Boat recommendations for newbies

[cnschuehle]

Hello all,

Been a bit of a lurker for the past few months on this forum. Would like to finally reach out for a bit of advice. My girlfriend and I are planning on cruising for a few years in the near future. We are both new to sailing but plan on taking classes here locally very soon along with navigation courses/intro to diesel engines. I grew up on the water very frequently in Minnesota but my family always had large powerboats. We are currently putting the final touches on our budget/Timeline and would like to have a few boat recommendations that we can research for the next few months and look to see what we like/do not like. Our plan so far is to sail around the Bahamas/Caribbean for a season or two to practice/get comfortable and understand all the systems on the boat and eventually would like to make an ocean crossing. This is where I have been struggling a bit as I see many different opinions on "blue water" boats online. Our most important quality is safety.

Our budget is $150,000, and we are looking at boats around 38-42 feet. We would like something a bit newer (early to mid 2000s?)

[Don C L]

Welcome aboard cnschuehle! This is an often widely discussed topic. This thread may be of help:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...at-208582.html
but there are many others.
As you get more experience sailing your tastes and preferences will likely evolve so for now it is good to hear from those who are cruising in 40 footers, and many will be from the 2000s, and how they got there. But I'm sure you'll find there are many good older (pre 2000), safe, good performing designs out there worth considering. My own experience with chartering a Kelly Peterson 44 leads me to recommend that one in that size range though it is 2 feet more.
The Kelly Peterson 44 Sailboat : Bluewaterboats.org
My own preference would be a boat that can perform well upwind and is comfortable upwind. The Peterson was very good for that. (Others may prefer a flatter modern hull for scudding downwind...and many can perform well upwind I am sure.. my own experience with slamming upwind for a week in that kind of hull has colored my view)
...but that is only one opinion

[Pete7]

So how about a nice European yacht with a fin keel. Will sail like a witch and run circles round those old outdated long keeled US designs from the 1960s. If that doesn't have the forum up in arms nothing will

So Sailing Creo had a boat in Greece, sold it and bought a boat in Scotland for a year. Changed their minds, sold it and went back to Greece to buy another yacht. This is a series of videos on their adventures for choosing a yacht for two people which might be worth watching and listening to their comments on several different yachts in the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm1OTRIvMvc