you are watching sunsets, dolphins playing and seeing stand still traffic on a roadway as you glide by on the water knowing in every car is a person saying " I want to do that".

Learn to navigate, learn the rules, learn the basics of operating each, then decide what you want to do.

[Goodxcharly]

Don’t waste your time. Buy a sailboat!

I have owned both, power and sailboats, 3 each, in that order.
Power boats are boring and expensive to own. They don’t hold their value as well either as they age and they surround themselves with a completely different crowd.

Sold my house 7 years ago to livaboard and haven’t looked back.