boat reputation

[swagman]

Originally Posted by shawnkillam

Having been kicking tires for years I am now seriously shopping for "the boat" - the admiral has finally decided she wants to go so I am devoting a huge amount of effort to finding "the boat". I also realize that variations on this question are probably the most common threads on this forum.

My question revolves around the reputation of a given boat or boat manufacturer. We have a couple of friends who are supposedly knowledgable and they will make statements to the effect of -boat A is crap but boat B by the same manufacturer is good. Or all boats made by manufacturer C are good etc.

How is this knowledge disseminated. Is there a secret meeting every year that "old salts" go to and there decide what will be deemed rubish and what is not. Can I get a copy of the minutes of that meeting?

So far about the only boats that we can eliminate are the Benateau and that is probably for completely the wrong reasons. Since I believe Benateau is the largest selling boat in the world there must be lots of people happy with them but in those we have looked the interior seems to have poor workmanship and less than steller materials. Therefore the reasoning goes that if the cabnet joinery is poor the rest of the boat may be poor. I will be the first to admit this is a stupid but without having gone to the secret meeting I alluded to above I don't know how else to make a judgement.

Any wisdom, suggestions, articles, books or opinions will be gratefully received.

sk

See how views can vary. I would not have placed Benetaus close to the bottom of any list - as I've pals who both have raced (and won) and cruised (ie circumnavigated) with no complaints at all.
Just goes to show one meeting of old salts is not always going to agree with another......
Good luck with your research - it is a most enojyable part of any project.
JOHN

[Vasco]

On this side of the pond it's fashionable to bad mouth "production" boats. This is often done by guys who don't have boats or seldom sail more than 10 miles from the dock.
I often wonder how that fleet of Beneteaus got to BVI. . I'm sure it wasn't by Dockwise although they are shipping more now.

[Duder]

Shawn,

I went through the same exercise about 10 years ago. This is just my 2 cents!
#1. Know the purpose of the yacht. My old tug, (God love her) will never win a race. She's so heavy that it take a tropical gale to push her more than 9 knots.
BUT! when we're on anchor in a choppy harbor and every other mast is rocking to and fro causing their crew to not sleep well or have the quezzies... Our masts are barely moving! We sleep like teenagers! Cocktails and bar-b-que meals are enjoyed!

#2. The ole girl has a 3/4 moderate cruising keel. Nothing HIGH performace there! Nothing "cants", no "bulbs"...
BUT! when we find ourselves looking for that missing marker along some tight river or Australian broadwater and come dead stop because we're now aground... The moderate cruising keel forgives us yet again as we crank up the big Perkins and back her off the bar that wasn't suppose to be there to begin with!

If you create a stratigic plan before you ever own a ship, you'll quickly understand the "utility" that will serve YOUR purpose. Ultimately what you're seeking is safety first. Perhaps utility (racing, cruising, expedition, research, diving...) or comfort will be next.

Like many of us, budget may be an unavoidable factor and will narrow your stratigic plan search. Be patience! Get a real survey on your dream ship from a qualified individual that will put it all in a written report.

Finally,,, when you find your perfect jewel. Take a bunch of pictures of her and make sure we all get to see! <grin>

[bstreep]

Well, I learned something here, I wish I had known a couple of years ago. Now, don't get me wrong, we absolutely LOVE our boat, and you couldn't buy it from us for 50% more than we paid for it. BUT...

If I had known Bob Perry - THE Bob Perry - would offer me advice for a few hundred bucks, I'd have jumped on it.

[Randall]

why pay for the advice i mean look at all this great advice that we can all agree on that boat a is better than the other boat that the other person who has never been on or owned one or maybe even seen one but read about on another post said was better than the other boat we are looking at but there is always boat A what boat was that again. yes buy that boat thats the one. good we took care of that.. so what is the best boat again????????????????????

[Curmudgeon]

Sure there's plenty of good advice here, most of it conflicting LOL.

[donradcliffe]

Bob Perry can't help you much until you know what you want. Everyone wants something different--if they all wanted the same things all boats would look alike!

It doesn't do much good to ask owners about their boats, because everyone bought the boat they liked. The best thing you can do is get some experience on a wide range of boats. Go to the crew websites like sailopo.com and do a bunch of deliveries on a variety of boats.

We did a one year cruise from Santa Cruz to NZ on a friend's boat, and boy did we learn what we wanted!

[Curmudgeon]

I don't think its realistic to ask people to go off and do multiple deliveries, or to charter boat after boat. These presumably are middle aged people with jobs that they would like to keep for awhile before sailing off into the sunset. They have other things to do. Sure, if you are very interested in a specific model and get a chance to deliver one, by all means do it.

The first question is multihull vs monohull. I don't know how folks make that decision. I went mono simply because I couldn't afford a cruising multi; my budget was way below theirs.

Once you make that decision, I don't think you can go wrong with one of the proven designs from a company that is still in business. I see plenty of boats that qualify (either one hull or two) in the 150-200K range on Yachworld right now.

If it were me sailing off into the sunset, I'd just go buy the Hallberg-Rassy 42 ft ketch that for sale in VA for 190K (asking) right now. No need to look at anything else.

[Vasco]

Don's got a great point. You really don't know what you want or rather what you really need until you do it. In other words until you live the life you'll never have the perfect boat. Here's a small example. Before I started cruising I wanted a Seafrost, engine driven fridge mainly because every charter boat I'd been on had one. Run the engine twice a day. In the end I got a 12v system mainly because it was a lot cheaper. A 12v fridge with an upgraded electrical system. After cruising I realized that this was the better choice and I'd made it really by accident because I didn't want to spend a lot. I tried to tell a friend this but he was convinced he'd go with the engine driven Seafrost as his experience was also with charter boats. He stuck with his choice. The fridge worked great but running the engine twice a day was a pain and not the best thing for the engine. In any event he ended up in Venezuela for the hurricane season and marinas are cheap but they put him in a corner with all the engine driven fridge boats. He spent a few months there running the fridge twice a day. In addition, when he returned home and got back into weekend sailing he had to empty the fridge after every weekend.

Sometimes what seems important from an armchair gets less so when you're out cruising and what you never thought of prior to cruising ends up priority one. You can gain a lot by listening to others but ,as has been said before, there's a lot of conflicting views out there and who knows what's best for you.

[Duder]

Getting advice or listening to experiences from every angle has value I think. It will help you formulate a boat ownership plan.

The smartest man I've ever known came to me (and others) for ownership advice once and took none of it. He sank the yacht with kids a brother and his father on board in the harbor while attempting to move it to her new home port.

The issue wasn't the advice he got, it was his ability to take advice.

If you're in a hurry to own a boat, I think Bob Perry (Mr. Perry in my book) or someone with equal recognition is worth every dime you can affort to pay them!

The qualified surveyor will tell you if she'll float! Mr. Perry can tell you if she floats heavy to one side, tacks pretty to starboard or will loose helm control in a heavy surf over low bars. haha... trust me, if you avoid doing a 180 degree surprise turn because someone told you ahead of time that your ship doesn't have good helm on a following "surf" of a tide, you'll kiss every dollar you gave Mr. Perry.

[bob perry]

Duder:
It's "Bob" to you. Please.

[Connemara]

Shawn:

I think all of this tire-kicking and pro and con list stuff is great. That said, when we bought our first (and only so far) keelboat, we did it after looking at two (!) others. (Well, we did look at a third, but as the owner wasn't there we couldn't get aboard. OTOH, it had a really yucky harvest gold hull paint job, so the Admiral said no right off.)

The thing is, we fell in love with the boat and with the PO, a great old guy who was the original owner. And he needed/wanted to sell so he gave us a good deal, compared with prices then on Yachtworld.

Now, they say yer not supposed to fall in love with the boat. Yer supposed to make a rational decision based on all the tire-kicking and lists. But so far it has worked out.

Is Connemara the best boat in the world? YMMV, but she's the best boat for us right now. We sail her two or three times a week and almost every weekend (in the summer. Sigh!). She has taught us some important lessons -- lessons we wouldn't have learned from kicking tires. When we do change boats, we'll have a really solid list of pros and cons for the next one.

So I'd say don't listen to the guys in the clubhouse. Go looking, find a boat that strikes yer fancy, and go sailing. It's the sailing that matters.

Connemara

[Agur's Wish]

We have had our Tashiba 40 (hull #166) for 12 yrs and are still as in love with it as the day we bought it. We lived aboard it full time for 4 years and now live aboard for 6 months a year. We'll be back aboard in 2 days and can't wait. Lot's of fellow sailors have asked us how two sailing ignorant doofus's from KS ended up with such a boat, all we can say is "dumb luck". Bob if you'd like to read my article, "Smitten" about buying our boat (and yes you're mentioned) you can read it on my blog. It was published in Chesapeake Bay Magazine several years ago.

[bob perry]

Agur:
Glad you like your Baba. I am very proud of that design. When I hear someone bitch about the performance of full keels boats I always ask them "Have you sailed a Baba 40?"

[Tropic Cat]

Hey Bob, your keyboard is stuck