Do Hunters Make Good Bluewater / Liveaboard Boats ?

[elliebell]

What' the general consensus?

[alan_za]

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ser-49884.html

[mblowes]

I not long ago sailed from Hong Kong Singapore. We misread the weather and got caught in storm of 65 knot winds and 20' seas for 3 days.

I believe 2 things saved us. A skipper with 25 years experience and our 2003 46' Hunter. She was magnificent. Several times I am certain it was just her between us and disaster.

Your question is one that elicit mainly emotional responses.

In my opinion Hunter's make very fine blue water vessels.

[S/V Illusion]

There are as many, if not more Hunters sailing around the world than any other comparable production boat manufacturer. They, and their competitors, are designed to maximize interior volume so as a live aboard, any of them would suffice for most people.

One currently in Chile about which you can read - Sequitur

[colemj]

ONLY if you make the correct choices about guns and anchors when outfitting it

And it's not a catamaran, so you are already ahead of the game there

Mark

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by elliebell

What' the general consensus?

Which model?

Kind of like asking if Chevy makes a racey car and one person talks about a Corvette and another about a Metro.

PS - the "general" consensus is you are either old school and are never going to say yes to the question, or you are open to the idea to start with and are willing to judge a boat by what you see and not what you learned on a forum

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

more Hunters sailing around the world than any other comparable production boat manufacturer.

Fact Check: Hunter is 12th with a 1.5% share of the SSCA fleet (1374 live aboard cruising vessels). This is an American oriented group and an international group would have Hunter even lower. Note that 'all other' is by far the largest catagory at 23%, so the main conclusion is that the 'big production boat manufacturers' actually each have a relatively small share of the cruising fleet.

1. Island Packet 4.5%
2. Catalina 3.3%
3. Beneteau 2.9%
4. Morgan 2.8%
5. Pearson 2.5%
6. Tayana 2.3%
7. Valiant 2.3%
8. Halberg Rassy 2.3%
9. Pacific Seacraft 2.0%
10. Bristol 1.7%%
11. Westsail 1.5%%
12. Hunter 1.5%
13. Tartan 1.3%
14. C&C 1.2%

[sailorboy1]

Interesting if you combine various brands as to price levels etc. it basically says you can cruise on almost anything.

Which of course is correct!

Adding the lower priced current and past production type boats to me gets 14.2%. So for what it is worth 14% of the people felt these boats were good enough for the task.

[PamlicoTraveler]

Originally Posted by colemj

ONLY if you make the correct choices about guns and anchors when outfitting it

This is the correct answer and it must be a modern anchor like a Rocna or Fortress.

[gonesail]

i think you should take a closer look at the catalina and beneteau boats if you want to go sailing.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Interesting if you combine various brands as to price levels etc. it basically says you can cruise on almost anything.

Which of course is correct!

Adding the lower priced current and past production type boats to me gets 14.2%. So for what it is worth 14% of the people felt these boats were good enough for the task.

don't you just love statistics!

According to those numbers, H, C and B combine to comprise the largest group which is precisely the point. As I've said before, while sitting in some remote motu in the S Pacific commiserating with everyone else, all of us doing repairs, no one ever once mentioned the brand of boat when complaining.

[Geoduck]

I love the roll bars on the back of some of the Hunters - great for mounting stuff and hanging on to!

[estarzinger]

From the ARC . . .with is a bit more european than the SSCA . . .

1. Jeanneau 24
2. Beneteau 18
3. Swan 15
4. Hallberg 13
5. Lagoon 12
6. Dufour 9
7. x-yachts 9
8. Bavaria 8
9. Oyster 8
10. Catana 5
11. Anel 4
12. Discovery 4
13. Hanse 4
14. Ovni 4
15. Sweden Yachts 4

There don't appear to be any Hunters.

[micheck]

From the ARC ... no Custom Van De Stadt either ...

[sailorboy1]

I don't feel any of these type threads benefit anyone by trashing the orginal asked about boat, or for that matter any boat.

In the end all boats can do 95+% of any sailing one would what it to do and we know it's the boat fitout for it's use and the decision made by the owners. Low quality in today's market would ave been considered very high quality 20 years ago (pretty much hold true for any product made). Everyone wants something diferent in "their" boat which is normally beyound what they "need" to do the job.

In the end you should find a boat model you like and research it with most credit given to people who have or have had the model. Arm chair opinions about boats that that a person has never been on is worth less than what you paid for it.

Whatever boat a person has; they came up with some basis to themselves as to why they choose it.